Ecological Society of America

Call for Symposium Proposals:

93^rd ESA Annual Meeting
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
August 3 - 8, 2008
Call Open: July 2 - September 14, 2007

We invite symposium proposals for the 93^rd ESA Annual Meeting. The meeting will be held from August 3 – 8, 2008 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Midwest Airline Center.

Symposia are the scientific centerpiece of the meeting. They will be assigned premium meeting space at the Midwest Airline Center and serve as the cornerstone for assembly of the scientific program. Proposals addressing the meeting theme Enhancing Ecological Thought by Linking Research and Education are especially welcome, but any timely and coherent subject of broad interest will be considered. Symposia are limited to half-day sessions (3 ½ hours); full-day symposia will not be considered. This meeting will include 24 symposia. Individual talks in symposia range from 15 to 30 minutes in length at the discretion of the symposium organizer. Time devoted to synthesis, summary, and discussion is strongly encouraged.

Applications must be received on or before Friday, September 14, 2007. You must use the http://eco.confex.com/eco/2008/cfp.cgi that will be available on the ESA website (www.esa.org/milwaukee) as of July 2, 2007.

Do not send proposals to ESA Headquarters.

Symposium Evaluation Process and Criteria

All proposals will be peer-reviewed and ranked by reviewers selected by the ESA Program Chair. The Program Chair may accept or decline your proposal, or offer you the opportunity to present your work in an alternative forum (organized oral session, workshop, or special session) during the annual meeting. Decisions and alternative offers will be made by January 11, 2008.

1 Symposium proposals will be assessed using the following criteria.   Weighting of particular criteria may vary depending on the nature of proposals, but proposals should explicitly address these criteria, as appropriate.                 

I. Scientific strength: Symposia are the scientific centerpieces of the meeting, and should:

• offer significant contributions to ecological understanding
• present innovative or interdisciplinary approaches, including novel collaborations or syntheses across subdisciplines
• provide examples of how   ecological research benefited from attention to public policy concerns, outreach or educational activities.
• have broad enough appeal to generate large audiences (>250 people) at the meeting

II. Structure and organization: Symposia should be more explicitly integrated than other sessions, and should be structured to:

• provide overall synthesis or overview; they should not be simply a set of related case studies
• avoid taking a narrow perspective on the symposium topic; organizers should carefully avoid the appearance of biases toward their own perspectives
• build a well-integrated whole; each talk should have clear relevance to the overall synthesis provided by the symposium

III. Integration: Proposals may receive higher priority if they are clearly linked to the meeting's overall theme, or if they offer particular value or insight in the context of other sessions proposed for this meeting or of symposia at recent ESA meetings (see www.esa.org/meetings/ for lists of organized oral sessions and symposia from recent ESA meetings).

IV. Speakers : Invited speakers may be a mix of well-established scientists, – rising stars', and newcomers, but each speaker should bring new contributions to the session, not simply reviews of previous work.   Inclusion of experienced or particularly engaging speakers can strengthen a proposal, but new voices are also important.   Proposals with a larger proportion of confirmed speakers will be favored.

Endorsements

Symposia are often endorsed by internal bodies within ESA such as sections and chapters, and occasionally by other groups, agencies, and organizations. These endorsements will be considered in the review of proposals, particularly if they emphasize why the group finds merit (in terms of the evaluation criteria above) in the proposal. Each of these groups is allowed to provide a primary endorsement for only one proposal. If more than one proposal was considered for primary endorsement by a group, the endorsement should describe the process and rationale used to select the proposal being endorsed. To enhance interdisciplinary connections, groups may provide a secondary endorsement for up to two additional proposals. Groups may provide primary endorsements for a symposium jointly but are still limited to only one primary endorsement per group. Symposium proposers, in requesting endorsements, should make this policy clear.    There is NO guarantee that a proposal endorsed by any group or organization will be accepted.

Individuals preparing letters of endorsement must submit them directly to the proposal submission site and make it clear as to whether it is a primary or secondary endorsement.   Symposia proposers are required to provide the name and email of the person providing the letter of endorsement when submitting a proposal.   The person sending the letter will be sent an email with instructions on how to submit the letter.

