Dear Associate Member: (2 attachments: CUE SIG AM letter, CUE SIG AM contract)
This is Frederick Bacala writing, JALT’s CUE SIG Coordinator. I am writing to you about a sponsorship opportunity available in the Fall of 2023. We will be celebrating our 30th anniversary, and we would love for you to join us!
We are proud to announce that the JALT College and University Educators Special Interest Group (CUE SIG) will hold its 2023 conference at Toyama University (富山大学) in Gofuku, Toyama September 15th to 18th. The main conference will be Saturday, September 16th and Sunday, September 17th. We would like you to join us for all day on Saturday (starting at 10am) and a half day on Sunday (10am until after lunch). The event will be face-to-face, and we are planning for a turnout of at least 90 attendees. (At our most recent face-to-face event, our 2018 CUE Conference, we had about 100 attendees.) This year’s conference location is in Toyama, which offers a broad selection of local seafood and beautiful views of the Tateyama Mountain Range, keeping with the spirit of our conference themes of reflection and self-care. Also, the event lineup and heavy promotion make us confident that we will achieve this attendance level.
The theme for CUE 2023 is “CUEing for Success – Teacher Reflection and Self-Care in Tertiary Education”. The experiences of the past few years have made clear the importance of acknowledging the human element of teaching including the following:
• reflective teaching needs and practices
• personal & professional development and growth
• self-care strategies (including mentorship, mental health, self-advocacy, work-life boundaries, understanding your employment rights in Japan, preparing for retirement, etc.)
• awareness of neurodiversity and inclusivity in the classroom
• the psychological challenges of adapting to various educational modalities
Presentations on these topics, and other topics relevant to tertiary educators, will be welcomed. The make-up of attendees is expected to be primarily educators from colleges and universities around Japan, but international attendees are welcome. The conference features two plenary talks by Dr. Laurel Kamada and Dr. Julia Kimura. Dr. Kamada (retired, Tohoku University) will give a plenary talk about the intersectionality of identity and disability in the Japanese workplace. Her presentation will focus first on the experiences of half-Japanese girls navigating their identity in Japanese society, then address the challenges of disability recovery and how to support colleagues with disability. Dr. Kimura (Mukogawa Women’s University) will discuss communities of practice including teacher unions and will offer insight into advocacy as a form of self-care.
There will also be research and practice-based presentations, a panel discussion featuring six talented professors from throughout Japan, and professional development workshops addressing topics that we anticipate will be of high interest to college and university educators.
We are currently the largest JALT special interest group with a membership of nearly 400 members. In addition, we are continuously looking to expand our reach by promoting inclusion and providing value to our membership base through events such as this one. We believe that the combination of AM presentations and our conference theme will encourage attending teachers to embrace innovative, time-saving approaches. The opportunities are explained below:
Upgrade package
20,000 yen for event sponsorship including (1) an unvetted presentation (25mins), (2) a table/booth at the event to display your company’s marketing material, and (3) PR in our advertising and event program. (30,000 yen for non-JALT AM sponsors)
Basic package
15,000 yen for event sponsorship including (1) a table/booth to display your company’s marketing material, and (2) PR in our advertising and event program. j(20,000 yen for non-JALT AM sponsors)
Additional promotional opportunities including online ad placement, program inserts, pre-plenary promotional video and extended (40-minute) presentation options are also available. Please contact us for details.
The deadline for committing to sponsor the event is August 10th , 2023. If you are not able to join via one of the options above, you may also want to sponsor a speaker through the regular vetting process. There is a call for papers, which can be found at https://cue2023.edzil.la/. The deadline for paper submission is July 9th, 2023.
We are committed to supporting college and university teachers here in Japan and are looking forward to working with you in this endeavor. Please contact me directly at this email address: coordinatorjaltcue@gmail.com if you have questions.
Yours sincerely,
Frederick Bacala
CUE Coordinator