Meeting Committee

The Milwaukee meeting is, overall, intermediate in size between the 2004 meeting in Portland and the 2006 meeting in Memphis and considerably smaller than the recent joint meetings (2005 Montreal with INTECOL and 2007 San Jose with SER) (Table 1). 1) Symposia and Organized Oral Sessions We received 39 Symposium proposals (compared to 38 for 2006 meetings and 56 for 2007) and 24 Organized Oral Session (OOS) proposals (compared to 7 for 2006 and 30 for 2007). The Symposium proposals do track roughly with overall meeting size, but the number of OOS proposals is not consistent with previous indications that these would also track with meeting size. Several Symposium proposals were moved to OOS after the review process. Criteria for review of proposals were revised somewhat from previous years, to reflect in part an emphasis on the meeting theme related to education. As in previous years, proposals were reviewed rigorously. Symposium proposals were reviewed by Section and Chapter Chairs, recent Program (Co-) Chairs, and the Program Assistant. OOS proposals were reviewed by the Director of Science Programs, members of the Science Program Steering Committee, Local Host Chairs, recent and incoming Program (Co-)Chairs, and the Program Assistant. Program Chairs and the Program Assistant reviewed all proposals; other reviewers received subsets of proposals such that each proposal received 8–10 reviews. Final selections were made by the 2008 Program Chair with concordance of the recent and incoming Program Chairs. Organizers of 12 of the 15 Symposium proposals not accepted as Symposia were offered the option of restructuring proposed sessions as Organized Oral Sessions (9) or Special Sessions or Workshops (3); most accepted this opportunity, but a few declined. Of the 24 OOS proposals, 18 were accepted (several contingent on increasing numbers of committed speakers or other modifications). 2) Contributed Oral and Poster Sessions: The ratio of contributed oral to contributed poster papers has stayed fairly constant over the recent non-joint meetings, and the type of requested presentation was not a factor in the review of these contributions, as there was adequate space for all. After initial clustering of papers by author-selected key words, the Program Assistant and Chair placed contributed papers in sessions. Aleta Wiley (Program Assistant) took primary responsibility for creating poster sessions and doing a first draft of possible contributed sessions. The Program Chair then modified the number and structure of the contributed oral sessions. Authors chose up to three of five broad “thematic categories” (ranked in order of preference) to guide assignment of their paper to sessions. Based on author-generated key words from previous year submissions, we developed pull-down lists of up to a few dozen keywords for each of the five thematic categories. While authors were also allowed to create their own key words, the vast majority used those provided. This standardization of key words made a first-cut grouping of similar abstracts much easier. We received very few complaints concerning assignment to session, and several of these concerned scheduling, not topic; for those concerning session topic, we were able to reassign to satisfaction of authors. As in other recent years, the Program Assistant and other staff read all submitted abstracts and flagged those that appeared not to meet the requirement that abstracts present new results (i.e., were not based only on proposed research or anticipated results or re-presentation of previous results). This process was made somewhat easier due to the requirement this year to break down the abstract into a Background/Methods and a Results/Conclusions section. All abstracts flagged as possibly not being acceptable were reviewed by the Program Chair. Several authors were offered the opportunity to revise abstracts. Ultimately, 7 contributed orals and 4 contributed posters were rejected. The more efficient database management and web-based submissions permitted us to publicize accepted OOS's early enough to allow authors of contributed abstracts to review OOS titles and indicate whether they believed their paper would be a good “fit” for an accepted OOS (OOS organizers can invite only eight speakers, leaving two slots available for papers from the general pool of contributed abstracts). The Program Chair reviewed abstracts for these papers, and many of the open OOS slots were filled by selection from this self-identified pool; as necessary, the Program Chair selected other contributed papers to fill OOS's (this was facilitated by relative ease of searching abstracts in the on-line database). In several instances, large numbers of contributing authors indicated the same preferred OOS, and, where appropriate, we used these self-generated groupings to create thematically “partnered” contributed oral sessions. Ultimately about 50 contributed abstracts were assigned to OOS's. Unlike at the previous meeting, there was adequate space for all contributed oral presentations. Thus there was no need to request that orals be moved to poster sessions. Posters were assigned to 88 sessions; the increased number of poster sessions compared to recent years is due to finer topical subdivision, particularly of the previously lumped Latebreaking posters into 19 poster sessions. As in the last two years, we have scheduled three brief orientation sessions for volunteer presiders of the Contributed Oral Sessions. We attempted to schedule Symposia, OOS's, and contributed oral sessions: (a) to minimize conflicts between sessions on similar topics, (b) to place closely related sessions in sequential periods, and (c) to match anticipated audience size to room size. This was one of the most difficult aspects of the program development as there are too many sessions on some topic (e.g., invasives) to completely avoid overlap. 