Presentation Rules

In the interest of broadening participation, an individual is allowed to be an organizer (either a principal organizer or a co-organizer) for only one symposium.

Persons agreeing to present papers in symposia also should be aware that the –one-paper– rule will be enforced. That is, anyone who is first author or presenter of a symposium paper cannot also be first author or presenter for another paper whether for a symposium, organized oral session, contributed oral session, or poster session. Organizers should make certain that speakers they recruit understand this rule and make no conflicting commitments. Exceptions to the one-paper rule may be made for participants in special sessions, workshops, and for plenary speakers. Also, first or presenting authors are additionally allowed to present a talk focused on science education.

Moderators for symposia may not serve as speakers in those symposia. A moderator may, however, be a speaker in another session.

If Your Proposal Is Accepted

After symposia are accepted and the scheduling for the meeting is underway, cancellations and schedule changes are very disruptive to meeting planning. Hence, symposium organizers should obtain firm commitments from as many of their invited speakers as possible before submitting their proposal.

If a proposal is accepted, the organizers must submit a final summary description of the symposium to the Program Assistant no later than January 25, 2008. This summary will appear on the meeting website, should have a description written so as to stimulate interest and promote attendance by a general audience, and thus is different in focus from the longer description in the original proposal. This final summary must include a complete and current listing of organizers' names and their affiliations, addresses, telephone, fax, and email addresses; a 250 word description of the session, a single-sentence (up to 50 word) description of the session, and a final, confirmed speaker list.

It is the responsibility of the symposium organizers to see that each speaker submits an individual abstract of his/her talk through the Abstract Submission site by the February 29, 2008 deadline. Do not submit abstracts by any other means. Contact the Program Chair or Program Assistant if your situation precludes use of the submission website.

ESA is not able to provide any financial assistance, stipends, free registration, travel assistance, or paid lodging to symposium organizers or to individual symposium participants. Organizers are responsible for making this clear to the participants.

Application Format

All proposals MUST follow the format of the online submission form on the ESA meeting website. Incomplete and inaccurate information provided on these forms may result in the proposal not being accepted.

Note that this information must be entered on the http://eco.confex.com/eco/2008/cfp.cgi. It is provided here to assist you in planning your submission. Note, too, that the web page format may differ slightly from the format listed here.

All proposals must include:

• Title of symposium
• Principal organizer (Name, institution or affiliation, address, phone, fax, e-mail)
• Co-organizers (Names, institutions or affiliations, addresses, phone, fax, e-mail). Indicate which of the organizers will serve as moderator. The moderator may not serve as a speaker in the symposium.
• Speakers (Names, affiliations, and tentative titles or topic areas). Indicate which speakers are committed and confirmed and which are tentative.
• Description (< 400 words) and justification (<250 words) of the symposium: Background information, goals, objectives, importance, and interest to the membership of ESA. The description should focus on the theme and structure of session (including anticipated sequence of speakers and topics), while the justification should focus on how the review criteria are met by the proposal and should not simply repeat the description. Keep in mind the evaluation criteria in preparing your description and justification.

When you submit your proposal on the website submission form, you will be notified of receipt by email to the address that you provide. If you do not receive such notification within 2 days of submitting your proposal, please contact Program Assistant Aleta Wiley at aleta@esa.org to confirm that your proposal was received. The preliminary scientific program should be on the ESA website in May 2008, and each accepted symposium proposal organizer should check for exact time and location of his/her symposium. Organizers are responsible for notifying all participants in their symposium concerning the date, time, and place of the session.

Cancellation Policy

Once a symposium has been accepted and listed on the meeting website, cancellation causes serious disruption of meeting planning. Do not submit a proposal if you are uncertain that you will be able to fulfill your obligation to organize and conduct the symposium.

For further information consult the ESA website (www.esa.org/milwaukee) or contact the Program Chair or Program Assistant (see below).