Conference Connections
Conference Connections was established at the 2018 annual conference after two years of information-gathering by the AAAL Graduate Student Council and Executive Committee on the professional development needs and interests of student members of AAAL. The goal of Conference Connections is to provide structured opportunities for student members to meet more senior members of AAAL through a simple system of pairing interested individuals.
You are invited to participate in Conference Connections at the AAAL 2021 Virtual Annual Conference. Student Participants (mentees) will be paired with more senior AAAL members who will serve in a mentoring capacity at the annual conference. The following options for mentoring support will be available:
- General mentoring support: This option is ideal for students who are in earlier stages of their scholarly development; they can generally articulate their areas of interest, but may not yet have a defined research trajectory. Some topics for discussion could include navigating AAAL and the field of applied linguistics in general, writing a successful conference or research proposal, becoming involved in service as a graduate student, dealing with 'publish or perish' culture in academia, or managing work/life balance.
- Research and advanced professional development: This option is ideal for graduate students/candidates who are in the later stages of their scholarly development; they have a clearly defined research trajectory and can articulate specifically what sort of interests and feedback they are looking to explore with their mentors. Some topics for discussion could include becoming an independent and primary researcher/investigator, turning a presentation into a journal article, developing a dissertation chapter, securing funding for research and external projects, or applying for jobs/entering the academic job market.
Registering for the 2021 Conference Connections is now closed. If you wish to participate, either as a mentee or mentor, you must be registered for the conference by January 20, 2021. If you have already registered for the conference and wish to participate, please email Jessica Atkinson at Jessica@aaal.org to update your registration or to verify your participation.
We look forward to welcoming you to the AAAL 2021 Annual Conference and hope that you will join us for Conference Connections!