Every Tuesday in OnCampus the Deputy Provost shares two articles with a read time of 10 minutes.

If you are interested and able to attend this terrific on-line conference sponsored by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education, I’ll happily use restricted/endowed faculty development accounts to pay your registration fee—in exchange for you offering some perspectives on the experience to a small group of faculty and staff later in the academic year.

Jampacked with amazing scholars and creative artists, the conference this year focuses on “how contemplative practices can support and sustain learning communities that resource and enhance resilience, connection, and healthy reemergence back into a more equitable and inclusive society.”  The organizers continue, “Acknowledging the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the inequities and disparities created by systemic oppression, we are now faced with an even greater urgency to collectively move the societal needle of engaging with one another and the environment from health-compromising to health-enhancing, from unsustainable to sustainable, from unjust to just. This movement will be facilitated by a more compassionate understanding of the loss and grief we have experienced as individuals and communities, illumination of the resilience and wisdom that we have drawn upon, and the application of the diverse learning, healing, and transformative strategies that have emerged.”

I have attended ACHME conferences in the past, and presented scholarship of teaching and learning—other faculty at Drake have also attended; we’ve all found our time in this scholarly and creative community to be incredibly generative. I hope some Drake faculty will consider taking this opportunity to attend. Please email me (renee.cramer@drake.edu) if you are interested.

In other conference news, The Iowa Network of Human Rights Academics’ annual Iowa Human Rights Research Conference will be held on Saturday, April 23, 2022, at Drake University Law School. Please see this call for proposals and this proposal submission form—students and faculty are invited to propose, present, and attend. The deadline for submission is Feb. 21, 2022, which gives faculty time to think through how this might be integrated into your early spring semester planning, and seek support for growing pedagogies that can contribute to the conference.

— Renée Cramer, Deputy Provost