2025 CTLT Winter Institute Call for Proposals

Surviving to Sustaining: Learning Together with Trust, Compassion, and Courage

During the pandemic, many of us offered each other remarkable care and flexibility. We were learning to teach and connect remotely while also coping with grief, uncertainty, and isolation. Kindness guided our work during that time, allowing us to meet each other with compassion, empathy, creativity, and respect in challenging circumstances. Since then, the collective gentleness we shared has become harder to sustain, as both instructors and students face growing demands on their time and energy. As the urgency of the pandemic recedes, new challenges and old assumptions and habits quietly resurface.

This year’s Winter Institute invites proposals that explore kindness as a relational, ethical, and pedagogical framework—those that support inclusive design, foster meaningful connection, and attend to both student and instructor wellbeing within the realities of contemporary higher education. We’re particularly interested in practical, grounded examples—whether you’re experimenting with alternative assessments, integrating UDL principles, building student-led or co-created learning experiences, or finding creative ways to sustain care and connection in your teaching. Sessions can take the form of interactive workshops, facilitated conversations, case studies, or reflective presentations.

All proposals will be reviewed with care, and we’ll do our best to include as many voices as possible. Depending on space, we may suggest alternative formats such as panels or lightning talks or presenting at future opportunities at Spring and Summer Institutes.

Let us know how you are putting care into your classroom, your curriculum, and your professional practice—and what you’re learning along the way.

Selection Criteria

    1. The proposal description has clearly defined learning objectives. 
    2. The proposal is aligned with the Winter Institute theme, Surviving to Sustaining: Learning Together with Trust, Compassion, and Courage. 
    3. The proposal contains practical applications/activities/reflections that would be of interest to Institute attendees from the richly diverse UBC teaching and learning community. 
    4. To include as many diverse learning styles as possible, the presenter agrees to submit presentation slides and resources to be used in the workshop, if there are any, one week in advance of the session. 

The deadline for submissions has been extended until October 17, 2025 @ 4:00 pm

2025 CTLT Winter Institute: Call for Proposals

Fill out the following form to submit your proposal:

Please decide on one person for us to contact about the details of your proposal. The email provided below will receive a copy of this submission form.
Name(Required)

Session Information

Choose a format that best suits your session
Session modality(Required)
I (We) suggest that my (our) proposal would best be presented in this modality:
Session format(Required)
I (We) suggest that my (our) proposal would best be presented in which of these four formats:
Are you open to your presentation being considered for a different format (for example, being part of a panel or lightning talks series?(Required)

Time Slot

(Required)

Select time slots:

Winter Institute tme slots will be offered when the proposal is accepted. Please confirm that you are available on the week of December 8-12, 2025.

Facilitation Development Check-in

A few weeks before the Institute we will be hosting a Facilitation Development Check-in, providing Institute facilitators an opportunity to ask logistical questions and obtain collegial feedback on their workshop plan. This year's Winter Institute Facilitation Development Check in will be on Monday November 17 at 1:30
Are you able to join us?(Required)

Session Resources

Sharing session materials, such as slides and handouts, can be very useful for participants in applying what they learned. Therefore, CTLT creates a resource repository for learning materials on a Wiki page to make our resources broadly accessible. Publishing your session materials allows instructors, faculty and other members of the UBC community to learn from your presentation and expertise.
A creative commons license will be applied to all resources and recordings. We apply the CC BY-NC license. To find out more about creative commons licensing, and this particular license, visit the CC website.
Are you willing to share the resources from your session by November 28?(Required)

Social Media Promotion (optional)

Thank you for responding to the Call for Contributions for the 2025 Winter Institute