-Call for Proposals-

You are invited to join us at the SONA Conference 2007 in Quebec City, Canada from April 25 to 27th.
If you have a message for undergraduate and graduate students from Canada, the United States and Mexico, you are eligible to be a speaker at our conference.

Following our fifth year of building a sustainable trilateral student organization, student leaders -- graduate and undergraduate -- will assemble to continue student-led cooperation across national boundaries between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. The conference will offer the following session formats:


Panels:

Each panel will consist of an academic, and/or professional, who will successively discuss the topic over a 30 minute period. A student moderator will facilitate the discussions and draw conclusions from the dialogue. The proposed topics are:

1) United Nations Model Workshop. A simulation of the United Nations will take place at the SONA’ conference, and will address two mayor issues of the world (yet to be defined). Students will attempt to work as a unit and find solutions for these topics.

2) Managing Conflicts Effectively. This panel will provide students with tools for making good relationships with people, and will show them how to manage conflict using simple and effective steps by identifying strategies for dealing with any type of conflict.

3) Developing Negotiation Skills. Negotiation has shown to be an ongoing activity in groups and organizations. This panel will focus on developing and understanding basic negotiation skills that are essential in today's competitive environment. Bargaining strategies will also be stressed during this session in order for students to be able to apply them in their present or future jobs.

4) Research Projects Exhibit. Students from all over North America will have the opportunity to demonstrate their capability of success by exhibiting a project they have accomplished or that they are about to launch. This is a great occasion to gain experience and feedback from other students.

Click Here for Research Project Submission Information

Informational Sessions:

These presentations will cover the following topics:

1) Embracing our North American Culture. The student populations of North America are transforming through global change and becoming more diverse. Hence, it is of major importance to develop a sense of culture, to make them proud of their country and of who they are. Our North American identity must not vanish, it must instead be enhanced in order to be preserved, and we have to become aware of the potential risks of losing it.

2) Adapting to Multiculturalism in North America. As North America grows, so does its diversity and multiculturalism; it is therefore important to understand and acknowledge the merge of different cultures, identities, and traditions that people share in a same community. Through out North America there is an array of ideologies and in order to mainatain a harmonios relationship,  enrich our own culture, and adapt to an ongoing integration of the collateral countries, it is important to interact with our surrounding commuties and understand each other's philosophies.

3) International Ethics.

4) North American Integration in Higher Education Programs. The emerging trilateral cooperation between Canada, the United States, and Mexico has led to develop new models of higher educational opportunities via integration of telecommunications technologies into the distance teaching and learning process. As a result, there is an increasing demand for a flexible learning framework, one that does not tie the learner down to a specific time or place. While the educational model for delivering instruction broadens, institutions must extend educational opportunities beyond the traditional walls of the institution to utilize various means for distance education.

5) Economic Integration: Eliminating barriers in North America. Addressing the challenges for futher economic integration that will benefit Canada, the US and Mexico in a way similar to the European Union; making North America more competitive and efficient in today's world of fast economic growth by taking advantage of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

6) Tools for Professional Success. Leadership, entreprenurship, values, and teamwork will be stressed during this session; as well as how all of these factors relate to student mobility. Although these topics are very popular and sometimes even over-used, we tend to under-estimate their real meanings and functions.

Click Here for Information about proposals submission