22nd Annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching

Celebrating 22 Years of Presenting The Scholarship of Teaching

Fall, 2002

To: Registrants of the 22nd Annual Lilly Conference on College Teaching

From: Milt Cox, Lilly Conference Director

I am pleased to welcome you to the Lilly Conference on College Teaching. There are several items I will share with you as you make preparations to attend.

Conference Schedule and Welcome

Please review the Conference Schedule on our Website. We invite you to join us Thursday at a welcome reception at 5:00pm and dinner at 5:45pm. At 7:30 pm the conference opening plenary, "Mindfulness & Metacognition: Strategies for Encouraging Thoughtful Students," will be presented by Peter Doolittle from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. At 9:00pm there is a Conference Welcome party at the Miami Inn Tavern.

Preconference Workshops

On Thursday there will be two all-day preconference workshops.

1. Barbara Millis, United States Air Force Academy, and Philip Cottell, Accountancy, Miami University, co-authors of the book Cooperative Learning in Higher Education, will lead a session on that topic. This workshop begins at 9:30 a.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m.
2. The second all-day workshop, Designing, Implementing, and Leading Faculty Learning Communities: Enhancing the Teaching and Learning Culture on Your Campus will be presented by project directors and participants from Miami University, Ohio State University, and Kent State University.

If you have not preregistered for an all-day workshop and you wish to attend, please fill out the registration form and bring a check to cover the cost of lunch and the leader's book.

If you would like to arrive early and reserve lodging and meals for Wednesday or Thursday, please fill out the registration form online, return it, and bring a check to cover the cost of meals and lodging.

Weather and Dress

Bring comfortable clothes. You will find that attire at the conference varies from casual to dressy. Those of you wishing to participate in Saturday morning's session, Yoga as a Metaphor for Teaching, should bring some loose-fitting clothes. Your dress for outside must anticipate variation in November weather. It may be Indian Summer, with temperatures from 50^°F to 70^°F, or chilly fall, 20^°F to 45^°F. A few sessions are not in the Marcum Center, so bring an umbrella in case you have to walk in the rain. The farthest you might choose to walk to a session is one block.

Contributed Paper Conference Proceedings

The titles, abstracts, and proposals for contributed papers are available online. Please look these over before the conference to determine which sessions you would like to attend. They will also be available online in room 102 of the Conference Center when presentations are not in session there.

Registration and Program Book

When you register for the conference at the Marcum Center, you will receive a name tag, program book, map, meal tickets (if you reserved some), and TV guide version of the program agenda. The program book includes a detailed program agenda, abstracts of the sessions, theme tracks, list of conference participants and their email addresses, list of participating institutions, and more.

Lodging for Conference Package Plan #1

If you reserved the conference package plan #1, when you check in at the front desk of your hotel (Marcum Center, Miami Inn, Hampton Inn, Best Western, Amerihost), your name should be on their list. We have prepaid your room as part of your complete conference package. When you check out, pay for your personal incidental costs such as long-distance calls or room service. Those arriving by plane in Cincinnati and reserving our shuttle transportation have been assigned lodging in the Marcum Center or the Miami Inn. We regret that we may not have been able to give you your top lodging choices.

Look online at our directions to Miami University and a map of the Oxford area to locate routes for your hotel. For the Best Western take U.S. 27 (High Street) to the center of Oxford (4th stoplight, corner of High and Main, if coming from the Marcum Center). Turn north on state route 732. At the first (and only) stoplight you will see the Best Western Inn on the right.

For the Hampton Inn and Amerihost, continue on High Street past Main and follow the US 27 signs. The Hampton Inn is on your right, after the last stoplight as you follow US 27 northwest to the edge of town. The Amerihost is about .25 more miles down US 27.

Food and Drink

If you reserved conference package plan #1 or any meals as part of plan #2, you will receive your meal tickets when you register at the Marcum Center. If you have ordered a vegan or low-fat diet, your name tag will alert the servers to bring you your special meal. Since the food will have been ordered and prepared, you cannot change your preference at the conference. To be served you must have a ticket and wear your name tag.

For those of you not having meals at the Marcum Center, there are plenty of eating places nearby in uptown Oxford (8 to 9 blocks from Marcum). The menu varies from fast food to intermediate places like The High Street Grill (our favorite), Attractions, DiPaolo's, Pedro's (Mexican), or Phan-Shin (Chinese). An excellent restaurant in town is The Alexander House (523-1200). On campus there is a food court at Miami's Shriver Center (4 blocks away). The front desk at Marcum or your lodging unit should have an Oxford Visitors' Guide with the locations of the restaurants. Also, several local pizza and sandwich places and restaurants will deliver to your lodging unit; the front desk may have menus and may recommend where to order.

Although the fare at the receptions will include wine and beer, there is no bar in the Marcum Center. However, there are some bars uptown within walking distance, and the bar in the tavern of the Miami Inn will be open for limited hours.