3) Workshops and Special Sessions Proposals for these sessions were reviewed by the Program Chair and Program Assistant. As for last year, “Evening Sessions” and “Special Sessions,” listed as separate categories in previous years, were combined in the Call For Proposals, since these categories were conceptually similar, differing only in scheduling. Proposers were invited to indicate a preference for an evening or lunchtime slot. 4) Local Host Committee and Field Trips The Local Committee chaired by Gretchen Meyer organized a program of 14 field trips and tours with diverse focus. The Local Host Chair also participated in the proposal review process. Following on last years first “Recent Advances” Plenary Lecture, we invited Diane Ebert-May to provide a review of recent advances in educational research, consistent with the theme of this meeting. The mission of this lecture, as described on the web site, is to help ecologists stay abreast of exciting, current developments across the growing breadth of ecological science: “Recent Advances talks are designed to address this need by providing current, high-level synopses of timely issues, precisely for the broad community of professional ecologists. Topics will be different each year, and speakers will be selected for their capacity to offer a synthetic and up-to-date perspective for their colleagues.” We again expect that the talk will be followed by a paper to be published in one of the Society's journals (possibly Frontiers). While the first of these was scheduled in a late evening. For 2008 we have scheduled it over a lunchtime period, with few overlapping sessions We again will be hosting a nonticketed Undergraduate Student Orientation and Mixer, intended to help undergraduate students enter the dynamic of the meeting and to meet peers. ESA Bulletin Editor-in-Chief Ed Johnson invited a selection of symposium and OOS organizers to prepare a postmeeting summary of their sessions for publication in the ESA Bulletin. This is the first year we have organized a Teacher Day oriented toward educators from the region as well as those attending from afar. Details of organizing this were carried out by a Committee established soon after the 2007 meeting, with input from the ESA Education staff, the Education Section, and the Student Section. A single day was chosen for this in midweek, and input from the Committee was used in scheduling appropriate Symposia and OOS for that day. ESA donated free one-day registration for a limited number of participants in this event. An application process was established for this occasion, as well as a review carried out by the Committee. This is the second year for which CONFEX managed the web-based proposal and abstract submissions and database management for the meeting. There were numerous expansions of reports beyond those available last year that eased the development of the program. Relatively few problems were noted with the system, and these were corrected when possible very efficiently. A major lack is the ability to most effectively create sessions that do not overlap greatly in content. While the Program Chair had wished to investigate some multivariate methods to carry out clustering of talks and optimal scheduling, this was not feasible for him to do, given his other responsibilities. If the ESA were to develop such a set of methods in conjunction with CONFEX, it could be a commercially viable product. This is the first year in which we instituted separate blocks in the abstract submission for Background/Methods and Results/Conclusions. The Meetings Committee had approved this as a means to further indicate that abstracts must contain new results. The space available was also expanded as a step towards possibly permitting much longer extended abstracts, as is done by several professional societies. As we do not print abstracts any longer, and there is no real additional cost to allowing longer abstracts, there really is no reason to limit the length of abstracts. The limitation arises from the review process, if we move to longer submissions that, as in some fields, count as a peer-reviewed publication. We did receive a few complaints that this block format for abstracts is not appropriate for some Symposium presentations with emphasis on synthesis rather than new results. In order to encourage potential sponsors (Sections, Chapters, etc.) to consider collaborating on developing Symposia, we for the first time established “Primary” and “Secondary” sponsorship options, in which a sponsor could choose only one primary endorsement but several secondary ones. This was in part driven by the interdisciplinary theme of the meeting and the continuing issue that there are fewer Symposia slots than potential sponsors. Relatively few Sections made use of the secondary sponsor options, though. Sponsorship is only one of the criteria used in reviewing proposals. One of the most disruptive aspects of the Meeting is withdrawals, especially those occurring late, and “no-shows.” We established