Dear Higher Education: Letters from the Social Justice Mountain

Dear Higher Education: Letters from the Social Justice Mountain, edited by Menah Pratt, Mercedes Ramírez Fernández, and Michele Deramo, and published by the University of Minnesota Libraries, welcomes contributions that speak to the potential impact of the United States 2024 presidential election outcomes and new administration on the immediate future of the academy and those of us working for equity in higher education.

Contributions will be organized into three sections:

• Why We Come to the Mountain addressing the fears, concerns and feelings of urgency among those working in higher education upon the immediate aftermath of the United States 2024 election and a new federal-level administration.
  
• What Must Be Preserved raising up those cherished aspects of higher education, such as academic freedom and research integrity, that may be at risk, as well as safeguarding the hard-won gains to make the academy a place that is welcoming, hospitable, safe, and accessible for all.  
  
• Why We Believe Transformation is Possible sharing ways that we resist the paralysis of fear and choose to act despite the obstacles we may face.

We are interested in hearing your voice. We ask that you format your contribution as a letter in conversation higher education. We offer these guidelines for organizing your thoughts:

• Introduce yourself
   Introduce yourself to the higher education audience: in addition to your institutional role(s), what is your social positionality? How does it matter for what you want to convey?
  
• What do you need to say?
  Share your message and then offer the reader (higher education) as a path forward. We can anticipate that readers will want to know—what's next? This is where you share the strategies, best practices, recommendations, and more that will make your “point” a reality.
  
• Finally—don’t forget to sign off on your letter!
  
• Initial Deadline:  February 28, 2025
  
• The recommended length is 3-5 pages, although longer contributions are accepted.

Please use MLA Style, following the format specifications described here:

• Use one font for all parts of the manuscript, preferably 12-point Times New Roman.
• Double-space throughout, including notes, block quotations, and works-cited lists.
  
• Use the tabulation key rather than the space bar to indent text.
• Set off quoted text of more than four lines of prose or more than three lines of verse as a separate, double-spaced block of text, with an extra line above and below.
• Minimize formatting in the text: do not use all caps, display type, linked text, etc. The production formatter will apply the appropriate formatting, and additional design work will be done in production.
• Do not use bullets or ornaments. Lists should be unnumbered unless the numbering is meaningful in some way, such as sequential steps. Do not use automatic hyphenation.
• Use italics to indicate text that will be italicized. Avoid italics for emphasis.
• Use epigraphs sparingly and keep them brief. Place heads and subheads flush left. Differentiate head levels by using boldface for level-1 heads, normal type for level-2 heads, italics or underlining for level-3 heads.
• Do not use “Introduction” or “Conclusion” as titles of heads or subheads. For an untitled concluding section, leave a blank line before the section. Appendixes should supply necessary supplements to the text and be as brief as possible.
• Number pages consecutively.

Regarding citations-

• A full works-cited-list entry must be provided for every work quoted, discussed, described, or referred to in a substantive way in the running text, the notes, and the appendixes (see the guidelines on creating works-cited-list entries in the most recent edition of the MLA Handbook).
• Include a URL or DOI for Web sources (see the guidelines on The MLA Style Center).
• When two or more works are cited from one collection, a complete entry should be given for the collection and individual pieces should be cross-referenced to it (see the guidelines on creating cross-references in the most recent edition of the MLA Handbook).
• Works Cited should appear in a single list arranged alphabetically.

Please submit your letter and a professional bio to deramo@vt.edu.

Questions? Please reach out to Michele Deramo, deramo@vt.edu.

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