INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND PRACTICAL CONFERENCE

Education Disrupted: Universities in a Time of War

February 23, 2023

Organizers

Kyiv National Economic University named after Vadym Hetman, Ukraine;
University of Economics in Bratislava, Slovakia;
University of Redlands, United States

CALL FOR CONFERENCE PAPERS

MOTIVATION FOR THE CONFERENCE

The onset of the global COVID pandemic required a profound restructuring of the manner in which education at all levels was delivered.  Although online offerings had gained a foothold in higher education prior to early 2020, they were not extensively applied across the broad range of universities and their courses and programs.  Face-to-face class lectures, seminars, labs, and office hours remained the dominant modes of interaction between students and their instructors.    The pandemic set off an extensive and somewhat rushed adoption of extant online tools and pedagogy not in support of, but instead of, these face-to-face interactions.       

The availability of learning management systems (LMS) and meeting/conferencing platforms like Zoom, Teams, and WebEx—underpinned by high-speed internet connections—permitted continual engagement among students and their instructors each isolated typically in their homes.  The resulting disruption to education caused by the pandemic was, is, and will be the subject of much study.   

In early 2022, as the pandemic’s effects on education waned in most of world, Ukraine was hit with a second, more existential, disruption to its educational structures.  Russia’s invasion of Ukraine presents a disruption to its higher education environment that is qualitatively different from that following the pandemic.  Whereas the pandemic isolated students and teachers from each other, it did not compel a physical shifting from their existing locations.  In fact, the pandemic acted to confine individuals to their homes.  The war is different in this regard.  It has required millions of students, faculty, staff, and administrators across Ukraine to seek refuge in relatively safer areas of the country, as well as abroad.   

Another consequence of the war, not present during the pandemic, is the instability in the technology and public infrastructure upon which the online delivery of education depends.  For example, Russia’s targeting of civilian infrastructure across Ukraine has damaged the electrical grids, telecommunication networks, and physical structures housing the servers and personnel that enable remote education.     

As the war approaches its second year, we propose an online conference to discover, highlight, and discuss the effects on Ukraine’s higher education environment.  We seek contributions from faculty, administrators, staff, and students that explore the physical shifting and infrastructure instability experiences noted above.  The following list of a few potential research questions may be helpful in identifying some interesting potential topics in response to the war:

• faculty practices to develop and deliver course content and promote learning continuity
• faculty practices to maintain research and service activities
• psychological adjustments to ensure student and faculty engagement and well-being
• course and programmatic modifications
• adaptions to university strategy and structures
• communication with key stakeholders
• experiences of non-Ukrainian universities
• responses required to maintain university functions such as admissions, library, IT, registrar, and infrastructure
• student experiences with the shifting and instabilities
• universities as engines of social progress and their role in the reconstruction of post-war Ukraine
• priority of science and innovation in the post-war development of Ukraine

Conference Language: English

SUBMISSION PROCESS AND DEADLINES

Authors should submit an abstract of 250 words of their paper by February 06, 2023 for review to:

http://sites.google.com/kneu.edu.ua/conf-ed-disrupted

Abstract should include context and motivation for the presentation and research question(s) that arise from the war. 

There is no fee for submitting a presentation/paper proposal.  All proposals will be reviewed following a double-blind review process and authors notified of acceptance for the conference presentation to be held online on February 23, 2023.  Accepted presentations should be submitted by February 19, 2023.  Papers of between 10-15 pages based on the presentations will be published electronically in an edited volume with ISBN after the conference. 

Certificates will be issued to all conference participants.