Eastern Colleges Science Conference Inc.
Meeting Sourcebook
Contents
Introduction
Note: The appendices are not on-line, but will be included in the hardcopy package:
Appendix A Example of first mailingAppendix B Example of second mailing
Appendix C Example of program
Appendix D Evaluation forms for speakers and poster presenters
Appendix E Sample letter to a potential judge of submitted papers
The purpose of the Eastern Colleges Science Conference is to provide a forum for exchange of scientific ideas among undergraduate students. At the conferences, students present their research findings in the three presentation modes used by scientists world wide: written papers, oral platform presentations, and oral poster presentations. Students also have an opportunity to field questions from faculty and student conference participants. In communicating their research findings to the scientific community, the students complete the final step in the scientific process which began with stating a hypothesis, designing experiments to test the hypothesis, and drawing conclusions from the data. Student participation at Eastern Colleges Science Conferences is enriching because the experience helps prepare the student to deliver presentations in graduate school or industry.
The purpose of this Sourcebook is to assist prospective hosts of Eastern Colleges Science Conferences with conference preparations. Over the years there have been many excellent conferences and each one has been different and has reflected the characteristics of the host institution. Because of the differences among host institutions, there isn't a single perfect way to run a conference. Therefore, the information contained within this document should be regarded as a series of recommendations and a list of areas of consideration that hosts should contemplate in planning a conference, keeping in mind that there may be some aspects of planning the conference that are unique to your institution. Throughout the planning process, hosts should keep the purpose of ECSC in mind.
In the past 50 or so years, there have been many hosts of the ECSC conference which have encompassed a large geographical area. Conference participants have traveled as far south as Raleigh, NC, as far north as Fredonia, NY, as far east as Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and as far west as Pittsburgh, PA. Conferences have been held at small liberal arts colleges, at state universities, and at the United States armed services academies in Annapolis and West Point. The opportunity to experience a wide variety of different locales has enhanced the ECSC experience for faculty and student participants.
Preparation of a bid to host an ECSC Conference
The necessary arrangements to submit a bid to host a conference must be made by the prospective conference hosts. The ECSC Board must assume that bids are submitted in good faith. It is the responsibility of the Chairman of the Board to communicate to the prospective hosts that a bid has been accepted.
Selecting the date of the Conference
In the past two decades, the ECSC Conferences have been held in March and April. There are several considerations to keep in mind when selecting the date for the conference. Conferences held in early March require abstracts to be submitted by early February, which might not give students enough time to complete their work. In some areas of the country, inclement weather is a likely possibility in early March. A late April or early May conference date might interfere with end-of-semester student activities, final exams, and graduation ceremonies. Therefore, a conference date between mid-March and mid-April will probably be the most convenient for the majority of conference attendees, keeping in mind that religious holidays, spring breaks, and national tests such as the MCAT, LSAT, and GRE occur during this time.
Finances
Funds from the hosts of the previous conference
It is expected that the hosts of the previous conference have a positive balance of funds that can be used as "seed" money to fund the current year's conference.any such funds should be transferred to the Treasurer as soon as possible after the conference ends. Contact the Treasurer to determine which funds are available. On occasion, the conference hosts have transferred leftover funds to the Treasurer of ECSC (next section).
"Seed" money may be necessary to finance the first mailing that is sent out prior to the conference and before conference registrants have paid any banquet and registration fees. Once participants have registered and fees have been collected, conference organizers can use these fees to pay expenses incurred.
Other sources of funding
In the past, many host institutions have donated secretarial support, postage, photocopying and other miscellaneous expenses to support the conference. Prospective hosts should make the appropriate requests to their administrative officers to determine whether such contributions will be made. Donations from host institutions have helped keep registration costs down, which encourages attendance at the conference.
Hosts might also wish to solicit donations from outside sources to finance special events. In the past, ECSC has benefited from corporate sponsorship. For example, the banquet river cruises held when Duquesne was the ECSC host were made possible by corporate sponsorship. Sponsors may also provide free gifts to conference organizers, which can be handed out in "goody bags". If the hosts have secured sponsorship from any organization outside ECSC, that organization should be appropriately acknowledged in any conference literature, perhaps by displaying the organization's logo in the conference booklet.