a new punitive response this year that we have some anecdotal evidence is effective in encouraging submitters of abstracts to realize that submission of an abstract is an obligation to attend. We instituted a policy that late withdrawals and no-shows would restrict the presenter from giving a presentation at the next year meeting. Presenters who cancelled after 15 May 2008 will not be allowed to give a presentation at the 2009 ESA Meeting, and presenters who fail to appear for a scheduled presentation and who do not give any prior notice to ESA will not be allowed to give a presentation at the 2009 and 2010 ESA Meetings. Although tracking these individuals presents some difficulties, we expect that it will be feasible. We have a procedure for emergency cancellation situations and do encourage those who are in such situations to inform us and find an alternative presenter if at all possible. We do not have statistics concerning withdrawals for this year, but will evaluate this to determine if the new polices are an effective deterrent. We have continued the policy of requesting a credit card to charge a cancellation fee to those who do cancel late. However it is not clear this is cost-effective in terms of staff time, because tracking down charges for those who submitted incorrect card numbers is very time consuming. Throughout this, our objective is to reduce the number of submissions which amount to “place-holders” for work not yet ready for presentation. We continue to be concerned about the cost of attendance, and have received some complaints, particularly from students, about both this and the lack of “free food and drinks.” Although we have included an additional “free lunch” as part of the Exhibit opening, we encourage ESA staff to continue efforts to find some way to have additional food available. The theme for the 2009 Annual Meeting in Albuquerque is “Ecological Knowledge and a Global Sustainable Society.” The Program Chair is Scott Franklin and the Local Host Chair is William Pockman. Planning for this meeting is underway, with the Meeting web site being opened in mid-July, and the call for symposium and OOS proposals being posted. Also, a list of potential field trips has been compiled, and Manuel Molles has been contacted to write a short piece about the regional setting of the meeting. The locations for future meetings approved by the Governing Board are as follows: 2009 Albuquerque, 2010 Pittsburgh, 2011 Austin, 2012 Portland, 2014 Sacramento. Sites for the 2013 and 2015 meetings are now being considered. A long list of 14 potential sites, with information on their facilities, was submitted to the Governing Board at their May meeting. The Board narrowed them down to a short list of four sites: Minneapolis, Boston, Baltimore, and Fort Lauderdale. Katherine McCarter, Michelle Horton, and Kiyoko Miyanishi will be visiting these sites in the fall to collect more detailed information and to prepare reports on each of these sites as well as a recommendation to the Board. Local Host Chairs have been identified for meetings up to 2012: Steve Tonsor, University of Pittsburgh (2010); Norma Fowler, University of Texas at Austin (2011); and Mitch Cruzan, Portland State University (2012). Program Chairs for these meetings are expected to be appointed by the Governing Board shortly. The Meeting Committee has submitted a proposed change to the bylaw on the composition of the committee to reflect changes that the Committee has made over the past few years: (1) having the past Program Chair instead of the current Program Chair co-chair the Meeting Committee with the Future Meeting Chair; and (2) including the Chair of the Student Section as a regular committee member. The vote on this proposal will take place at the August 2008 Annual Meeting in Milwaukee. The Committee re-visited the Education Exemption to the One-Presentation Rule that was introduced in an attempt to increase the number of education presentations (oral and poster). The purpose was to evaluate the effectiveness of the exemption in achieving its objective as well as to assess the continued need for the exemption given the success of the Education Section in attracting members As indicated by data on education presentations over the 10-year period (1997–2007) shown in the chart, there has been a fairly steady increase in such presentations. Note that the numbers here only include those abstracts slotted in education-themed sessions, and do not include any education-themed presentation given in a session that was focused on some other topic. For the last four years shown in the above graph, the numbers have fluctuated between 53 and 74; however these fluctuations seem to represent differences in meeting size, since the percentage of the total abstracts represented by education abstractions has remained constant at a little over 2%. On the other hand, for the 2008 meeting in Milwaukee, with its education-based meeting theme, the number of education abstracts is 226 (9% of the total abstracts). It is expected that this number will likely decrease in subsequent years.The number of people using the exemption is small (7–15 in the years 2005–2007) but their abstracts represented a significant percentage (13–21%) of the education abstracts. Therefore, the exemption does appear to be having an impact and the consensus of the committee was to allow it to continue for the foreseeable future.

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