It's April and Conferences Are Over!!

I finally feel as though my position at the Campaign is starting to wind down. I still have plenty to do. In fact, I am sure that I could sketch out enough projects to last me through my final day--somewhere around the end of May. But now that I have a firm grasp of almost all of my responsibilities until then, I have become aware of how limited my time at work is and how quickly the spring is encroaching on us.

Most of February and half of March I spent planning 2 large conferences for the Campaign: "Safeguarding Sound Basic Education in Hard Economic Times." Though I did some minimal event planning in the fall, I had never before planned any large-scale work-related event from start to finish. What was most intimidating was planning 2 invite-only conferences--one at Columbia University and one in the Albany area--for some big-time players in the education policy world. Read more about the conferences here.

At first, I could not wait for the conferences to occur and thought that I would be intellectually bored. This was not the case. When sending out invitations and calling individuals about their RSVP information, I was able to talk to interesting and important leaders and learn about a variety of organizations across the city and state. I learned how schedulers fill a Congressman's schedule. I learned how deeply appreciative many public sector employees are of substantive, innovative conversation related to better providing the support services and resources that students need to have meaningful educational opportunities. I learned how to more efficiently use Excel :).

And I learned how much time and effort goes into planning a panel/conference/event from the name-tags to the microphones to the hand-out folders to the catering. There are so many small details that go into planning events that I never had thought about.

Forever more, I will sincerely think the event planner of any conference that I attend. This is a promise that I made to myself after more than a few late nights at work. I hope that you do, too. Without that planning, the spirited and thoughtful collaboration, discussion, and arguments may never have taken place at all.

But I am certainly happy that March is over; I may now be happier about writing and conducting research solely behind my computer screen for a while . . .