Hosts should be as fiscally responsible as possible in order to ensure a quality conference. Cost overruns in the amount of $3000 have occurred for conferences held in 1997-99. This should be avoided in the future if possible.
Organizing the Conference
Typically a planning committee is established at the host
institution. The head of the planning committee should delegate
responsibilities to several other competent individuals on the
committee. Major areas for committee members to handle might be a)
hotel rooms, b) lunch/banquet, c) AV/video/computer equipment, d)
poster session, e) talk schedule/abstracts/booklet, f) organization
and training of the student volunteers (projectionists, moderators,
poster assistance, visitor directions, etc.) and g) recruitment and
organization of the judges.
Updating the Web Site
As soon as a firm date is set, contact Mike Adams
(adams@easternct.edu) so that the ECSC web site can start to carry
information about the conference. Additional information should be
send as it becomes available. All the information should be sent
electronically, so that it can be cut and pasted directly, without
retyping. Text should be in Word files and pictures either as GIF or
JPEG. Currently the site cannot handle online registration or
submission of abstracts, but can provide a link to your home
institution's site.
First mailing
A mailing list is available on disk from the organizers of the institution
who hosted the previous year's conference. Host institutions should update the
mailing list as necessary for future prospective hosts. A data base program
is helpful in compiling the mailing list. A copy of the current mailing list
should be provided to the ECSC Secretary. In the first mailing, recipients should
be asked to nominate a contact person for their institution. The first mailing
should arrive in early January so as to allow participants adequate time to
prepare. An example of the first mailing can be obtained from the chairman on
ECSC. The most important fact to convey in the first mailing is the conference
date and the deadline for abstracts and registration; the details of the conference
need not be completely worked out before the first mailing is sent out.
Second mailing
Hosts are encouraged to provide enough information in the first mailing
to insure participants of the deadline dates plus some other details of the
conference. The first mailing should be also include several references to the
website. Hosts should have a method of getting information on the website on
a timely basis. Hosts should note that there will not be a second mailing and
all new information will be available on the website.
Hosts are encouraged to scan the websites of previous hosts so they can pick
information that they would like to produce on their website. Most of the previous
websites cover the major issues to be addressed. If most of these major issues
are provided at the website WHEN the first mailing is made and the website is
cited very clearly, then the effort to establish ground rules should be easy.
Special Note: If for any reason hosts want to change
a procedure or any aspect of the first mailing and/or the website, the website
should state clearly what the ‘old’ procedure was and clearly state
what the ‘new’ procedure is. This method of clarification will avert
confusion. People do not like changes in procedures but if the changes are made
with enough lead-time, less stress will be produced for students and faculty.
This last section brings to mind that the first mailing and the website should
have statements to the effect that '‘please check the website frequently
for updates”.
A recent conference organizer commented that perhaps it would be a good idea to include instructions for abstract preparation and submission within the body of the letter. This organizer's institution received a great many abstracts in which the students did not follow the directions. Institutional coordinators could help out by checking each abstract as it is submitted in order to ensure that they have indicated type of presentation (platform or poster) and subject category and that they have adhered to the format specified by the conference organizers.
Abstract Categories
Abstract categories at ECSC have typically included the following
areas: anthropology, astronomy, biology, biochemistry, chemistry,
computer science, ecology, economics, engineering, environmental
science, mathematics, molecular biology/genetics, geosciences,
physics, physiology, psychology, and sociology. Conference organizers
may wish to subdivide these categories even further. For example,
chemistry abstracts may be subdivided into analytical, organic,
inorganic or physical chemistry. If there are enough submissions to
justify it, psychology abstracts could be subdivided into the
following categories: developmental; learning and cognition;
neuroscience; psychopathology; social and motivation; and media and
communication.
