Panel I U.S. - Mexican Economic Integration
Panel II Polocies for A New Social Agenda
| Conference Staff | ||
Thank You to Conference Staff By Joshua Bloom, "Alternatives for the Americas" Conference Coordinator The stunning success of "Alternatives for the Americas: A Dialogue" is due in no small measure to the deep commitment of conference staff, most of whom were unpaid for their efforts. The conference was organized in seven short weeks on the tightest of budgets. Thus, an extra effort was required at every turn to achieve the quality of event our participants deserved.Central to this endeavor were three graduate students, Shannon Nuttall in Education, Ingrid Perry-Houts in Latin American Studies, and Angelina Snodgrass in Sociology, who completed the thankless task of overseeing the arrangement of countless logistical details, from translation and room set up to meals and transportation. In an event such as this, the logistics are as crucial as they are mundane and the conference would not have been possible without this exceptional effort. Other graduate students as well as recent graduates that contributed significantly to the event were Autumn Alvarez on publicity and transportation; Kirstie Dorr on ushering; Dwight Dyer, Flavio Feferman, Misha Klien, and Adrienne Pine on translation; Sandy Nichols, Leah Rosenbloom, and Chris Selig on transportation; Abelardo Rodriguez on the Mexican press; and Tse Sung Wu on photography for the event. A team of undergraduate interns played instrumental roles in both organizing the event and implementing it with finesse. They put up posters, prepared mailings, set up rooms, put up signs, and ushered the public forum. Taken alone, some of the details attended to by these interns might have been overlooked. But together, they comprised the material context for the dialogue. From the arrangement of cookies on trays to the keeping of time, it was these interns' enthusiastic attention to detail which gave the conference its shine. The core team of interns was Cari Bower, Natali Clarke, Elizabeth Guzman, Michele Joyce, Benji Paradewalai, Julie Rodriguez, Todd Selby, Nich Thompson, and Keely Wachs. In addition, Neia Banks, John Gonsalves, Shoshona Mauro-Sachs, Lakshmi Nair, Jennifer Shaw, Jennifer Torres and Ronit Treves were instrumental in making the public event a success. CLAS regular and consultant staff also played a critical role in pulling the conference together. Isaac Mankita, Acting Vice-Chair of the Center for Latin American Studies oversaw all aspects of conference planning and management. Jessamy Town led the charge on press and publicity for the event. Yingzhao Liu's powerful poster design gave the conference its face. Mark Edstrom crisply documented the conference on audio and video, and along with Jessamy Town, designed a web site to disseminate this information afterwards. Greig Guthey documented the event photographically and in print. Other CLAS staff that contributed significantly to the event were Hector Hernandez on ushering, Margaret Lamb on transportation and logistics, Melinda Peraza on ushering, Mary Ann Priester on transportation and logistics, and Dio Ramos on reception. Finally, several vendors went out of their way to provide key services for the event. These are Lincoln Cushing at Inkworks, Jan Douglass and Mollie Drake at the Claremont, Gary Gerard at Accent on Languages, Ana Herreira at STA travel, and last but not least, Wendy and Warren at I-House. |
