SoTL in the States

What is happening — and for whom?

“What is happening” submissions are grounded in what the author has directly witnessed, documented, or heard related to teaching and learning or the practice of SoTL — in their classroom, department, institution, or community. These are observational reports or resources created to support others engaged in such observation. Authors are functioning as witnesses and describers, sharing here is what I am seeing, and here is whose experience it is.

“What is happening” submissions do not argue for a solution to what is observed, nor do they evaluate whether something works or make policy claims. The value in these submissions is in bearing witness and naming patterns that others may recognize but haven’t seen put into words.

What works — and for whom?

“What works” submissions share considered perspectives on what is actually effective in the practice of SoTL: building inquiry communities, sustaining the work across career stages, navigating institutional barriers, reaching audiences beyond the academy, or making SoTL matter in the current U.S. moment. The emphasis is on what you’ve come to believe works, why you believe it, and who it seems to work for — and who it doesn’t.

Unlike “what is happening” submissions, these posts make an evaluative claim. But the claim is about doing and sustaining SoTL as a practice — not the results of a specific study. Authors should be honest about scope, context, and limits, including who benefits and under what conditions.

What could be possible — and for whom?

“What could be possible” posts are oriented toward the future of SoTL as a field — proposing, imagining, or prototyping changes to how SoTL is practiced, valued, organized, or supported in U.S. higher education contexts. The author may be responding to an emerging challenge, a structural gap, or an opportunity the current moment presents. The central move for these posts is: here is something I think the field could do differently, here is the logic for why, and here is who stands to gain — or be left out.

These submissions are generative and forward-looking. They invite readers into a design conversation rather than reporting what has already happened. The “for whom” question is essential: who is currently underserved by existing structures, and who would be centered or marginalized by the change being imagined?

What matters — and to whom?

“What matters” posts are analytical, essay-style pieces that examine the values, assumptions, and stakes embedded in SoTL as a field within the current U.S. context. The author isn’t primarily reporting or proposing — they are interrogating: What does the way we do SoTL reveal about what we actually value? Whose definitions of rigor, relevance, or belonging are shaping what counts as SoTL? Who is centered, and who is erased, by the field’s current norms and structures?These submissions engage with ideas and consequences, not just practices or experiences. They may draw on theory, institutional critique, current events, or close reading of the field’s conventions. The move is not here is what I see but here is what this reveals. A “what matters” post makes a substantive argument — and it should be willing to make readers a little uncomfortable.