Call for CoLang 2028 Host Proposals

Dear InField/CoLang Participants and others,

Greetings from Carly Tex and Martin Renard, the co-conveners for the CoLang Advisory Circle. On behalf of the Advisory Circle, we are formally soliciting Expressions of Interest for hosting the 2028 Institute on Collaborative Language Research (InField/CoLang). These Expressions of Interest should be a paragraph or two that briefly explain why you are interested in hosting the 2028 CoLang Institute at your university / institution, including some basic details about possible institutional and financial support, the identity and qualifications of the organizing committee (usually two members), and any other preliminary details that you deem relevant.

Expressions of interest should be emailed to both the Co-Conveners at carly@aicls.org and martin.renard@mail.utoronto.ca by December 31, 2024.

After receiving expressions of interest, we will then invite from applicants more detailed proposals for hosting the 2028 CoLang Institute. These should take the form of a two-­to-­three page proposal that (1) presents the qualifications of the proposed Local Organizer(s); (2) outlines any Institute-­particular themes or approaches; (3) presents possible fundraising strategies and sources of internal/institutional support, including participant scholarships (fundraising, evaluating applications and administering), and (4) states the likely available resources for personnel, housing, and classroom and technology support. One additional page can be added to list any already-known funding or in-kind contributions.

All proposals received by that date will be considered by the Advisory Circle. The Advisory Circle may request additional information. Due to the nature of the event, priority is given to a local organizing committee whose members (at least one) have participated in earlier CoLang Institutes. If selected, the Local Organizers(s) will head the Local Organizing Committee and will work closely with the Advisory Circle to develop themes, course content, and instructors. CoLang has an established partnership with the Linguistics Society of America (LSA) and has worked closely together with the Endangered Language Fund (ELF), and the Local Organizers(s) and Local Organizing Committee will also work with the LSA and potentially with ELF. The duties of the Local Organizing Committee are outlined in this paragraph from the Charter:

b. Local Organizing Committee

A given year's Institute is organized and run by a Local Organizing Committee. The committee has the primary responsibility for that Institute. These responsibilities include major fundraising, advertising, all Institute administration including faculty and speaker contracts and payments, arranging IRB approval and dealing with issues of informed consent for the practicum (and elsewhere, if required), arranging venues, travel and visas, and accommodations for all participants, as well as volunteer staffing, airport transfers, social events, evaluation, and follow up reporting, and any other routine things as necessary. Programmatic decisions are made with guidance from the Advisory Committee. The local committee consists of a minimum of two members. One or more external members of the organizing committee might also be appointed, at the discretion of the local committee. When appropriate or feasible, one or more members of the Local Organizing Committee should be representatives from local Indigenous communities.  The Local Organizing Committee may delegate particular organizing roles to others (e.g., talks, organization of evening and weekend activities, coordination of multi-instructor workshops, etc.).

We look forward to hearing from those of you interested in hosting in 2028 (and we encourage you to begin thinking about the possibility of hosting CoLang 2030). Please feel free to contact us if you have questions about hosting or the process of applying. We also encourage you to share this call for host proposals with your personal networks and anyone you think might be interested.

Carly Tex and Martin Renard
Co-Conveners CoLang Advisory Circle