Supplemental Call for Student Research Papers With CMS-Provided Mentoring

Submission Deadline: 11:59 pm Mountain Time on Thursday, May 29, 2025

The College Music Society (CMS) is pleased to announce its 68th National Conference in Spokane, WA, October 30–November 1, 2025, in conjunction with the 2025 National Conference of the Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI).

The  2025 CMS National Conference Theme is “Creative Ecosystems: Music, Research, Practice, and Impact.” Aiming to explore the interplay between music, research, practice, and their collective impact of the 21st century through the lens of the CMS 2024-2025 Common Topic, the 2025 CMS Program Committee welcomes proposals for scholarly research papers from current students and 2025 graduates for a special session during the National Conference that highlight current practices, innovations, and contributions pertaining to:

• Global perspectives on music and student belonging by exploring music’s capacity to foster a more vibrant and inclusive cultural landscape within higher education to affirm unique voices. 

The spoken presentation is limited to 12 minutes. An additional 5 minutes will be allotted following the presentation for discussion and/or questions as appropriate. 

As part of this special session, invited presenters will be paired with faculty mentors from within the CMS membership. In the months prior to the conference, mentors will reach out to their assigned presenter and help them with their final preparations. Mentors will assist with the format of the paper and offer helpful guidance in terms of topic and paper development. The goal of this session is to give space for all CMS student members to come together and learn from, and with, a select group of researchers, as well as to extend the networking web facilitated by The College Music Society. 

Please note: Papers are the only accepted proposal format in response to this special Call. Please do not submit proposals for demonstrations, lecture-recitals, panels, posters, performances, or workshops, as they will not be considered. 

CONSIDERATIONS

• Before submission, proposers must communicate with all co-presenters regarding their interests and availability. Proposals not listing all participants will be deemed incomplete and will not be considered.
• All persons whose work is selected for inclusion in the program are expected to register for and attend the full conference. If the proposal is accepted, proposers will be asked to communicate with all participants in the presentation to ensure their registration by early summer 2025. At its discretion, the Program Committee may exempt specific individuals, such as non-music professionals, from the registration and membership requirements. It is the responsibility of the individual who submits the proposal to, upon acceptance, make conference planners aware of any non-music professionals involved in their presentation and to request such exemptions.
• The College Music Society does not fund the travel expenses of accepted presenters; however, student presenters are eligible to receive travel support from The CMS Fund. Please contact the CMS Managing Director at [email protected][email protected] for more information about this funding opportunity. 
• Proposers must submit their own work and may not submit proposals on behalf of their students or others. 
• Proposals of a commercial nature that promote products and services will not be considered. Companies, organizations, or individuals interested in presenting a session of this nature should contact CMS Managing Director [email protected] for information surrounding conference sponsorships and exhibiting opportunities for industry partners. 

ELIGIBILITY

• The Primary proposer must be a current student member of CMS. If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please check your membership status well in advance of the submission deadline. Please note the processing time for membership applications and/or renewals is 1–2 business days.
• Co-facilitator(s) do not need to hold CMS membership status at the time of submission; however, if invited to the program, they will need to join the organization. 
• Not a CMS Member yet? You can register for a CMS Trial Membership for just $20. 

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION & PARTICIPATION POLICY

• The CMS Program Committee has issued seven Supplemental Calls for inclusion in the 2025 National Conference. Members are permitted to submit one response per call (for example, one proposal for audiovisual scores, one proposal for Roundtable Think-Tank participation, and one proposal for Table Talks).  
• If a member submits more than one proposal to the conference, each submission should be unique and content may not be duplicated, either in response to this Call or any other Calls for this conference, including proposals submitted to ATMI.
• Members may give a maximum number of two presentations, in total, at the 2025 National Conference, regardless of the organization on behalf of which they are presenting (for example, two presentations associated with CMS, or one presentation on behalf of CMS and one presentation on behalf of ATMI, or two presentations on behalf of ATMI, etc.). Questions surrounding this policy should be directed to CMS Managing Director [email protected].
• Submitters may not send the same or very similar proposals to both CMS and ATMI.

PREPARATION OF MATERIALS

• To support the anonymous review process, the name(s) or affiliation(s) of anyone involved in the presentation should not appear in the title or abstract, nor in the file names or body of submitted supplementary materials, as submissions are evaluated anonymously. Proposals identifying the proposer or co-presenters will be disqualified. Names and affiliations may appear in the “Co-Facilitator” section of the proposal and in submitted biographies, however, as the review committee will not have access to this information. 
• The CMS conference submission process is powered by Submittable. To submit a proposal, please (1) log in to the CMS members-only website using your username and password and then (2) click the “Submit” button at the bottom of this call. You will be directed to Submittable to complete your proposal. If you don’t already have a Submittable account, you will be prompted to create one (click here for help using Submittable and to view a list of Frequently Asked Questions).

A complete proposal includes:

1. The proposal’s title. 
2. An abstract of 250 words or less. The Program Committee chooses presentations based primarily on the abstract as submitted, so it is important to write an abstract that the Committee will understand and can evaluate fairly. The purpose of the abstract is to convey to the reader what will be said in the presentation. Do not merely describe the subject or list the topics to be covered. Rather, state the main point of the presentation, outline the subsidiary points, and summarize the evidence offered, so that someone who has not heard the presentation can know in brief what it will say and can evaluate its contribution to our knowledge and understanding of music. The abstract, like the presentation itself, should be clear to an audience of musicians and music educators of all kinds, not just to those with a narrow specialty. While it may be necessary to set the context or lay out the problem to be addressed, this should be kept to a minimum. 
3. You may add up to 3 supporting materials to your proposal (optional). These can include printed music examples, photos, statistics, or relevant data. Do not include lengthy documents, dissertations, CVs, resumes, or PowerPoint presentations. Neither file names nor uploaded materials should identify the proposer or any other collaborators. 
4. A list of required equipment and Internet needs.
5. A biography of the proposer and each co-facilitator, if applicable (250-word maximum per person). 
6. Contact details for all personnel involved in the presentation, including an email address, mailing address, and phone number for each person, as well as individual institutional affiliations, if applicable. 

When referencing one’s own previously published research, the proposer should refer to such research in the third person to avoid identifying themselves. For example, hypothetical proposal submitter D. Graham should write, “D. Graham’s article, ‘XYZ,’ summarizes pertinent issues,” instead of writing, “My article, ‘XYZ,’ summarizes pertinent issues.” The wording in the first example protects the anonymity of the author, while the second compromises the author’s anonymity by linking the author of the proposal to previously published work by a named author.

Submissions that do not conform to the above guidelines will not be considered.

TIMELINE

Proposals must be submitted by 11:59 pm Mountain Time on Thursday, May 29, 2025. 

Proposers will be notified of their status by Tuesday, June 17, 2025.

QUESTIONS?

Questions regarding this call should be directed to: [email protected], 2025 Program Chair

Questions concerning conference operations should be directed to: [email protected], CMS Conference Planner