2024 Pen to Paper
A retreat focused on preparing scholars to publish their community engaged work.
Join us for an in-person writing retreat where you will learn the ins and outs of what makes writing about your community engaged work different than writing about your disciplinary work. Dr. Diane Doberneck and Laura Weaver, experts in the field of community engagement and public scholarship will lead this pre-conference experience where you will receive tips and tools to sharpen your writing skills and enhance your productivity. You will also meet and hear from a panel of editors from some of the top journals in the field of service-learning and community engagement on ways to make your manuscript stand out from all the rest.
We welcome faculty of all ranks, administrators, professional staff, graduate students and community partners to join us either as individuals or writing teams. This is a rare opportunity for you to share your ideas with your peers, get feedback from editors and experts, and of course find time to write.
This pre-conference event will take place prior to the 2024 International Service-Learning Symposium beginning at 12:00 PM on Tuesday, May 28, 2024, and concluding at 2:00 PM on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. Registration for the pre-conference is $75 per person (faculty, professional staff, community partners) and includes all program materials as well as lunch on both days. Visit the conference website for more information. Participants will also have the opportunity to join a private virtual writing community through the beginning of August 2024.
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| Pre-conference work | Review video and complete brief writing goal activity |
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 11:30 am – 12:00 pm | Participant Arrival and Check-In |
| 12:00 pm – 1:15 pm | Welcome Lunch and Introductions |
| 1:15 pm | Break |
| 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm | Writing for Community Engaged Scholarship |
| 3:30 pm | Break |
| 3:45 pm – 5:30 pm | Unfurling Your SLCE Project for Dissemination Includes small group and individual work time |
| 5:30 pm | Day End |
| 6:30 pm | Optional Group Dinner (participants pay for own meal) |
| Homework | Complete Unfurling Activity (if not completed during session) |
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 9:00 am – 9:15 am | Day 2 Welcome & Check-In |
| 9:15 am – 10:15 am | Journal Editor Panel |
| 10:15 am – 11:15 pm | Individual and small group work time |
| 11:15 pm – 12:00 pm | Writing with Community |
| 12:00 pm – 12:30 pm | Group Lunch |
| 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm | OPTIONAL OPPORTUNITIES: Individual & Team Writing Time Optional Presentation – Incorporating Community Engaged work into your P&T OR another topic based on needs of the participants (e.g., engaged research methods) |
Facilitators
Dr. Diane Doberneck
Diane M. Doberneck, Ph.D., is the director for Faculty and Professional Development, Office for Public Engagement and Scholarship, University Outreach and Engagement (UOE), Michigan State University. She provides leadership for UOE’s faculty and staff professional development programs for graduate students, post-docs, academic staff, tenure-track faculty, administrators, and community partners.
Programming under her leadership spans a continuum of low, mid, and high involvement learning opportunities; includes virtual resources and workshops; emphasizes diversity, equity, and inclusion; is informed by and generative of scholarship.
Signature programs for graduate students and post-docs include Graduate Certification in Community Engagement, STEM Ambassadors, Graduate-Community Engaged Arts Partner Project, and the Sea Grant Extension Fellows Program. The weeklong Summer Intensive on Community-Engaged Scholarship is specifically for faculty, academic staff, Extension professionals, and post-docs, as are two learning communities on service learning and feminist community-engaged research. With the Writing Center, Doberneck offers monthly write-ins, publishing workshops, writing retreats, and individual consultations to support writing and publishing, an essential academic success skill for community-engaged researchers, artists, teachers, and practitioners.
To inform professional development programming, Doberneck conducts research about faculty and staff competencies related to broader impacts and graduate student competencies related to community engagement. Her research interests have also included the incorporation of community engagement in reappointment, promotion, and tenure; faculty integration of outreach and engagement across their teaching, research, service, and administrative responsibilities, and career pathways for community-engaged scholars.
Nationally, Doberneck is a regular invited speaker at the Emerging Engagement Scholars Workshop and the Pen to Paper Academic Writing Retreat. She also consults with colleges and universities on institutional change supportive of community engagement; revisions to reappointment, promotion, and tenure policies to support community engagement; publishing community-engaged scholarship; and professional development for community engagement.
Doberneck also holds an adjunct associate professor appointment in the Department of Community Sustainability and is an affiliated faculty member with The GenCen, the Diversity Research Network, and the Center for Interdisciplinarity. In 2020, she was awarded the Distinguished Academic Staff Award for her professional accomplishments.
Laura Weaver
Laura Weaver, M.S. Ed., is an engaged scholar-practitioner dedicated to facilitating authentic community-campus relationships and partnering on community-driven engaged scholarship. She has nearly 20 years of experience supporting institutions as they work to actualize their culture for community engagement.
Laura is the Special Projects Manager at Campus Compact, where she oversees and executes a portfolio of diverse, high-impact projects that foster innovative practices that align with Campus Compact's mission, goals, and strategic objectives and focuses on scaling innovative practices, deepening institutional engagement, and field-level change. Before joining Campus Compact, she was the Director of Professional Development and Engaged Learning at Community-Engaged Alliance/Indiana Campus Compact. She established and directed the Center for Service-Learning and Leadership at Purdue University Northwest.
Laura’s passion and research focus on how colleges and universities create an environment where community-driven engagement can occur and how this is actualized through institutional policies and procedures and its overall culture. She frequently presents at state, national, and international conferences, has published several articles related to her work in these areas, and has served as a Research Fellow for the Campus Compact Project on the Community Engagement Professional.
Laura is finishing her doctorate in Adult and Community Education from Ball State University, where her dissertation focuses on the evolution of community engagement professionals and faculty as they transition to senior and chief community engagement administrative roles as framed through the lens of a tempered radical. She holds an M.S. Ed. in Counseling, Adult, and Higher Education from Northern Illinois University and a B.S. in Communication from Bradley University.