The purpose for classifying abstracts into different fields and subfields is to allow the conference organizers to plan sessions in which students assigned to a particular session all give talks in the same area. This also allows conference participants to choose to attend a session which is of particular interest to them. Care must be taken, however, to ensure that the sessions are organized in such a way that there are students in the session from different schools. Occasionally, a school will be fairly strong in a specific field and will send students to the conference who will all present their papers in the same session. Since students usually will attend session in which their friends are presenting, this has the effect of segregating students from other schools. This type of organization should be avoided if possible.
Deadlines
The abstract and paper submission deadlines have traditionally been
the same.
Platform Presentations
The time allotted for the platform presentation should be specified
in the second mailing so that students may plan their talks
accordingly. For example, if 20 minutes are allotted for each
platform presentation, this may allow 12-13 minutes for the actual
talk, 2-4 minutes for questions, and 2-3 minutes to prepare for the
next talk.
Poster Presentations
The size allotted for each poster must be specified in the second
mailing so that the students can design their posters appropriately.
On-line submission of abstracts
Recently, some institutions have given students the option of
submitting their abstracts on-line. This is an attractive option,
but there are some considerations that conference organizers should
keep in mind:
Verification of abstract receipt
Although the on-line submission process generally works well, it
is possible for abstracts to get lost. For this reason, the
conference organizers should send a short e-mail to each student
acknowledging receipt of their abstract. (This is in addition to the
automated web confirmation.) The on-line submission form should tell
the student to expect an e-mail confirmation, and that if none is
received, it is the responsibility of the student to contact the
conference organizers to verify that the abstract was received.
Format
The submission form should format each student's abstract in the
style that the organizers have chosen. Unformatted abstracts would
have to be either scanned or re-typed, which would be a great deal of
extra work for the conference organizers.
Multiple Submission Options
One recent conference host noted that allowing students several
choices (mail, FAX, on-line) of abstract submissions generated many
headaches when it came time to print the conference booklet. One
suggestion might be to have on-line submission be the ONLY option to
eliminate such difficulties.
Preparation of Conference Booklet
Enough copies of the conference booklet should be prepared for each
faculty and student conference participant. The conference booklets
should be distributed at early conference registration at the hotels
on the Friday evening preceding the conference, or at late
registration on Saturday morning on the day of the conference.
The conference booklet from CCSU from the 51st ECSC conference in 1997 is provided in Appendix C as an example of a typical conference booklet. In addition, James Belliveau at Providence College has ECSC booklets from the previous 20 years. The Conference booklet should contain the following information:
• A cover page, which should include the ECSC logo, the host institution name and logo, and the year and number of the conference (ie "___st Annual ECSC")
• Schedule of activities
• Letter of welcome from the organizers of the conference.
• A one-page history of ECSC.
• A list of previous host institutions.
• A list of speakers by session number, time, and room number.
• A list of posters with authors and titles, if possible (although some conference organizers have found that including this information made the booklet too costly)
• Abstracts
• A list of conference participants, with some kind of notation to identify faculty and students. Student names and abstract numbers should be cross-referenced.
Past conference organizers have noted that the most difficult aspect of preparation of the conference booklet was the abstract section. Some organizers have "cut and paste" submitted printed abstracts (assuming that all of the students have followed formatting instructions!). Others have elected to scan the abstracts so that the typeface would be consistent. This is a tedious process because the conference organizers need to go through the scanned abstracts and correct any unfamiliar symbols misunderstood by the scanner. An advantage of on-line submission is that abstracts would arrive at the host institution in the same format. Another alternative is to require students to e-mail their abstracts to the host institution as attachments in a specified word-processing document.
Judging Submitted Papers
In addition to abstracts, students may submit written papers of their
work to the host institution. The papers have the same deadline as
the abstracts. Upon receiving the papers, the host institution
sends them to the Chairman of the Board who sends the papers (with
names and institutional affiliations removed) to unbiased reviewers
for judging. A sample letter to a potential judge is shown in
Appendix E. Judges will also need to be recruited by the host
institution to judge posters and platform presentations on the day of
the conference. Judges should be recruited at least 30 days in
advance. Follow up with a phone call to confirm one to two weeks
before the conference.
