Division B Early Career Curriculum Scholar: Thriving in the Contested Landscape of Education (Day 1 of 2)

Session Type: Pre-Conference Mentoring Session

Abstract

This seminar has been designed for early career scholars to meet the challenges of the first years out of graduate school. These challenges include developing a program of research and a writing discipline, finding outlets (academic and popular) for publications, possibly beginning a new faculty position, earning tenure or contract renewal, seeking internal and external research funding, and thriving in your teaching as well as community engagements and activism. In addition, new faculty members must navigate the idiosyncrasies of institutions with a wide range of social and cultural contexts, including patterns of injustice, privilege, and power. This seminar is designed to support and mentor early career folks by gathering with scholar-mentors from Division B in order to focus on various topics related to scholarship, teaching, activism, and community engagement. Topics to be discussed at the seminar will emerge from participants but will likely include: developing worthwhile goals and research agendas; recognizing and positioning one’s inquiries within traditions in the field of curriculum studies as well as seeking creative ways to move beyond those traditions; navigating creatively, courageously, and wisely in one’s university and the larger communities; and developing strategies to thrive as a teacher and a scholar whose efforts can have a powerful positive impact in this contested and troubling world.

In this seminar participants will


● Reflect on the meanings of teaching, scholarship, activism, and community engagement in the context of curriculum studies

● Identify the challenges of teaching, scholarship, activism, and community engagement in curriculum studies

● Address a list of strategies toward working as a curriculum scholar in traditional academic spaces

● Engage in presentations of scholarship as a way of addressing venues for academic publishing in curriculum studies

Where to send applications:
Robert J. Helfenbein (rjhelfenbein@loyola.edu)

Sub Unit

• Division B - Curriculum Studies

Participants

• Christopher B. Crowley, Wayne State University

• Robert James Helfenbein, Mercer University