2004 Liaison Committee Report

 
Annual Report 2004

  Liaison and Site Host Committees

  Tom Poetter for Catherine Haerr, Joe Wegwert, Leslee Trammel

  Liaison Committee Report

  

Just a brief word at the beginning.  I think these are complete reports, but I could have gone on for pages and pages.  
I give the highlights and important points here in executive format. 

At last year’s C&P meeting in Decatur (2003), council folded the liaison committee and the site host committee together with me as chair.  
The rationale for this came from the fact that building connections with teachers and administrators for meeting attendance has been a 
local issue in the past and the work would be better left in the hands of those working in the local site.  That happened to be the Miami group.  
While many members of C&P are teachers and administrators and other members of the community not associated with higher education 
(as their primary role or occupation), the group has been committed to cultivating representative voices in our work and meeting, 
especially among these groups.  Recall the Liaison Committee’s work on the Decatur Conference to set up a special program for Georgia teachers 
(through the efforts of Donna Breault, Louise Allen, Nancy Brooks, Kris Sloan, among others).  In the case of the Ohio meeting, the council 
decided to direct the committee not to attempt to replicate the Decatur efforts of creating a special program for teachers, but instead to 
build connections so that teachers/administrators/community members could experience the program as members of the entire group.

The primary commitment of the committee then was insuring that members of the local public school district attended the meeting.
To this end, we were able to secure 12 scholarships from a grant to fund the registrations for local teachers interested in our work.  
These scholarships covered daily registrations (in a few cases full registrations) and substitute teachers if necessary. 
12 teachers/administrators did attend for all or part of the conference and made a substantive contribution to sessions.  
Two local teachers made presentations at the conference.

There were other noteworthy contributions by teachers/administrators/community members at the conference.  We can’t mention them all here, 
but recall Kevin Lydy’s group from Southern Ohio and the group of Elders from Cleveland helped us to connect with school and community issues.  
Local high school students attended with Amanda Luke, Miami doctoral student, to discuss their work on creating a teacher academy for 12th graders.  
We worked diligently to connect the local concerns over the Freedom Summer 1964 celebration to the conference in a curricular way through 
the Friday night symposium on the subject and the visit to the Freedom Summer Memorial on Western College Campus.  The weather cooperated 
and we had terrific turnout (80 attendees at the symposium and Memorial talk by Miami professor Rick Momeyer).  The connections with Miami 
personnel have been positive and productive for our group.  Several other Miami professors presented at other sessions as well 
(outside of the Freedom Summer Panel).  Their participation was solicited by the committee in letters to the faculty in the spring of 2004 
urging them to submit papers for presentation.  

  

The council did have substantive discussion about how to treat registrations for students (K-12 and college) and for community members whose 
lives and budgets don’t quite fit the structure of paying registration fees to attend and/or present.  The council waived several fees for 
individuals and groups.  This means that we had slightly more attendees at the conference than the  “official” count for registration suggests.

Site Host Committee Report

There are so many steps to tell!  Where to begin?  Well, for future reference for future site hosts, the beginning is the best place.

We secured the opportunity to host the 2004 and 2005 meetings first by putting together a bid to host.  This was accomplished in the 
spring of 2003; we attempted to meet all of the criteria set forth by Donna Breault and her committee.  We were the only site to present 
a complete bid at the Decatur meeting thus securing the opportunity to host.  Getting a jump on the process is critical; the university
facilities we are using for 04-05 must be reserved years in advance.  Even so, the choices of dates often can’t be consistent.  
Because of lack of availability, we had to settle for October 27-30, 2004 and October 5-8, 2005.  Some concern was presented at the 2004 
conference regarding the dates for 2005 and their possible conflict with other meetings.  Due to the scheduling of the Miami facility (tight), 
dates cannot be changed.  This may be true for other venues in the future.

