From The Academic Dean

 

Academic DeanI have belonged to five different academic organizations during my career, which means I've been to a lot of academic conferences, probably close to 40.  But until we began to plan the Sacred Lands and Spiritual Landscapes Symposium, I didn't realize all the planning that went into them. What most people realize is just how unusual it was for an established university like the University of South Carolina to partner with a seminary, much less one that focused on Pagan and earth-based spirituality. I'd like to share more of that story. 

Large organizations like the American Academy of Religion (AAR) or the American Sociological Association (ASA) will often either hold their events at a conference center or at several different hotels in the same town.  That is because they get a discount on the meeting rooms based on how many hotel rooms they can guarantee. Smaller groups that expect just a few hundred people will do just one or two hotels and have all their sessions in those hotels.  Again, they have to guarantee attendance, and if they don't get it, they have to pay full cost for all the rooms, including the reception and meeting rooms.  This is almost always prohibitive. On top of the rooms, the organization has to pay for equipment - usually the projector and several audio-visual people to make sure things run smoothly.  The AAR used to rent laptops for people who were doing slides or powerpoints in their sessions.  When the cost just for that went up to $90,000 one year, AAR stopped doing it, but it still has to pay for the projectors in each room and the AV people.  

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Faculty Spotlight

Hanging from the TreeIf you are attending Free Spirit Gathering next month, watch for CHS faculty member and IT volunteer Scott Mohnkern
who will be teaching several workshops, including one on Runic healing.  Scott is the author of Hanging from the Tree and A Year of Viking Rituals, both  available in the CHS online bookstore.

Chris Highland has this spring published the iBook Nature is Enough:  The End of Spirituality and Other Essays.  If you don't have an iPad, you can read excerpts and join online discussion here.
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Foundations courses are for everyone.  That's why we are offering them half-price to folks trying out Cherry Hill Seminary for the first time. 

If you are not a first-timer, consider paying full price and inviting a friend who is new (or split the cost together). 

Summer One: Introduction to Fundraising (May 20 through June 16)
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Academic Dean continued--

If the  event is expecting under 100, the best way to afford the meeting room(s) is to be affiliated with a university.  But different universities are funded differently. The public university where I worked charged my department for the AV person, and sometimes for a smart room for special events. Once the department was even charged for each chair that was set up, as well as the person to set them up. We weren't allowed to set them up ourselves!

 

So I wasn't too surprised when the West Coast university we originally approached for the symposium informed us how much they would charge. The Dean was very interested in the symposium but the university's funding policy was set in stone. This was in a major city and would have made travel really easy on people. But the cost was absolutely prohibitive, and that didn't include any food - as we would have had to use the university's service for that. I almost gave up.  On top of that, only one of us from CHS was local, and by local I mean me, and I live 35 miles away. That means no squad of volunteers to do so much of the necessary work.    

 

So when the University of South Carolina (USC) expressed an interest and we got the details, we were thrilled. All the costs for the room, AV, insurance, chairs, etc., plus some student volunteers, were absorbed by the university. And because of Holli's relationships with USC and the local community, we had the contacts and the volunteers ready and able to help with everything else we needed. I can't stress how important this was to our ability to function effectively.

 

Of course, from an organizing perspective, the best thing is that the university was so pleased with the symposium that they have invited us back, and we have tentatively accepted for 2015. A main reason we were invited back was because our symposium significantly expanded and enhanced what USC could offer its students and faculty this year.   Having the kind of mutually beneficial relationship that we have established with USC and the community is really the only way Sacred Lands & Spiritual Landscapes could have happened.  Thanks to all who helped make it happen.