Association of Departments of Foreign Languages

 

2008 ADFL Summer Seminars

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Seminar West     See Program
Palo Alto, California
5-8 June 2008
hosted by Elizabeth Bernhardt, Stanford University
Seminar registration fee is $400.
Information about accommodations, program, and schedule is found below.

Seminar East     See Program
Charlottesville, Virginia
22-25 June 2008
hosted by Randolph D. Pope, University of Virginia
Seminar registration fee is $400.
Information about accommodations, program, and schedule is found below.

Each seminar features a preseminar Workshop for New Chairs, led by seasoned administrators, where those about to start or just completing their first year as department chairs can glean practical advice and have questions answered about any and all aspects of chairing. Workshops begin with dinner and an evening session the night before the seminar and continue the next morning with a session from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 noon. We invite you to read endorsements from participants at previous seminars.


Seminar West Accommodations and Reservations
Participants will stay at the
Sheraton Palo Alto Hotel in downtown Palo Alto. The ADFL group rate is $159, plus 12% tax. Hotel reservations must be received by 14 May 2008. Call 800 325-3535 or 650-328-2800; be sure to mention ADFL when you make your reservation.

A small number of basic rooms are also available on the Stanford University campus, for $85 plus tax per night, at the Stanford Guest House. Stanford Guest House rooms must be reserved by 5 May. Call 650 926-2800; please mention ADFL.

Seminar West Plenary Sessions

  • Language Departments and the Humanities
  • Preparing Students for Writing and Talking about Literature
  • The Major and Graduate Training
  • Personnel Issues and the Law
  • Heritage Learners in Asian Languages, Russian, and Spanish
  • Testing and Assessing: The Stanford Model

    Concurrent Discussion Groups

  • Preparing the tenure dossier
  • Making effective hires
  • Ethical considerations and non-tenure-track faculty members
  • Evaluating teaching and teachers
  • Dealing with difficult faculty members
  • Reconsidering the major
  • Disciplinary, departmental, and institutional identities

    Speakers

  • Elizabeth Bernhardt, Stanford Univ.
  • Friederike Eigler, Georgetown Univ.
  • Thomas Fenner, Stanford Univ.
  • Olga Kagan, Univ. of California, Los Angeles
  • Kimi Kondo-Brown, Univ. of Hawai'i
  • Phillip Lewis, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
  • Catherine Porter, State Univ. of New York, Cortland
  • Ray Siemens, Univ. of Victoria, BC
  • Downing Thomas, Univ. of Iowa
  • Chantal Thompson, Brigham Young Univ.
  • Guadalupe Valdés. Stanford Univ.
  • Ellen Waxman, Stanford Univ.
  • Kathleen Woodward, Univ. of Washington

    Seminar West Schedule, Excursion, and Guest Meals
    The Workshop for New Chairs begins with dinner at the hotel on Wednesday evening. Seminar check-in is from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Thursday at the hotel. Most meetings will take place at the Stanford Humanities Center. On Friday afternoon we will break at about 3:00 p.m. to allow participants some time on their own; for those who are interested, we will provide docent-led tours of the extraordinary sculpture on the Stanford campus and of the Stanford Art Museum. Dinner on Friday will be on your own; there will be an optional group dinner at a restaurant near the hotel. This dinner is not covered by the registration fee. Participants often make the seminar part of a family vacation and guests are welcome to join seminar participants for events and meals. Guest breakfasts cost $20, lunches $30, and dinners, $70.


    Seminar East Accommodations and Reservations
    Accommodations and meetings are at the
    Omni Charlottesville Hotel, on West Main Street in Charlottesville.

    The ADFL group rate will be $159, plus 11% tax. These rates are also available three days before and three days after the seminar, subject to room availability at the time of registration. The cutoff date for guaranteed reservations is 2 June 2008. Ask for the ADFL group rate at 800-THE-OMNI (800 843-6664).

    Seminar East Plenary Sessions

  • The Chair and the Law
  • Humanities Advocacy beyond the Campus
  • Technology and the Humanities
  • Curricular Change and the Major
  • Fault Lines in the Department: Gender, Discipline, and Nation
  • Digital Demonstrations: Current Projects from the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities

    Concurrent Discussion Groups

  • Preparing the tenure dossier
  • Evaluating teachers and teaching
  • Reconsidering the major
  • Dealing with difficult faculty members
  • Disciplinary, departmental, and institutional identities
  • Preparing for NCATE
  • Developments in Advanced Placement
  • Workshop on Web 2.0 for teaching

    Confirmed Speakers

  • Martha Abbott, ACTFL
  • Grace M. Armstrong, Bryn Mawr Coll.
  • Walter Cohen, Cornell Univ.
  • Cristina Della Coletta, Univ. of Virginia
  • Rosemary G. Feal, Modern Language Association
  • Annette Kym, Hunter Coll., City Univ. of New York
  • C. Jared Loewenstein, Univ. of Virginia
  • Worthy Martin, Inst. for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
  • Deborah Parker, Univ. of Virginia
  • Randolph D. Pope, Univ. of Virginia
  • Rosemarie Scullion, Univ. of Iowa
  • Nicolas Shumway, Univ. of Texas
  • Robert C. Vaughan, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

    Schedule, Excursion, and Guest Meals
    The Workshop for New Chairs begins with dinner at the hotel on Saturday evening. Seminar check-in is from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Sunday 22 June. The first plenary session of the seminar is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. Sunday. Meetings will take place at the hotel. Participants often make the seminar part of a family vacation, and guests are welcome to join seminar participants for the excursion and meals. Guests may join participants for most meals; guest breakfasts cost $20, lunches $30, and dinners, $70.

