Each fall, NAFSA’s Regional Conferences bring more than 2,500 international education professionals together nationwide in their local regions to exchange ideas, strengthen best practices, and build meaningful professional connections. Presenting a session offers an impactful way to contribute to your regional community while highlighting your work and professional experience with colleagues from more than 1,200 institutions nationwide.
April 22: Submission window opens → June 21: Submission window closes → July 24: Decisions communicated with submitters
Reviewer Rubric
The rubric below outlines the questions each reviewer will assess when reviewing proposals. Addressing these questions in advance will help you identify areas to strengthen your proposal before submitting it.
Are the content leaders knowledgeable and experienced in the topic area?
Do the presenters represent a diverse panel in terms of institution/organization types? Please list in comments.
Is this topic relevant to the KC for which it was proposed?
How well do the title, abstract, and learning objectives align together?
Given the limited number of time slots available, how likely would you be to attend or recommend someone attend this session if placed on the program?
Does the session meet the NAFSA non-commercial policy? NAFSA education programs at the regional conference are learning experiences and are noncommercial. Under no circumstances should a preconference workshop, general conference session, or poster presentation be used for direct promotion of a presenter's product, service, or other self-interest.
Creating a Strong Proposal
This overview video will give you a peek behind the curtain into how your proposal can stand out and shine:
You can find the submissions portal link on the homepage of your regional conference.
Click “Login”.
You will be prompted to log in to your myNAFSA account.
If you do not have an account, you can create a free one by visiting nafsa.org and clicking “Log In” in the top righthand corner. You will be redirected to a login page where you will find the “Create an account” link underneath the Sign In button.
Now that you are logged in, you will see the Call For Proposals deadline under Event Information. Be sure to submit your proposal by Sunday, June 21 at 11:59PM EDT!
If you have any issues or questions while completing or submitting your proposal, please email our team at [email protected].
Next you will scroll down and click the green “Click here to begin a new submission” link to begin your proposal.
To begin a submission, please determine your title, the type of submission this is (whether it is a session, open meeting, current topic workshop, or poster presentation – you can find their descriptions below), and your NAFSA region. You can find their descriptions in the “View submission types descriptions” link below. If you’re unsure which region to choose, use the “View NAFSA Region descriptions” link to review conference locations and dates.
You can always come back and change this information later!
Click “Submit” to move on to the details section of your submission.
After clicking “Submit”, you will be brought to your tasks page. Here, you can see each of the tasks that need to be completed to submit your proposal.
Let’s begin with adding co-presenters to your presentation.
To add a co-presenter, you will want to enter their first and last name as well as their email as it appears in their myNAFSA account. If they don’t have an account, they will need to create one.
Next, you will select their role. If you were the person to begin this proposal, you will be automatically designated as the "Chair and Presenter”. We can update this later if necessary.
Once you choose their role, you will click “Add Presenter”, which will add them to the presenter list below.
Make sure to click the “Invite [Co-Presenter's Name]” button. This will send them an email letting them know that you have added them to this proposal and inviting them to log in and complete their tasks.
As the “Chair and Presenter”, you have been assigned tasks relating to the proposal’s content. Your co-presenter will only need to update their profile information for their portion to be considered complete.
To complete this task, you must also update your profile. Again, this information can be updated later on if needed.
If you are not able to add information to the required fields just yet, no worries! You can complete this task at a later time by scrolling to the top and clicking the underlined “Tasks” in the banner. This will take you back to the main Tasks page.
Then you will want to click “Save Presenters”. If nothing is missing from this task, you will be redirected to the main task page, where you should see a green message letting you know you have successfully completed the task, as well as a green check mark beside the task.
Let’s move on to the next task by clicking “Abstract & Details”.
In this task, you can edit your submission title if necessary, as well as select the Knowledge Community this proposal best relates to. You can add a secondary knowledge community if applicable.
You may also choose a Focus Area. This will help attendees find sessions specific to their interests. Please only choose a focus area if it applies to your proposal.
Next, you will choose up to three International Education competencies. Choose what most closely aligns with your proposal.
The designations from this task (focus area, KC, and IE competencies) will help attendees choose the sessions that most closely align with their needs and goals from the conference.
Now, you will choose the format your proposal will be in. This will help the regional team when scheduling if your proposal is accepted.
Finally, for this task, you will enter your presentation description.
To complete this task, click “Continue”.
Now we will move on to the Learning Objectives.
You only need one to complete this task, but we recommend having three. This will help show reviewers that your proposal is well thought out with intentional learning objectives and a clear vision for the presentation. If you would like some tips or extra guidance on creating learning objectives, we recommend referencing the University of Arkansas guide linked in the instruction box.
Once completed, click “Continue”.
Finally, we ask that all of our portal users/presenters agree to our policies. After reading, please click the “I have read and agree to the above terms and conditions.” box, then type in your name as it appears in your myNAFSA account.
Click “Submit Agreement”.
Now that you have completed all your tasks, you will need to click the “Preview & Submit” button at the top and bottom of your screen. You will be taken to a submission summary where you can scroll down and preview your submission details. If everything looks good and you are ready to submit your proposal, click the “Submit” button in the top right corner of the page.
You will be redirected to the home page of the portal with a green message confirming your submission.
While you’re here, please let us know if there is anything we can do to improve your experience by submitting feedback through the form on the upper right side of the page.
And that’s it — you’re done. Congratulations!
You should also receive a confirmation email letting you know your proposal has been submitted and is now with the reviewers. Your proposal will be reviewed by your peers on the regional team, and final decisions will be shared in mid-July.
Thanks for watching, and best of luck with your proposal!