Hotel Reservations
You cannot reserve the hotel rooms or banquet facilities too
early. This should be done 6 months if not 9 months before the
conference, depending upon your location. This has become especially
important recently since hotels change ownership and names overnight.
New owners will not always honor contracts made previously. (This
was the unfortunate experience of hosts of the Niagara University
conference.) If you can, write an extra clause into the contract
stating that the hotel management is responsible for all debts
incurred by their failure to uphold the contract.
Getting there
Signs
You can't have too many signs directing people to your campus.
Consider signs on the buildings where the sessions are to take place,
on the rooms (if not already obvious), in the hallways to direct
people to the rooms, and in the parking lots. One mechanism to
determine what you may need is to drive onto your own campus and walk
the route your visitors will take on that fateful Friday and Saturday
of the conference. There should always be a sign in view.
Friday evening activity
Many host institutions have had informal gatherings the evening
before the conference. Organizers should be aware that attendance at
such events is difficult to predict due to late arrivals, last-minute
work on presentations, etc.
Pre-registration
Early registration
A registration table at the "first choice" hotel the evening
prior to the conference is helpful to conference participants.
Distribution of conference materials can be done in a more relaxed
manner during early registration. Host institution representatives
can be on hand to answer any questions that conference participants
may have. Obtaining conference materials the night before the
conference is helpful to the students because they can check the
schedule of the events for the next day and can find out the time
when their oral or poster presentation is scheduled.
Registration the morning of the conference
Registration should be held at the host institution early in the
morning of the conference for participants who arrived late and were
not able to pick up their conference materials during early
registration. At least one person should remain at the registration
desk until all registrants have arrived.
Welcome
The welcome may be delivered during a common general meeting of all
participants, or alternatively, if a room large enough to hold all
participants is not available, the welcome may be delivered in
individual oral presentation rooms. The following information should
be conveyed to participants during the welcome:
• Location of session rooms, poster session, coffee breaks, lunch, banquet, etc.
• Any changes from the printed program (it might also be a good idea to post these changes in a central location).
• An explanation of how the integrity of the oral sessions will be maintained (for example, how presenters will be notified of time remaining during their talk.)
• An explanation of how the oral and poster presentations will be judged.
Each person participating in the opening address should be told that they are allowed no more than10 minutes to speak. Then allow 5-10 minutes travel time for everyone to reach the meeting rooms. This way the conference can start on time and the sessions can stay coordinated.
Platform Presentations
Oral presentations delivered during the meeting may be the first
formal research talk that the student has given and it is desirable
that the presentation process be as smooth as possible. Therefore,
it is very important that consideration be given to the conditions in
which the presentation be made. For example, student speakers
generally feel more comfortable if the room in which the
presentations are given is a typical classroom rather than a large
lecture hall or plush conference room.
Session Equipment
For both ECSC 2001 and ECSC 2002, over 95% of all platform presentations were
done using “power point”. The host is responsibly to communicating
the power point capabilities for the conference. Hosts must state clearly what
computer incompatibilities they are not capable of accomplishing. If you state
the above clearly, hosts will have fewer moments of stress during the sessions.With
regard to “Powerpoint”: sessions with “Powe point” operate
best if and when the individual presentations are loaded into a computer BEFORE
the session begins. Maybe several computer science students can be involved
with loading the various power point presentations into computers BEFORE the
sessions. This effort would involve platform presenters giving their power point
diskettes or CD’s about one to one and one-half hours before the session.
There should be extra laptop computers available so that these computer science
students can be loading a second set of power point presentations while students
are using the first set of presentations. A pitcher of water and glasses for
each speaker is a must.
It would also be a good idea to have a "preview room" where students could take their slide carousel, load it onto a slide projector, and verify that no slides have been inserted backwards or upside-down, and that two slides have not been placed in one slot, which could trigger an equipment failure.
It's a good idea to do a thorough AV/video/computer equipment check the night before the conference to ensure that all of the equipment is present and in good working order and that there are enough extra bulbs on hand.
