March 21st, 2026 from 1:00pm - 5:00pm

This course offers professional development training for scholars of international affairs seeking to conduct more public or policy engagement. It brings together the core content of two longer-form, well-established professional development programs: the International Policy Summer Institute, a curriculum for international affairs scholars who want to build the tools and networks to produce and disseminate policy-relevant academic research; and the Responsible Public Engagement Initiative, which addresses challenges around direct engagement with policy actors at various stages of the research and dissemination process. It also draws on the innovative work of the Research on International Policy Implementation Lab, a leader in efforts to co-create knowledge through partnerships between scholars and practitioners.
 

This workshop is sponsored by the "Promoting Ethical Approaches to Policy Engagement" project, a research initiative based at the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs and funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

March 21st, 2026 from 1:00pm - 5:00pm

Visual presentations are a key vehicle to inform and convince others. Scholars present their research at conferences, and instructors present ideas in the classroom. In creating their visual presentations, most people need to rely on their taste or on pre-manufactured templates. Few people have had the opportunity to acquire the specific knowledge and skills to make presentations visually impactful, look professional, or just aesthetically pleasing. Participants will learn about fundamental design principles — such as contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity — and branding principles, such as consistency. They will also discover the century-old craft of typography that underlies all professional visual communication, learning about the difference between typefaces and fonts and suitable combinations of typefaces. Participants will sharpen their understanding by analyzing their own slides. Participants will then learn about master and layout slides, which make it easy to reuse designs and ensure consistency across slides. Under the guidance of the instructor, and they will create the foundations for their own “on-brand” PowerPoint templates. After attending this workshop, scholars will have gained insights and practiced the skills to create professional presentations that effectively capture attention and distinguish them from their peers.