Virtual Events
If you wish to have a virtual event announcement posted, please send an email to ssspgra@utk.edu. Please include a URL for more information, if available.
There is no charge to place an announcement on this website. Announcements for virtual events will be posted until the submission deadline or until the date of the conference has passed.
Future SSSP Virtual Events
SSSP Institutional Ethnography Workshop
Monday, August 11, 10:00am-3:30pm (Central Time)
Registration Fee: Free
The Institutional Ethnography Division is hosting a virtual, interactive workshop for researchers who use or are interested in institutional ethnography – the method of inquiry developed by Dorothy E. Smith. The workshop features a keynote presentation as well as opportunities for large and small-group discussion and learning. The workshop will provide people with opportunities to engage directly with institutional ethnographies in the proposal, analysis, and final writing stages. People who are interested in sharing and receiving feedback on a research proposal, article manuscript, conference paper, or other piece of writing as part of small group discussions should submit one of these documents to Laura Parson (laura.parson@ndsu.edu), Anna Rockhill (rockhill@pdx.edu), and Hans-Peter de Ruiter (hans-peter.de-ruiter@mnsu.edu) by July 1. Researchers with a range of experience with IE are encouraged to attend. The workshop is free, but attendees must register for the 2025 Annual Meeting.
SSSP Teaching Social Problems for Social Change: A One-Day Experiential Workshop
Monday, August 11, 9:00am-4:00pm (Eastern Time)
Registration Fee: $30 for employed registrants or $25 for unemployed/activist/student registrants
The Teaching Social Problems Division is hosting an interactive, virtual workshop for teachers, scholars and activists who are interest to expand knowledge concerning strategies and techniques about teaching social problems in higher education. This workshop is an opportunity for junior and senior scholars, teachers and activists to use sociological imagination to empower students and support them to make a better world.
The aim of this workshop is twofold: to develop new perspectives on how to teach social problems with optimism and how to develop a sensitivity towards the vulnerabilities that students can present about some social problems, and to provide examples, strategies and techniques to develop a new or improve already existing syllabi and case studies.
In the morning, the workshop features four keynote presentations on innovative ways to teach social problems positively as well as opportunities for group discussion and learning.
In the afternoon, the workshop will provide attendees with opportunities to engage directly with initiatives concerning social change with a virtual fieldtrip organized together with local organizations in Chicago and to discuss how to incorporate these case studies in syllabi and teaching with small-group discussion and learning.
Some video-presentations and materials will be made available to the participants some weeks before the workshop on the SSSP YouTube Channel.
Attendees who are interested in sharing and receiving feedback on a syllabus or a case study or other teaching materials during the small-group discussions should submit these documents to Pattie Thomas (pattie.thomas@csn.edu) and Morena Tartari (morena.tartari@northumbria.ac.uk) by July 1.
Save the Date for an Organize Every Campus Town Hall
May 19, 2025 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time AND June 9, 2025 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Organize Every Campus is our campaign to grow AAUP chapters and locals, develop rank-and-file leadership, and build power for the movement to make higher education a public good. Our power comes in numbers and in our ability to act collectively.
Please join us for two upcoming town halls:
Monday, May 19, 7–8 p.m. ET/4–5 p.m. PT. Register here.
Monday, June 9, 7–8 p.m. ET/4–5 p.m. PT. Register here.
On May 19, join us for a critical town hall with Puya Gerami, a labor educator with extensive organizing experience at SEIU 1999 New England, and KB Brower, organizing director for Bargaining for the Common Good at the Action Center on Race and the Economy.
We’ll dig into how we build real power in this moment—organizing in the streets, developing political leadership, and winning legislative and electoral fights.
We’ll also look at how the Summer Institute can serve as a launchpad for this strategy—and how you can play a key role in shaping where we go next. You can see the agenda and register for the Summer Institute here.
Don’t miss it. This is where the work begins.
Webinar on Mutual Defense for Higher Ed
May 20, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Faculty and university senates are forging a new path: mutual defense pacts that unify campuses in collective resistance. What began at Rutgers has grown into a nationwide movement, with many of the Big Ten senates already adopting similar compacts. These agreements are more than symbolic—they are a strategic call to action for faculty, students, and campus workers to demand accountability, protect academic freedom, and fight back against crippling administrative overreach.
Join this timely webinar to explore the what, why, and how of mutual defense pacts—how they’re formed, what they accomplish, and how they are reshaping the landscape of higher education organizing. Speakers will share lessons from campuses already engaged in this movement, offer concrete strategies for building cross-campus solidarity, and provide tools and inspiration for collective action that can’t be ignored.
Book Talk With "Organic Soul" Author Mario Ewell
May 21, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time
Join us for a conversation with Graduate and Professional Student Alumni Network board member Mario Ewell, M.A. ’20, as he discusses his newly released book, “Organic Soul: The Healing Power of African American Music in a World of Artificial Intelligence (AI).”