    On Monday afternoon, participants and their guests may choose to join us for a trip Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, followed by a visit to the Kluge Estate Winery and Vineyard. There will be a $40 charge to cover the cost of the bus, admission to Monticello, and a tasting at the winery. A group dinner in Charlottesville on Monday evening will be optional. This dinner is not covered by the registration fee.


    You may view programs from past ADFL Summer Seminars by following the links below.
    ADFL Seminar West 2007
    ADFL Seminar East 2007
    ADFL Seminar East 2006
    ADFL Seminar West 2006
    ADFL Seminar East 2005
    ADFL Seminar West 2005

    We invite you to read the endorsements below from participants at previous seminars.

    "I found this seminar to be particularly good on generating discussion that helped people solve problems. I enjoyed finding out how other people deal with similar problems and the solutions they developed."
    Malcolm Compitello, Univ. of Arizona (2006)

    "[The seminar] gave me direction, ideas and affirmation… I can’t begin to tell you how many ways this meeting has helped me."
    Michael Long, Baylor Univ. (2006)

    "I take back some useful tips and much good advice about how to take care of myself in this job... I’m so glad I came!"
    Barbara Altmann, Univ. of Oregon (2006)

    "The most valuable thing was hearing about what other chairs experience and what they do about various issues. It is a confidence booster to hear that others, even at larger institutions, sometimes have the same problems and try many of the same strategies that I do to deal with them."
    Mary Ellen Kohn-Buday, Mount Mary Coll. (2006)

    "I feel prepared to provide better (more and more effective) service to my department, university and community. Again, my thanks."
    Eric Kartchner, Colorado State Univ., Pueblo (2006)

    "The sessions on study abroad, assessment, and service learning brought me up to speed quickly and well on these important issues. It was great to get so much sage advice and meet so many wonderful colleagues."
    Ann Marie Rasmussen, Duke Univ. (2006)

    "The ADFL seminars are extremely useful for experienced as well as novice chairs. I derived a great deal from attending my first summer seminar in 2005 after years of chairing a department."
    Carlos Alonso, Columbia University

    "You really do gain a whole new set of colleagues through participating!"
    Gwendolyn Barnes-Karol , Saint Olaf College

    "I loved the concrete advice on the one hand and the chance to connect across vast geographic and disciplinary distance on the other…."
    Carolin Hahnemann, Kenyon College

    "Thank you, thank you, thank you for providing this essential service…. I am re-energized and ready to tackle things that will inevitably come my way."
    Elizabeth Locey, Emporia State University

    "It will take time to reflect on the many issues that were introduced – but they allowed me to contextualize the experiences that I have had in my first year as head. …The sharing of information and how-to’s and networking that occurred in such a short period of time will have long-lasting results for me."
    Victor Arizpe, Texas A & M University

    "It would take a year of experience to achieve the same level of awareness of the issues involved in chairing that I got in three days."

    "Thanks for the experienced leaders who willingly shared their knowledge and the chance to establish a network of new colleagues nation-wide."

    "I feel more confident about taking over the position of chair because of what I have learned. I also feel more optimistic and happy to take on the position, which I had initially accepted only reluctantly."

    "It was all very good . . . . I valued particularly those sessions bearing most directly on practice and judgement. There was an excellent balance of the practical and the reflective and the theoretical . . . . I left feeling both humble and more confident than before, having heard first hand from successful presenters how a language department can do well. Just being in the presence of others in my shoes and sharing thoughts and being assured that there's a network out there, all this was confidence building."

    "As always, I enjoyed interacting with colleagues in my discipline. The seminar is an opportunity for me to take the pulse of the state of department chairing. The informal exchanges are just as valuable as the presentations."

    "Unlike many other academic conferences, this one invariably engages real concerns and genuine desire to improve what can be improved and to save what should not be lost without a fight. [The seminar] has, as always, provided several practical ways to ameliorate administrative and curricular pressures that affect our programs."

    "This was the best professional meeting I've ever been to. Every session was useful . . . . I am far more aware of positive character traits needed to chair effectively. I came away with a sense of mission and responsibility which, I think, will be central to my chairing and also affect my teaching . . . . Much of the learning came from informal exchange--and that was well integrated into the program. Pre-conference new chairs' meetings were exceptional."

     
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