Presenter Discussion Tables

If you have made meal reservations and would like to join one of the presenters at a special presenter's round table, please check the Friday luncheon, dinner, and Saturday luncheon tables listed in the conference schedule on the Web site. Space at the presenters' round tables is limited. If you do not reserve a space at a presenter's table in advance, we recommend that you do so when you register. Check at the registration desk for availability.

No Smoking Policy

The following no-smoking policy, mandated by the State of Ohio, is in place at the Marcum Conference Center and the Miami Inn: No smoking is permitted in any conference rooms, hallways, tavern, or club room; smoking is permitted in some guest lodging rooms.

Driving and Parking

For those of you driving, see the map of the Oxford area and a campus map on the Web site. Marcum is in the northeast quadrant of the campus map, and the Miami Inn is in the northwest quadrant. Although in different quadrants, the distance between the Inn and the Marcum Center is just one block. Parking is free behind the Marcum Center and beside the Miami Inn. If the lot behind the Marcum Center is full, park in the lots to the south of the Miami Inn. You will not need a parking permit.

Airport Shuttle

If you are flying to the Cincinnati Airport and have reserved shuttle transportation with us, after your flight arrives a shuttle representative will walk through the baggage claim area to find you and bring you to the Marcum Center and the Miami Inn. The representative will be holding a "Lilly Conference @ Miami University" sign. If your arrival is delayed or you don't make contact, please call the Marcum Center, (513) 529-6911, to reschedule your pickup. Your departure time from the Marcum Center or the Miami Inn will be posted in the lobby or foyer of the Marcum Center on Saturday. 

Get to Sessions Early

We expect a large group this year and cannot accept on-site registrations. We recommend that you arrive at sessions early to get seats. The multimedia and technology sessions in room 102 will have limited seating and hands-on opportunities, so get to them especially early. We will have closed-circuit TV coverage of some plenary sessions. For the concurrent sessions, select more than one to attend - if your first choice is full, move to your second choice, etc. It is difficult to predict which sessions will be in demand, and room sizes vary.

Contributed Paper Sessions: Just an Overview

There are several types of sessions, varying in length from 40 minutes to over 2 hours. The 40-minute contributed paper seminars are designed to give you just a flavor of a topic or project, not complete details or in-depth discussion. If interested in learning more, you are encouraged to arrange with the presenter to continue discussion later. More information about each contributed paper is in the online Contributed Papers section.

Cyber Center

Although you can go online at the Marcum Conference Center, there are not any facilities for making computer print outs. To check your e-mail and to send encouragement to your students, you may use one of the stations in Marcum 102 when there are no conference sessions going on there.

Printing and Copying

If you need multiple copies for a presentation, the closest copying facility is Copy Nation in uptown Oxford. If presenters would like to ship handout copies for presentations, PLEASE ship them one week in advance to Lilly Conference Presentation, (presenter's name), Marcum Center, Miami Universtiy, Oxford, OH 45056. Please call (513-529-6648) on Wednesday, November 17, to confirm their arrival.

A Quiet Moment

If you would like a quiet moment to relax or read and you are not lodging at Marcum, you are welcome to use the East Wing Lounge (on the second floor of Marcum) or the tavern at the Miami Inn when they are not in session--See the TV guide version of the program agenda.

Wednesday Night Dinner and Entertainment

If you are arriving Wednesday in time for dinner and would like to join a group to go uptown, meet at the Marcum registration desk at 6:30pm and we will drive up together. Other entertainment includes a performance of the Miami Wind Quintet at 6:00pm, or at 8:00pm, the play "Six Characters in Search of an Author."

Thursday, Friday and Saturday Night Activities

We invite you to join us at the Thursday evening party in the Miami Inn Tavern. There will be live music and tables at which to join conference attendees to discuss teaching and learning. In addition to usual fare, the Tavern features an interesting collection of local microbrews and a variety of Scotch single malt whiskeys. We will also feature Linc's famouse "smoiked osters."

After Friday night's plenary, come to the Reader's Theatre. This will also be another opprotuntiy to meet new colleagues. Refreshments are on us.

Several optional Saturday night activities are listed in the program. There is free entertainment at the Marcum Center, starting with a special Conference Concert performance by outstanding Miami faculty and students. Afterwards, Cincinnati's excellent Cajun band, Robin Lacy and DeZydeco, will provide background and dancing music. We will have soft drinks and refreshments (on Lilly), so it will be an opportunity again to meet and talk with conference participants and celebrate the energy and diversity that are connected with teaching and learning.

If you want to get out and about Saturday night, Miami University Theatre is featuring "Six Characters in Search of an Author," directed by Sara Chasen, at 8:00 pm in the Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $9.00, and should be ordered at (513) 529-3200. The Dance Theatre Winter Concert, directed by Lara Kay Rosenberg, is also performing at 8:00 pm in Hall Auditorium. Call (513) 529-3200 to reserve tickets.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please call (513) 529-6648 or e-mail us at lillycon@muohio.edu, Have a safe journey, and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Celebrate Teaching and Learning!

I applaud your interest in excellent teaching and learning and hope that at the Lilly Conference you find inspiration, innovation, reflection, colleagueship, and celebration around teaching and learning! Come as a team and take the energy back to your classes and campus.