We worked with the Marcum Conference Center Staff to make early decisions about the use of the venue.  The Center gave us an early indication 
that we would get excellent service from them: 

1) they extended the dates for reserving the hotel rooms at advertised rates late into October; 
2) they supplied personnel and equipment for AV support as part of the building rental; 
3) they worked closely with us to reserve and hold hotel rooms for our scholarship recipients; 
4) they negotiated lower rates for food service for lunches…etc.

  

Early on we worked very closely with Publications (Louise Allen) to start the process of preparing a brochure for the conference.  
I had a copy of the brochure Donna and Louise made for Decatur 2003.  Because we had the information for C&P 2004 close at hand, Catherine Haerr 
used that file to create template of a new brochure that publications vetted and that our Dean was able to pay for to format and copy.  We made 
several hundred color copies that were distributed at AERA and other meetings throughout the spring.  We will only have to make minor changes 
to the 2004 document for the 2005 brochure. 

The site committee made several significant contributions to the workings of the meeting.  We worked with Susan Edgerton to receive all the books 
from publishers here and set up the table for book sales.  Joe Wegwert had several signs made, one for a banner over the outside door 
(which can be used for 2005) and one for the registration table.   We worked closely with Morna and Susan to set up the reservations for housing scholarships.

Catherine Haerr (Treasurer) worked closely with people on Miami’s financial side to work out a system for accepting payments for registrations with a credit card.  
In the entire scheme of things, this is no small feat, on the front or back end.  I wish the best to the next site host trying to set it up.  
It was harrowing and complicated.  Thanks for Catherine and Wendy Walter-Bailey (Registrar) for making it work.

Nancy Brooks (Program) made an early trip to Oxford to visit the site and get an understanding of the building so she could visualize the sessions 
and their spaces for the final program.  We met with conference staff that day; the meeting produced many suggestions and offers of support as we discussed/brainstormed.

The conference dinner was held Friday evening at the Shriver Student Center just after the Freedom Summer Memorial Lecture by Rick Momeyer.   
Festivities included a buffet dinner, greetings from the Miami University Dean of the School of Education and Allied Professions (Dr. Sally Lloyd), 
and a presentation by Louise Allen to James T. Sears of the First Annual James T. Sears Award.

In closing, I’d like to echo most of the sentiments and feedback that Patrick Slattery expressed in his letter to the council soon after the meeting.  
I’ve been collating feedback/criticism of the meeting this year and it has been helpful for the most part.  As you know, it’s hard to judge when you are 
right in the middle of it, but I also feel the meeting has gotten stuffy.  We made a good decision to have a business meeting at the front end of the conference 
and at the end next year.  This should help lessen the feelings/perceptions that the council is a separate entity from the meeting and that from the inside we 
are just working ourselves to the bone at the meeting.   I just never anticipated the perceptions that would emerge.  You live and learn, I guess.  I also hope 
that the program committee will strongly consider coaching presenters to do less paper reading and engaging in more dialogue.  Also, we need more time/space to 
move and talk and relax.  This won’t be easy as we grow, but we need it.

We have a lot of work to do to make next year better.  I’d like to see us grow to 200 attendees.  I think the meeting space can hold us.  Can we cultivate that 
many committed members to join us again?  What are we doing that others aren’t doing?  What types of relationships are we creating that are different?  How is 
knowledge shared and created among us in unique ways?  How do we use what we have to advance an agenda of social justice, equity, freedom, and democracy?

I’ll look forward to your feedback and support for 2005.

Everyone should be thinking about encouraging someone/somewhere to host the meetings in 2006/2007.  We need at least one bid to vet at the 2005 meeting.   
Just for starters, our bid cost nearly $250 just to prepare materials.  Our previous Dean committed $500 per year over two years.  Our current Dean has upped 
that amount and is very happy to have us back again next year.  Our current Dean (Sally Lloyd) paid for the following items for the 2004 meeting:  the brochures; 
the programs formatting and copying; 2 vans on site for transportation in town during the conference; bus service from Marcum to Memorial Site to Shriver and back 
on Friday night; the Friday night bar/reception set up; banners and advertising.

Submitted January 4, 2005 by Tom Poetter