National Solution-Oriented Conference Initiative

Description

The Woodcock Institute has budgeted $25,000 annually to pay for a conference, which is solution-oriented to a long-standing national challenge and is related to the mission of the Woodcock Institute. The intent is to hold an annual conference on the Texas Woman’s University (TWU) campus and to limit the number of attendees to experts related to the focused topic.

As an example, the first of these national conferences was held at TWU on October 6-9, 2016. The title of the conference was “Diversity in Deaf Education: A National Perspective”. There is an identified need to develop standards of practice for the assessment of children and adults who are Deaf/Hard of Hearing (DHH). The DHH population is very heterogeneous and standards for assessment accommodations do not exist at a national level. The purpose of the conference was to identify the challenges in assessing DHH children and adults, identify the subgroups within the heterogeneous population, and draft standards of best practices in assessment accommodations for the DHH population. 

Call for Proposals

The Woodcock Institute will entertain proposals for a National Focused Conference with proposals being submitted for consideration no later than April 1^st with the intent of a possible conference being held the coming September/October. Final decisions on which proposal will be funded for a given year will be made no later than May 1^st. 

The proposed conference must be related to a national unresolved professional issue or challenge and must be related to the mission of the Woodcock Institute. A group of experts will be invited to attend a 2-3 day conference to address the identified issue. It is the intention of the Woodcock Institute that the $25,000 be used to pay the majority, if not all, of the travel, lodging, and meal expenses for the conference attendees.

The proposal should include the following:

1. Proposed title of the conference.
2. Identification of conference organizer(s)/facilitator(s) along with submitted vitae(s). 
3. Statement of the national unresolved professional issue or challenge with a brief literature review (no more then 5 pages).  
4. Initial identification of a potential invitation list of professionals who would be able to seek solutions to the identified problem.
5. A detailed budget showing how the $25,000 would be spent with the following budget restrictions:
1. All airfares must be coach class and should be purchased in advance to obtain the lowest fares possible.
2. All travel costs will be paid initially by the individuals who are attending the conference and will be reimbursed by TWU/Woodcock Institute after receipts have been submitted and processed.
3. Budgets should include costs for travel to and from the conference (e.g., airfares), meals while at the conference (within budget constraints), lodging costs at local areas hotels, transportation costs (to and from hotel and airport), supplies for conference, etc. Budgets typically should not include honoriums or stipends for the conference attendees unless approved by the Executive Director of the Woodcock Institute.

Proposals should be emailed to woodcockinstitute@twu.edu 

Funded Conferences

• October 6-9, 2016        Diversity in Deaf Education: A National Perspective    Co-Facilitators: Drs. Chad Smith and Tamby Allman - TWU Deaf Education
• October 19-20, 2018    A Working Conference to Advance Occupational Therapy in Research and Practice for Cognition and Dementia    Co-Facilitors: Drs. Theresa Smith and Patricia Bowyer - TWU Occupational Therapy