Call for Proposals: HBCU - A Dream Deferred™ and Historically Black Colleges and Universities Conferences 2027

College Board’s HBCU conference assembles education professionals from across the nation to discuss new solutions and approaches that will help African American students succeed. Share your experiences, creative solutions, and insights by submitting a session proposal that showcases a program or partnership that has a positive impact on students.

We welcome proposals by all professions in education; however, all sessions should be intentionally designed for an audience of HBCU educators and faculty. Your proposal description should clearly articulate both the topic and the intended audience for your session.

All sections of the proposal form must be accurate and complete.
Session title is limited to 75 characters and must accurately describe the session.
Description must be submitted in a publishable format using proper grammar and spelling and is limited to 1,000 characters, including spaces. The description should be detailed to assist the planning committee in its review.
Open-ended questions should be fully answered and address session significance and session process.
The session topic you select should be the one your session best aligns with. See topic descriptions below.
A primary audience must be selected.
Proposed content must be engaging, relevant, and interactive.

The following are topics that will be considered for the program. Examples are not intended to be exhaustive.

Administration, Advocacy, and Policy: Review of policies, practices, and resource allocation for federal, state, and district level; policy recommendations, planning, evaluation, and implementation. Staff and community engagement, strategic planning, instructional leadership, adaptive leadership.
Admissions: Admission policy, college selection, college transfer, issues seen by first-generation college students, diversity and international recruitment, student applications, increasing retention, and demonstrated interest.
Assessment and Instruction: STEM, AP^®, SAT^®, college readiness, instruction techniques, teacher and faculty perspectives, student perspectives, remediation, curriculum and instruction, and summer bridge programs.
Counseling: Increasing graduation rates, college transition, student advising, recommendation letters, and building college culture. Best practices, innovation and trends in college counseling, advisement, academic support and transition, implementation and use of data for Advanced Placement^® Program, the SAT Suite of Assessments, and Khan Academy^®. Counseling and advising special populations, including students with disabilities, underrepresented groups, rural students, and LGBTQ+.
Financial Aid: College pricing and affordability, student loan eligibility, debt repayment, FAFSA^®, student aid, financial literacy, award letters, financial aid distribution, and topics supporting the student financial aid application process.
Rural Education: The unique opportunities and challenges of rural education, practical strategies to help students prepare for college and careers , access to advanced coursework, resources, educator recruitment and retention, and community-based solutions that support student success. Collaborative efforts between schools, higher education institutions, families, and local organizations, as well as innovative models that reflect the geographic diversity of rural communities.

Concurrent Sessions: Are composed of a single speaker or a panel of education experts and practitioners focused on topics of significance to the conference audience. Sessions suggest best practices in education and foster discussion.
Roundtable Sessions: Are designed as a facilitated discussion on a specific topic. Roundtable sessions are not presentations but discussions and are most successful when attendee participation and interaction is encouraged. Primarily involves 1 moderator.
Education Summit Sessions (Committee and Staff Members Only): These sessions highlight issues of interest across the professions and provide an opportunity for discussion. Education Summits give attendees a chance to learn about policies, data, programs, and initiatives that impact their work and support of students.
Spotlight Sessions (College Board Staff Only): These 15-minute presentations will highlight programs and initiatives that promote access and equity for students. Hear directly from College Board staff on a program of interest.

Confirm and then submit a proposal only if you (the submitter) and cospeakers have agreed and secured funding from your institution to register at the discounted speaker rate and are able to attend the conference.
You can include up to 4 speakers (5 if there’s a moderator). A moderator isn’t required. Their role is limited to chairing or introducing the session.
You may be asked for additional materials if your proposal is accepted, including a presentation outline, a résumé or CV, and a headshot for each presenter.
Submit no more than 2 proposals, either as lead speaker or co-speaker. Get consent before listing other co-speakers. As lead speaker, you are responsible for sharing College Board conference policies and logistics with your co-speakers. If your institution or contact information changes, contact us to be sure you get all speaker information.
All session titles and descriptions, along with speaker names, job titles, institutions, and states are part of the official conference program and will be edited for consistency and accuracy.
The title and description may be edited to conform to College Board editorial style guidelines.
Native Student Data Statement: When reporting disaggregated data and outcomes by race and ethnicity, it’s strongly recommended that Indigenous student data are included. College Board recognizes that American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander students’ data regarding access, persistence, and graduation rates may not be disaggregated in large data sets. Indigenous students “are often excluded from institutional data and reporting, omitted from the curriculum, absent from the research and literature, and virtually written out of the higher education story.” *When Indigenous students are omitted from data reports, their experiences, challenges, and resource needs aren’t acknowledged. The phenomenon of the Indigenous “research asterisk” contributes to invisibility and misrepresentation of Indigenous students in higher education. Following the scholarship of Shotton, Lowe, and Waterman, we challenge our colleagues to look beyond the “research asterisk” rhetoric, ask questions, and start a dialogue to better serve Indigenous students.

* All quotes extracted from Beyond the Asterisk: Understanding Native Students in Higher Education, edited by Heather J. Shotton, Shelly C. Lowe, and Stephanie J. Waterman, 2013.

Note: Session proposals promoting the purchase of books, materials, or services won't be considered for the conference program. Because of space and time limitations, not all qualified proposals can be accepted. If your proposal isn't accepted, please consider submitting it next year.