Call for Volunteers

The quality and success of the conference is contingent upon the service and participation of our members. Thank you for considering a volunteer role as a Reviewer, Chair, and/or Discussant. Your service as a conference volunteer helps to ensure the integrity of the conference and, subsequently, the field of higher education scholarship. ASHE welcomes volunteer applications from scholars in all stages of their academic journey. 

The Volunteer Form on the Conference Portal asks if there are ways in which ASHE can make your volunteer time as a Chair, Discussant, and/or Reviewer more accessible. Please contact Alicia Castillo Shrestha, Associate Director for Conference and Events at alicia@ashe.ws with questions.

Access the Call For Proposals Document

(The full guide to the 2025 Call For Proposals including the information on this page)

Log Into the Conference Portal

(Access the ASHE Conference Portal to submit/edit a proposal during the submission window and/or to submit a volunteer application)

How-To Guide

Step-by-step instructions on navigating the ASHE Conference Portal to:

• Guide to Volunteer as a Reviewer, Chair, or Discussant

Volunteer Roles

Thank you to the hundreds of current ASHE Members who annually volunteer to serve as Reviewers, Chairs, and Discussants. Volunteer roles available during the Annual Conference include Reviewers, Chairs, and Discussants, including the Virtual Conference Day and all Council Pre-Conferences. If you are interested in other opportunities to participate in scholarly community with ASHE, please check out ashe.ws/get-involved.

All Chairs and Discussants must register for the ASHE Conference by Wednesday, September 3, 2025, 3pm Mountain/Denver Time and attend the ASHE Conference session(s) they are assigned.

Reviewers

Reviewers are needed to evaluate proposals in all conference sections and pre-conferences. Reviewers ensure the quality and integrity of the conference program. Ideally, they also provide ASHE members a valuable service by providing concrete feedback on their work, regardless of whether a proposal is accepted to the conference.

Interactive Symposiums, Self-Designed Paper Sessions, Research Papers, Scholarly Papers, and PVDS sessions will be assigned 3 Reviewers, with at least 2 doctoral/terminal degree holders (e.g. PhD, EdD, JD, etc.). The third Reviewer may be a doctoral candidate (meaning anyone who has defended their dissertation proposal) or a member with substantial research or practical expertise relevant to the proposal who does not have a terminal degree (e.g., a policy maker or policy researcher with 10+ years experience).

Posters and Works in Progress sessions will be assigned 3 Reviewers, with at least 1 doctoral/terminal degree holder (e.g. PhD, EdD, JD, etc.).

The Program Committee will make every effort to ensure that Reviewers receive proposals related to their area(s) of expertise in topic and/or method. At times, however, Reviewers may be assigned as a “higher education generalist”, who understands the general context of higher education and research methods, but may not have expertise in the specific topic or method. Ideally, at least two of the three assigned Reviewers will have knowledge in the topic and/or method, if not all three.

More information about the review process can be found at ashe.ws/review-process.

Most Reviewers will be assigned five to ten proposals, however Reviewers may be assigned up to 12. Reviewers have the option in the ASHE Conference Portal to select the sections for which they’d like to review as well as the maximum number of reviews per section. As a general suggestion, we ask each member who submits a proposal to volunteer to review at least 3 other proposals as each proposal requires 3 Reviewers.

Chairs

The Program Committee will assign session Chairs and Discussants to each research paper, scholarly paper, and PVDS session. Session Chairs will be assigned to Works In Progress sessions, but these sessions do not have a Discussant. Web-based training and a guide will be offered leading up to the Conference. Session Chairs facilitate the session by introducing speakers, keeping time, and moderating post-presentation discussions. Chairs should coordinate communication among the presenters and the session Discussant (if applicable). Session Chairs do not need to be a doctoral/terminal degree holder; this is especially a great volunteer opportunity for graduate students.

Discussants

The Program Committee will assign session Chairs and Discussants to sessions of research papers, and scholarly papers, and PVDS presentations. Web-based training and a guide will be offered leading up to the Conference. Discussants play an integral role in the quality of the annual conference. They read research and scholarly papers in advance of the conference and review notes provided by performance, visual, and digital scholarship presenters. They provide oral and written feedback to authors at the session and offer comments that inform and integrate the papers in the larger session. The Discussant’s comments should last about ten minutes. Critiques of individual papers and presentations should be framed constructively to assist the author(s) with revisions for publication. Discussant comments are most helpful when they integrate and emphasize how the paper topics, theories, study designs, and methods reveal or obscure important knowledge or ways of understanding key issues in the field. Discussants can volunteer to be assigned by the Program Committee for a session which will include Research Papers, Scholarly Papers, and/or PVDS presentations. For Self-Designed Paper Sessions, Discussants should be identified with the proposal submission. Discussants must be doctoral/terminal degree holders or members with substantial research or practical expertise (e.g., a policy maker or policy researcher with 10+ years of experience).