Session Personnel
It is recommended that each presentation room be staffed with
three persons: an announcer, a projectionist, and a monitor. If
three people are not available, the room may be staffed with two
persons, with one person acting as both the projectionist and the
monitor. Room personnel should maintain a friendly, yet professional
atmosphere that puts speakers at ease and optimizes communication
among participants. All personnel should be instructed in the proper
use of the audio-visual equipment. The roles of each person are
described below:
Announcer: The announcer is responsible for announcing the title and author(s) of each talk. The announcer should consult with the presenter ahead of time to confirm the pronunciation of last names and any unfamiliar terms in the title of the talk. The announcer is also responsible for making sure that each talk begins and ends on time, and has general responsibility for maintaining the overall continuity of the session.
Audio-Visual Expert: There must be one student in each room that is
familiar with power point. If all of the power point presentations are on a
laptop computer BEFORE the session starts there should be fewer problems during
the session.
There must be at least one person that moves from class to class to determine
the status of the Powerpoint equipment and personnel. This requirement should
necessitate that classes are relatively in close proximity.
Monitor: The monitor should make certain that doors are closed during the session to ensure that hallway noise does not disrupt communications during the session, as this might be disruptive to the speaker. However, conference participants should still be encouraged to enter and exit as they wish. Notices posted on doors stating "Do Not Enter During Session" for front doors and "Enter Here"; " Please Close Door Behind You" may direct traffic in such a way as to be least disruptive to the session. The monitor may also indicate to participants that they could sit in the front of the room in order to make seats available to late-arriving participants.
Organization
If a discipline is divided into subfields with more than one
concurrent session, assign the subfields to adjacent rooms so people
can walk back and forth easily.
Poster Presentations
Poster preparation
Poster sessions have been popular at ECSC over the years. At the 2002 meeting
at CCSU, 70 posters were presented. In planning the poster session, conference
organizers should determine the maximum size of the poster and communicate this
information on the website. The website MUST state clearly what the host will
provide and what the presenters must provide. This clear statement will avoid
problems for hosts and presenters.
For poster sessions, enough room must be allowed for each poster. Each poster (which is approximately 1.5 meters wide) must have a width of 2 to 2.5 meters and a depth of 2 to 2.5 meters. These dimensions will allow enough room for viewers and presenters to interact without outside interference.
Generally, student posters are similar in design to those presented at national meetings. For a student audience, it might be appropriate to include more background information along with pictures and diagrams.
Poster set-up the day of the meeting
Two students from the host institution should be present to assist
other students during the poster set-up period.
The poster session
The conference booklet should state the exact times that the
poster presenters must be stationed at their posters so that poster
viewers can speak to the presenter. If a student is an author on
more than one poster, the posters should be located near each other
so that the student can be available to answer questions for both
posters. Faculty advisors should encourage their students to be
assertive during the poster session, and to offer to explain their
poster as potential viewers pass their stations.
Judging Platform and Poster Presentations
Conference organizers should identify potential judges as soon as
possible in the planning process. Judges may be faculty members from
the host institution or nearby institutions. (For example, the
Ithaca College conference organizers hired graduate students from
nearby Cornell University to serve as judges.) Judges may also be
selected among the faculty members who have committed to attend the
conference. However, no faculty member may serve as a judge in a
category where students from that faculty member's institution are
presenting.
Conference organizers should communicate specific instructions to judges as soon as possible after an individual has agreed to judge, as last minute communication of instructions tends to be difficult. Finally, it is a good idea to have one of the conference organizers be available to "troubleshoot" for the judges if the judges have any questions at all during the judging process.
Following the conclusion of the poster and platform presentations, all judges should meet in a single room to deliberate. Allowing absences or splitting into more than one room is ill advised. Open and rapid communication is essential in order to make decisions, decide on awardees, and print the certificates in a 30-60 minute time frame.
Judging
This section pertains to the judging of full-length papers, platform presentations
and poster presentations. The objective is to give awards to students that are
best in the category. The objective is not to give an evaluation of the materials
as a preliminary step towards eventual publication.
