2026 REDCON Call for Proposals

2026 REDCON Theme: Relational Ecosystems: Leveraging Relationships for Transformative Impact

Time & Location: September 30 - October 2, 2026 in Alexandria, VA (Westin Alexandria Old Town)

The organizational contexts that seem to matter for change teams are highly dependent on the level of trust in relationships and the flow of power via formal and informal leaders. Change emerges through how people relate to one another, leverage their positions, and work within (and sometimes around) current structures (Findings from forthcoming REDPAR Context paper: Beach, Han, Güler, et al., under review).  Thus, we believe there is considerable benefit to focusing on the relational ecosystems that underlie the transformation work each RED team is doing.

RED team members are invited to submit session proposals for interactive panels and workshops to be delivered to their peers at the 2026 REDCON Meeting in Alexandria, VA. Sessions will last approximately 60 minutes. Each team may submit only one solo proposal, but the number of cross-team proposals is unrestricted. There are no restrictions on how many proposals an individual may participate in.

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Topics include but are not limited to:

• How your team built and continues to build/maintain trust in your project within your team and with various community groups

• Team members as boundary spanners (bridging disciplines, roles, structures, etc.) and the coordination and practices that help make that successful

• Balancing relationships with external partners (paying attention to your own goals, credibility of partners, etc.)

• Distributing boundary spanning responsibilities to support sustainability

• Coordination and communication across disciplines or roles

• How your team uses relationships to work within and around current structures

• Examples of formal and informal leadership that teams are using to help advance their projects

• Other related topics

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Session leaders, including panel organizers, should submit (a) an abstract of 300 words or less on their session topic, (b) learning objectives for the session attendees, and (c) a plan for significant attendee engagement and participation. The most effective and well-received sessions will be interactive, with actionable takeaways for participants.

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Submit a proposal using this form.

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Abstracts will be reviewed by REDPAR.

Proposal abstracts are due June 2nd. Submitters will be notified by June 19th.

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Please contact REDPAR with your questions.

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Due Dates

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1. June 2, 2026:  Proposals due

2. June 19, 2026:  Proposals reviewed by REDPAR and organized into sessions, send notifications of acceptances to teams.

3. July 15, 2026:  Program draft submitted to ASEE conference manager

4. August 15, 2026:  Program finalized (by ASEE conference manager)

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Bibliography

Beach, M., Han, R.J., Güler, S., Litzler, E., Cheville, A., Sabat, I., Shuman, T.R., (under review) Context Matters: Integrating Organizational Theory and Social Network Analysis to Explain Variation in Departmental Change.  Submitted to Innovative Higher Education.

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