Ewell will share an overview of the book and his inspiration for writing it, followed by a moderated discussion. The event will conclude with an audience Q&A.
Register here. This is a free event.
Scholars Writing for the Public: How to Translate Your Research and Critical Analysis on Current Social Issues
May 28, 2025 at 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Scholars play a vital role in helping our communities better understand social issues of the moment. This event both encourages and offers tools for scholars to translate their research to advance critical thinking and inform everyday decision making to broad audiences, including for families, community leaders, and policymakers. Speakers include researchers and journalists with experience writing for the public who will share suggestions on how to write and communicate effectively for broad and diverse audiences. They will also share their experiences writing across public platforms. Attendees will consider how they can contribute to deeper understanding and constructive dialogue on complex, often polarizing topics.
Knapsack Institute: Transforming Teaching and Learning
June 9-11, 2025
AAUP/AFT Summer Institute in Atlanta
July 17-20, 2025
The 2025 Summer Institute presents a crucial opportunity for AFT and AAUP members to learn how to fight back while continuing to advance our shared vision for higher education that serves our students and our communities, drives our regional and national economies, and is truly affordable and accessible to all. We are bringing the Summer Institute to Morehouse College, a historically Black institution, in order to emphasize our continued commitments to racial equity, highlight the ongoing and meaningful role that HBIs play in the realization of our national democratic ideals, and recognize the organizing being done by scholars of color.
Join us in Atlanta, where you will learn how to organize, communicate, and advocate strategically in the company of other higher ed activists. The skills you learn in the Summer Institute’s workshops and trainings will help you defend your coworkers, students, campus, and profession. We will discuss local organizing campaigns on both individual campuses and big-picture, nationwide strategies for winning just and equitable higher education across the sector. For those who are able to arrive on Wednesday, we will be offering a one-day Skills to Win workshop on Thursday, July 17, that will introduce members to basic organizing techniques. For those who are able to stay through Sunday, July 20, we will be offering a mass mobilization and direct action training to provide us all with the tools we need to help build a movement to truly realize our vision for higher education and democracy.
All AAUP and AFT members are welcome at the Summer Institute—no experience necessary! Together, we will organize, fight, and win.
Supporting displaced Ukrainian researchers and the role of host institutions
On 8 October, the European University Association (EUA) hosted a MSCA4Ukraine webinar titled ‘Supporting displaced Ukrainian researchers: the role of host institutions.’
The session was moderated by Henriette Stoeber, EUA Policy Analyst, and included six speakers from three institutions: Masaryk University (Czech Republic), University of Tartu (Estonia), and MSCA4Ukraine (Scholars at Risk Europe).
As hosts to MSCA4Ukraine fellows, Masaryk University and the University of Tartu shared how they have welcomed researchers from Ukraine, allowing them to continue their research and further their careers while maintaining their connections to their home institutions. The universities described the additional steps they are taking to enhance collaboration with the Ukrainian higher education sector and overcome challenges along the way. All presentations from the webinar may be found here: Supporting displaced Ukrainian researchers: the role of host institutions, and a full recording is available as well. Highlights of the event have also been published here.
For information regarding future EUA events, please visit: Events.
White Anti-Racist Sociologist Resources
We are a group of white anti-racist sociologists interested in accountability, solidarity, and critical praxis. Each of us has witnessed ongoing institutionalized forms of racial oppression within sociological settings. We began discussions about how to reflect and root out internalized and unconscious racism within ourselves and take action in solidarity with others’ accountability work in response to intentional and unintentional racism and white supremacy.
We invite other white scholars interested in this work to join us.
Our hope is to hold a series of virtual meetings to share challenges we have experienced or witnessed and mistakes we have made, with the aim of discussing how we addressed these situations, how we wish we would have addressed them, and to share insight with each other on how we could address similar situations in the future. We will incorporate somatic approaches to understanding our emotions and felt experiences in these situations, and develop tools to identify and manage the felt experiences of white supremacy. We envision a combination of reading work that explores these concepts for discussion, along with group practice. And, as we develop these skills and a network of anti-racist white sociologists across institutional settings, we hope to work together and in solidarity with other collectives to make institutionalized change across universities and professional organizations.
The vision for what we become will evolve as our collective needs shift, and as we respond to the social conditions around us. We are open to hearing from other anti-racist sociologists as to what additional activities and actions we can collectively engage in.
You can read more about our commitments and values, as well as a resource list we are developing here, and copied below:
Please note that you must be logged into a gmail account. Select “Ask to Join Group”. This will add you to the listserv and you will receive emails regarding organizing and attending sessions, as well as a space to put out calls for support and mentoring around responses to racism at any level.
We are planning to gather in December to discuss our strategies and next steps in the face of ongoing and dangerous white supremacy.
If you have any questions you can email us.