Full-length papers
Since the mid-1970s, full-length papers were judged by ECSC and awards have
been given to papers deemed superior. From 1990 through 2002, the Chair of the
Board of Directors has been in charge of having submitted papers reviewed. The
procedure for review of full-length papers is as follows: (1) upon receipt a
photocopy of the title page with authors names is photocopied, (2) a list of
colleges submitting papers is made, (3) a judgement is made as to faculty from
colleges that could judge the papers without conflict of interest, (4) such
faculty are contacted. (5) Once willing faculty agree to judge the papers, (6)
all names of authors and all affiliations to all institutions are deleted from
the copies and sent to the consenting faculty with a code name based upon the
title of the paper. After the papers are reviewed by at least 4 faculty, (7)
a list is transmitted giving the rank of the papers. Recommendations may accompany
this ranking. From these recommendations, awards are given.
Judging of individual papers by an individual judge is problematic. Judges have
prejudices toward subject matters and toward writing styles. Judges should try
to be as objective as possible realizing that a very low percentage of the participants
submit a manuscript for judging. Most judges will judge the manuscript as if
they are reading a laboratory report and/or a manuscript they have received
from a journal editor that is being considered for publication in a journal.
Students may want to view several journals for style and read the “guidelines
to authors” that are on-line for most journals. Of course, students that
submit full-length papers usually have the guidance of a research mentor that
has the basic knowledge of manuscript preparation. Students should follow this
basic knowledge since their mentors have been through the process.“As per
the guidelines of the ECSC Sourcebook, judging of full-length papers is for
the purpose of yielding a ranking of student papers for awards. The judges of
full-length papers will not provide a ‘typical manuscript review’
as is done by peer-reviewed referred journals”.
Platform presentations
Platform presentations have been judged from about the mid-1990s to date. Judging
of platform presentations is more difficult than judging full-length papers
because judges have less time to complete the task. Each talk is 15 minutes
long and the materials cannot be reviewed. The choice of judges is problematic.
Judges should be objective, should have accomplishment in the field and should
have no prior relationship with any of the institutions or persons in the session
being judged. With the above stated, there is the realization that the above
criteria may not always be met. Nevertheless, the host organizers must take
all of the above criteria in mind when they choose judges. Young adults have
a strong sense of when they have been the victims of an injustice and they usually
express this strong sense.
Within regard to numbers of award winners in a particular session, there should
be no pre-set number established by the host institution or by a judge. It is
possible that one session may have two excellent presentations while another
session may have no presentations that are excellent. In the former case, two
awards may be presented while in the latter case; no awards may be presented.
Of course in any system of judging platform presentations the objectivity issue
may arise. There is a certain amount of subjectivity involved because each criterion
on the judge’s evaluation sheet is a subjective score. Two judges in each
session is highly recommended but rarely obtained. The presence of two judges
with two subjective views of the same presentation may reduce any subjectivity
of one judge alone.
If possible, judges should not draw extraordinary attention to themselves. The
judging should be done quietly and judges should not convey, in any way, their
views regarding the talks to participates during the session.
Poster Presentations
Poster presentations have been judged from about the mid-1990s to date. Much
of the above information about judging platform presentations applies to the
judging of poster presentations. Two judges should complete poster presentations
if possible. The time to judge posters should remain at 1 hour (set at ECSC
2002) . This time period is necessary for judges to evaluate the posters. Participants
should not know the identity of judges of their poster. Judges should act like
any observer in the view of poster presenters and move to another location to
record their evaluations. The objectivity of the judges should follow that described
above for platform sessions. Judges should not convey, in any way, their views
regarding the poster to participates during the session.
Separate Criteria for Judging (sample
sheets)
Written criteria for judging must be available. Criteria for full-length papers,
Criteria for platform presentations, and criteria for posters should be clearly
stated. Each of the criteria categories above should be inclusive even if aspects
for one set of criteria are the same for another set. That is each set of criteria
should be complete and students interested in a poster session should not have
to refer to criteria for platform presentations. It is best if these criteria
are available on the website of the host at least one month prior to the conference.
