Category Archives: Curriculum News

Apr 06 2022
Curriculum News, JCT Online News

2022 JCT Bergamo Conference CFP

Dear Friends of the Bergamo Conference and JCT,

The Journal of Curriculum Theorizing will host its 42nd annual conference gathering at Bergamo on October 13-15, 2022. We are hosting an in-person meeting and are looking forward to connecting with those who can come and are committed to creating a safe, dynamic, and strong conference experience. 

We intend to open the portal for submissions by April 25, 2022 through August 5, 2022. Our theme this year is “Living in the Shadows of Freedom.”

For this conference, we ask you to consider how scholar practitioners in the curriculum field understand, know, want, create, mistake, and treasure “freedom” in education, politics, religion, economy, health, sexuality, etc. from many perspectives? We aren’t hoping to solve the dilemma or eliminate the shadow of nuance of the concept of freedom in our own lives and experience, but to reveal and understand it more completely as we live through its contours and shadows. In short, how do we become more free?

2022-Bergamo-Call-2Download

We ask you to consider where scholars in the curriculum field see, feel, understand, know, want, create, mistake, and treasure “light” in the work and its manifestations in the world, in educational settings and others, where so much of our day-to-day existences are at stake. We invite participants to enter into complicated conversations with/for us about the presence or not, the intensity or not, the importance or not of “light” and/or “luminosity” in the curriculum field. How do curriculum theory and practice light the way or not?

Nov 08 2021
Curriculum News, JCT Online News

A Final Note on Bergamo 2021

Dear Friends, 
I wanted to send a warm thank you to everyone who was able to attend the JCT Conference on Curriculum Theory and Classroom Practice last month at the Bergamo Center in Dayton, Ohio.  We had such a good turnout for the meeting and the sessions and keynotes and community building moments reminded me of outstanding Bergamo meetings in the past. And it also had the warm feel of something new, with new relationships, new knowledge, and new horizons of hope and possibility for the field emerging.  Thanks for providing that with your work and your presence at the meeting together. 

I also want to say thank you to everyone who tried to come to the meeting and couldn’t, even after submitting a proposal and getting accepted, and in some cases planning to come.  Life in a pandemic presents difficult barriers, and these barriers kept some away.  I am hoping you are all well and thinking about joining us next year in Dayton for the meeting, October 13-15, 2022.  We missed you and hope to see you then.


And last, Jaimie Biermann and Jing Tan did such an outstanding job putting the program and the event together.  I owe them such a deep debt of gratitude for their effort and grace in all of the moments spent putting the meeting together for at least 6 months leading up to it.  Colleagues at Miami and the journal, Managing Editor Kelly Waldrop and Editors Denise Baszile and Brian Schultz, and our section editors Boni Wozolek, Paul Eaton, Aparna Tarc, Roland Mitchell, Xin Li, Jayna McQueen, and Jodi Googins all play such a huge role in pulling the journal and the meeting together this year.  And a rousing thank you for the outstanding keynote presentations/papers by Rob Helfenbein and Vonzell Agosto, which both really brought energy and new ideas to the meeting. 
Many thanks to all and here’s to a strong close to the fall semester, and a great year ahead in 2022, including our annual meeting next October 13-15 at Bergamo.


Best regards, Tom

Aug 11 2021
Curriculum News

2021 Letter to Accepted Authors

Dear Eminently Luminous JCT Conference Authors!                          

Congratulations on the acceptance of your scholarly presentations and themed panels and workshops for our conference October 7-9, 2021, at the Bergamo Retreat Center in Dayton, Ohio. We want you to know how encouraged we were in reading all of the proposals. The range of topics and ideas and insights will engage us all at the meeting and shed light on the field in the moment and for years to come. Thank you for your interest and commitment to the meeting and to each other as a scholarly community.

We are so excited to welcome our keynote speakers for the conference, Dr. Vonzell Agosto and Dr. Rob Helfenbein. Their work will be significant highlights of the meeting!

In addition to the joy of congratulations, there are a few things we want you all to know as you prepare for the conference.

Over the past two years, we have been working diligently with the Bergamo Center Staff to create a new economic and service model for the meeting. In the past, the JCT conference leadership team has been heavily involved in the meals and the guest room stay process. JCT purchased a digital platform every year to handle conference registrations, taking orders for meals and rooms because the Bergamo Center did not have its own system for it. However, in the past year, the Bergamo Center has established the capacity to manage reservations for its guest rooms, so the Bergamo Center will be handling all of that work this year and JCT will no longer be involved in room reservations or meal planning, selling meals, taking tickets, etc. To be frank, after the meeting in 2019, there was no way for us to handle that work going forward both in terms of labor and expense. It was nearly impossible to manage and this step keeps the next wave of conference leaders from taking that on in the future.

What this all means is that we were able to simplify the pricing for the conference and provide a stable, high quality conference experience with a reasonable conference registration rate for faculty ($200) and students ($150) that covers everything provided with one price: Continental breakfasts, lunches, morning and afternoon snacks, and evening social hour fare with cash bar services are included in each registration for all three days. Your registration fee also covers the rental of the facility, the presentation rooms, and the technology provided. This is a terrific rate and lower than almost any 3-day conference we know of. The major change is that the meeting will no longer offer meals at dinner time in the retreat center. But we trust that many of you will enjoy the area restaurants together and order in as you will. These changes were absolutely necessary for moving ahead, and we hope that you will continue to enjoy and appreciate the meeting despite the slightly higher registration fee this year.

Our partnership with the Bergamo Center is strong and we hope to continue meeting there for years to come. To keep that going, please book your guest room at the center. In addition, our conference registration deadline is September 7, 2021. Please register before the deadline. Go to the website for all your registration needs: https://web.cvent.com/event/3044647c-494c-4ebf-a771-c1a60ecf758a/summary

Register for the conference at the top of the page and book your rooms separately with the Bergamo Retreat Center at the bottom of the page.

After the September 7 deadline, we will construct the final program with only those who have paid their registrations for the conference. We will have a short grace period but close registration for authors who want to be on the program soon after (no later than September 21).

We hope to have a productive, exciting, and safe meeting in person in October!

If you have any questions or concerns about the conference registration, please feel free to email us at conference@jctonline.org. If you have any questions or concerns about the room reservations or meal planning, please contact the Bergamo Center at 937-426-2363. 

Many best regards,

Tom Poetter, Editor, JCT, President, Foundation for Curriculum Theory
Jing Tan and Jaimie Biermann, Conference Co-Chairs, Miami University