• After talking with many colleagues from Wisconsin state schools, it is our understanding that at least one professional staff and up to four students from Wisconsin state schools are allowed to travel in the current economic climate. Certainly this point is being interpreted differently from school to school. 

• This fall’s conference is only two days. There are no events on the schedule for Sunday. For some schools within a reasonable distance from Valparaiso, Ind., attendees can drive home Saturday night after the dinner and awards to save on a night’s hotel stay.

• Registration costs are down. Even though this is a combined conference, the Conference Planning Team made sure prices were affordable since costs are such a large issue for many schools throughout the region. You can see a complete price breakdown at the end of this e-mail. Be sure to register by Sept. 17 to save the most amount of money. 

• ACUI Vouchers. The ACUI Central Office has worked with the Conference Planning team to create Vouchers specifically for this fall’s Regions 8 & 9 Conference.  If your fiscal year is ending this month, you can purchase registration on this year’s budget if that makes sense for your current situation. You don’t even have to sign up specific staff and students at this point, just sign up for the number of spots you want to pay for in this year’s budget. Go to this site to sign up for vouchers.

• Scholarships from Region 8. Once again the Regional Leadership Team has decided to take the step to increase the number of scholarships offered to Region 8 members in order to give the experience of an ACUI conference to more staff and students. Right now, Region 8 is committed to provide 10 $400 scholarships that should easily cover registration, hotel, and travel expenses. More information regarding the application process and deadlines will be shared very soon. 

• Present an education session. If you are contributing to the education process by presenting a session to your colleagues, this may be another way to justify your attendance to the Regions 8 & 9 conference. We are currently accepting educational session proposals. Please submit them by July 30. If you plan to submit an educational session to the 2011 Chicago conference, you can submit to both the at the same time online.  

• Hotel in Chicago. Since Chicago is within the travel restrictions for many member schools, we wanted to offer this as an option. While the hotels in Valpo are very competitively priced, having this option in Chicago may allow many of you to attend. If you would like to stay in Chicago and drive to Valparaiso, Ind. (one-hour drive), please let me know and we can explore this option further. 

I am confident that the Regional Leadership Team and the Conference Planning Team are taking appropriate steps to make the conference more affordable and more flexible to staff and students in Region 8. The Regional Leadership Team and Conference Planning Team just completed two days of meetings at the Harre Union and it is one impressive new Union.  I hope all of you get to see it for yourself this fall. 

If you have any questions or feedback, do not hesitate to contact me at 847.467.7113 or j-mchaley@northwestern.edu.

Thank you,
James McHaley
Region 8 Director
847.467.7113
j-mchaley@northwestern.edu