Reconnecting and Reconstructing: Taking Stock of the STLHE 2022 conference

Abstract

Academic conferences are key spaces of knowledge sharing and professional development. As a national society which has pledged to undergo “a robust examination of its attention to equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout the organization” (STLHE/SAPES 2021), we undertook an evaluation of the diversity of participants and presentation topics at the 2022 conference. This paper reports on some of the distinctive aspects of the 2022 conference as well as the findings of the evaluation such as diversity of participants by gender and ethnic identity, province, institution type, discipline, and more. While the 2022 conference was unique in many ways due to being STLHE’s first face-to-face conference since 2019, this report provides a useful baseline with which to compare the diversity of participants and presentation topics in future years. The report concludes with additional recommendations for programming decisions to support and evaluate equity, diversity, and inclusivity at future conferences. Keywords: conference, diversity, participation, presentation topics, Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education