Faculty sessions with The Conversation scheduled for Nov. 8

On Wednesday, Nov. 8, Bruce Wilson, an executive with The Conversation, will be on campus to host informational sessions for faculty members who’d like to learn more about writing for that organization. Faculty who are interested are welcome to attend any of the sessions listed below.

Wilson is a co-founder of The Conversation and currently serves as its chief innovation and development officer. He is also a former publisher of The Chronicle of Higher Education (2003-2009), so he has spent his entire career in higher education and communications.

As for The Conversation, it may be “the best invention to come along in academia in the past 15 or 20 years,” as Ronald Hall, professor of social work at Michigan State University, has declared.

The Conversation is a nonprofit, independent news organization “dedicated to unlocking the knowledge of experts for the public good.” The organization publishes trustworthy and informative articles by academics – and only by academics – then makes those articles available for free to news organizations around the world.

Last year, UND joined Penn State, Ohio State and about 70 other universities in partnering with The Conversation. Since then, 17 articles for The Conversation have been written or co-written by UND scholars, and those articles are fast approaching a total of nearly 400,000 reads.

Several articles in UND Today have described this partnership and process in detail. They include Introducing The Conversation, from September 2022; More than 340,000 readers worldwide, which describes UND faculty writers’ experience with The Conversation; and Ten thousand readers in nearly 150 countries, which features a Q&A with one Conversation writer in particular, UND Professor of Philosophy Rebecca Rozelle-Stone.

During Bruce Wilson’s visit to UND, he will start his day on Nov. 8 by having breakfast with President Armacost. At 9 a.m., he’ll be the guest of Provost Eric Link at a meeting with the UND Deans’ Council.

Then at 10 a.m., he’ll start the first of a series of five informational sessions, each of which will be held in a different classroom or lecture hall across campus. At the sessions, Wilson will explain how writing for The Conversation can benefit faculty members and UND alike, by greatly boosting public awareness of UND scholarship and research. He also will describe how UND faculty can write for The Conversation and will take time to answer questions.

The schedule for the Nov. 8 sessions is as follows:

10 a.m.: College of Nursing & Professional Disciplines, Room 210

11 a.m.: Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences, Odegard Hall, Room 244

1 p.m.: College of Engineering & Mines, Collaborative Energy Complex, Room 106

2 p.m.: College of Education & Human Development, Education Building, Room 26

3 p.m.: O’Kelly Hall, Room 343 (session sponsored by Vice Provost of Faculty Affairs)

Faculty members who’d like to learn more about writing for The Conversation are encouraged to attend one of the sessions.

UND’s Office of Communications is organizing Bruce Wilson’s visit. For more information, please contact Tom Dennis, UND Today editor, at tom.dennis@und.edu.