Professionalization Sessions

Professionalization sessions support graduate students, emerging scholars, community partners, and creative practitioners in developing sustainable, care-oriented, and non-extractive academic or professional practices. In the spirit of Circuit Breakers, we welcome sessions that challenge normative models of expertise, productivity, institutional timelines, and career pathways. Sessions may address alternative publishing practices, community-engaged research ethics, collaborative methods, resisting chrononormativity in academic life, decolonial mentorship, mutual aid in the academy, or imaginative approaches to professional futures.

Session Length: 45–60 minutes

Submission Requirements

• Session Title: A clear title reflecting the intervention or area of professional practice being reimagined.

• Session Description (250–300 words): Outline the focus of the session, the professional or pedagogical structures it interrogates, and how it aligns with themes of care, refusal, disobedient methods, community co-creation, or alternative futures.

• Session Format: Indicate whether the session will take the form of a roundtable, hands-on activity, facilitated conversation, collective problem-solving space, or other participatory structure.

• Intended Audience: Identify who would benefit from the session (e.g., graduate students, faculty, artists, community partners, interdisciplinary researchers).

• Facilitator Bio(s) (100–150 words each): Highlight experience with mentoring, community-centered methodologies, or professional practices aligned with relationality and care.

• Materials/Technical Needs: Any resources, digital tools, printed materials, or spatial arrangements needed for the session.