CFP: “Busting Out in Scholarship—Becoming Relevant Outside the Legal Academy: Non-Traditional Scholarship and Social Change”

From the Planning Committee for 2012 AALS Annual Meeting Women in Legal Education Panel, Colleen Medill, Chair:

Call for Presenter—“Busting Out in Scholarship—Becoming Relevant Outside the Legal Academy: Non-Traditional Scholarship and Social Change”

We are seeking 250 word proposals for a presentation on a panel on Sunday, January 8, 2012 at the AALS annual meeting. The panel description is below:

In recent years, scholars have begun to reach outside of the legal academy with their scholarship—on blogs and other social media, in articles and opinion pieces for  newspapers and magazines, in amicus briefs and white papers, in popular books and novels, and through grant-funded research. The panelists will discuss their experiences with non traditional forms of scholarship and debate its advantages and disadvantages in terms of the tenure and promotion processes, compensation and benefits, and the general public’s perception of the legal academy.

Please note that this is a call for a presentation idea about non traditional scholarship, rather than a call for a paper.

You only need to submit a 250 word summary of your proposed 12-15 minute presentation.  This panel is particularly appropriate if you are doing interesting work in the areas of blogging, grant-funded or interdisciplinary research, writing for a popular audience, or advocacy (broadly defined as amicus briefs, working on proposed  federal or state or local legislation, writing white papers for policy groups, etc.), or have ideas to contribute about the wisdom of, value to the academy of, and tenure issues regarding non-traditional scholarship.  You will be joining the following committed speakers:

Moderator:  Dorothy Roberts (Northwestern)

Social Media:  Michele Beardslee (Miami)
Jay Ramji-Nogales (Temple)

Empirical:  Rigel Oliveri (Missouri)

Advocacy:  Robin Runge (North Dakota)

Administrative:  Fionnuala Ni Aolain (Minnesota)

We welcome participation by all AALS members—particularly underrepresented voices—regardless of whether their scholarship focuses on gender.

Interested faculty should submit a summary of the presentation idea, along with her or his resume. The summary should be no more than 250 words. Please e-mail these materials to Donna Coker at dcoker@law.miami.edu, with the subject line WLE Busting Out, by July 1, 2011. We will notify the selected presenter by September 1, 2011.

The Section on Women in Legal Education has made a big effort in the last few years to employ “open calls” for many panels, including this one.  If you’re one of those people who, like me, wants to hear new voices at the AALS and other conferences, consider putting in a proposal to participate, or pass this call along to a friend or colleague.

-Bridget Crawford