In this way, students must know the criteria prior to the conference so they
may prepare appropriately.
Refreshment breaks
Location
The location of the refreshments should be far enough away from the
session rooms so that conversation does not disrupt the sessions.
Noise may be controlled by having refreshment breaks in a specially
designated room rather than a hallway.
Ambiance
Signs with the names of the participating institutions posted in the
refreshment area is a nice decoration.
Coatroom
A coatroom or coatrack should be provided so that participants do
not have to carry their coats with them during the meeting. A sign
should be posted indicating participants should not leave valuables
in the coatroom, as conference organizers will not be responsible for
the theft of any items.
Facilities
Place a special request with the facilities personnel to clean
and stock the restrooms immediately prior to the conference
weekend.
Lunch
At some institutions, faculty and student luncheons are held
separately so that the faculty may have a business meeting and so
that the faculty may be served alcohol, if the hosts desire. The
lunch period should last about an hour and a half, if possible. The
luncheon should be held in a location that is within walking distance
from the building where the oral and poster sessions are located.
(Including the lunch fee with the registration fee will make
participants less inclined to go off campus for lunch.)
Alternatively, faculty and students may have lunch together, and the
Faculty Meeting can be held at another time. For example, at Sacred
Heart University the Faculty Meeting was held during the second
poster session.
Faculty
The faculty luncheon provides a time for faculty to renew old
acquaintances and make new ones. A business meeting is held during
the luncheon which usually takes 15-30 minutes, depending on the
number of business items. The Chairman of the Board of Directors
will have the responsibility of presiding over the meeting.
Students
The student luncheon is held at the same time as the faculty
luncheon, but at a different location so that the students are not
present at the business meeting. Student attendance at the luncheon
can be encouraged by awarding prizes in a drawing. Student meal
tickets can serve as lottery tickets for the awarding of prizes.
Banquet
In the years 1998-2002 a common complaint was the poor food given to the students.
Attention might be given to improving this.
Arrangements
A sit-down dinner at a hotel is preferable. Attendance of about
220 people may be expected. A podium and microphone will be
required. A keynote speaker is not required, but may add
interest.
Seating
Seating for large groups (> 8 people) should be available at
the banquet so that institutions who have a large number of students
and faculty attending the conference can sit together. (Catering
staff at the Holiday Inn in Hartford became quite distressed when
students moved two tables so that a large group of 15 could sit
together. As much as we would like students of different
institutions to mingle, the reality is that students from the same
institution wish to sit together.)
Awards
Types of Awards
The type of award given to students for outstanding poster and
platform presentations is the discretion of the host institution.
Some conference hosts have given the students small sums of prize
money, while others have given subscriptions to scientific journals.
Others have elected to simply give award certificates to mark the
achievement. An additional option for submitted papers is a plaque,
since plaques can be ordered and engraved ahead of time.
Award Distribution
The distribution of awards should take place during dessert. A
photographer should be on hand to take pictures of the student
winners to be posted on the web site. Be sure to get the names, award
categories, and institutions of all award winners.
Social Activities Following the Banquet
Typically a dance or some sort of mixer is held after the banquet.
It is probably still a good idea to have such an event, even though
attendance tends to be low.
Financial Report
A financial report prepared within three months of the conference
must be prepared by the conference organizers. The State of Rhode
Island requires an annual report from organizations who wish to
maintain their status as a Corporation. Incorporation does not
confer tax-exempt status upon ECSC, however, so host institutions
should use their own tax-exempt status when making conference-related
purchases.
Income is provided by seed money, any corporate and private donations, registration and banquet fees, and subsidies from the host institution.
Expenses incurred by the host institution include, but are not restricted to, the following: photocopying, postage, refreshment breaks, banquet, luncheon, and awards and certificates.
Overall assessment
Within three months of the conference, hosts should provide comments
to the ECSC Board regarding material contained in the Sourcebook.
The Board will incorporate these comments in a revised edition of the
Sourcebook, which will be provided to the hosts of the conference for
the following year.