please post: call for chapter proposals

[Mara K. Berkland]

Dear Communications Director,

My name is Mara Berkland and I'm a teacher/scholar at North Central College.  My colleague, Jennifer Keys (Northwestern University) are looking for authors to submit to our OER textbook aimed at first-year college students.  We really want the authors to represent a variety of colleges and universities and we want chapters representing a variety of disciplines and professional specializations.  We are wondering if you would help us reach your members by posting our call on your professional development opportunities list.  If so, feel free to copy and paste the text below.

We would be most grateful,

Mara Berkland  

Dear Colleagues,

 

Please consider submitting a chapter proposal for The Well-Equipped Traveler: Disciplinary Maps to Guide Your College Journey, an open educational resource (OER) published by Iowa State University Digital Press. We are seeking engaging faculty who excel at connecting their discipline to students’ everyday lives—particularly those whose teaching resonates strongly in introductory or first-year courses. The goal of this project is to feature short, accessible chapters that translate disciplinary insights into meaningful, real-world relevance for college students.

 

Imagine a first-year student arriving on campus with immediate, practical questions: Do I need shower shoes? How do I make friends? Can I handle the coursework? Too often, the answers they receive are anecdotal, oversimplified, or misaligned with academic realities. This volume takes a different approach. It bridges the gap between traditional academic success textbooks and more advice-driven “survival guides” by asking what disciplines can contribute to the questions students already care about. Our goal is to replace guesswork with inquiry and advice with evidence—equipping students with ways of thinking that help them navigate college with greater clarity.

• Below is an abbreviated summary of the call. For full details about the project scope and proposal process, we invite you to visit the complete call website.
• We would be grateful if you could also forward this call to colleagues—especially those “go-to” instructors whose teaching consistently helps students see why their field matters. Thank you for helping us reach educators whose work deeply engages students.
• This collection will be available in Spring 2027 for Fall course adoption, with the aim of becoming a widely used, openly accessible entry point into disciplinary thinking for first-year students.

 Submitting your Proposal

We invite you to submit a 500-word proposal by July 15, 2026, that outlines your proposed chapter, including a compelling student-centered question, a brief introduction to the author(s), an overview of the topic, learning outcomes, and a short description of how your discipline approaches the central topic. Sections should be written in the third person unless otherwise noted, with selective use of second person to directly engage readers and invite personal reflection.

 

• Title: [Discipline’s] Disciplinary Map: [Question]
• Invitation to Exploration (~50 words): Pose a provocative, discipline-relevant question that connects directly to first-year student experiences and frames the central focus of the chapter, written in second person.
• Your Guide (~50 words): Introduce the author(s) through a concise professional profile of the chapter author that situates their perspective, background, or relationship to the topic.
• Pocket Map (~150 words): Provide an accessible introduction to the key concepts that anchor the chapter. Define core ideas, introduce important terminology, and establish the disciplinary lens using examples and evidence.
• Purpose of the Journey (~100 words): Articulate 3–4 measurable, student-centered learning outcomes that align directly to the core arguments and skills, written in second person.
• Disciplinary Compass (~150 words): Include four foundational ways the discipline approaches knowledge, inquiry, or problem-solving, written in second person.
• Other “Cites” to See (not included in word count): Provide a curated list of 3-5 scholarly sources that substantiate the chapter’s ideas.

 

Following the Timeline

The development and publication of The Well-Equipped Traveler will follow the timeline below:

• Solicit manuscripts: June 1–July 15, 2026 
• Notify authors of acceptance decisions: August 2026 
• Receive full manuscripts: October 15, 2026 
• Conduct editorial and peer review: November–December 2026 
• Publish volume: March 2027

Mara K. Berkland, Ph.D., Professor

Department of Communication, North Central College

mkber...@noctrl.edu

 

Jennifer Keys, Ph.D., Senior Director

The Searle Center for Advancing Learning and Teaching

Professor of Practice, Department of Sociology, Northwestern University