Setting
The University of Maryland, College Park is a major public research university located on 600 hectares of rolling land along the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. high-tech corridor. The university consists of approximately 33,000 students, 3000 faculty, and 4000 staff. College Park is inside the beltway that encircles the Washington, D.C. area, and is served by the Metro subway system; it is about 12 km from downtown Washington and 40 km from the state capital of Annapolis. Detailed directions and maps are available at http://www.inform.umd.edu/CVS/.CVS/Directions.html; there is also information at this address about local airports and train stations and transportation to campus from them.
The meeting will be hosted by the university's graduate program in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology and the Smithsonian Institution's Institute for Conservation Biology, and sponsored in part by the American Zoo and Aquarium Association and other NGOs. Meeting sessions will be held in classrooms and the student union on the campus, and housing and meals will be available in the campus dorms and dining halls. There are also off-campus housing options nearby in College Park.
Organization
The theme for the meeting, Integrating policy and science in conservation biology, will be addressed by a plenary meeting and 3 symposia. This theme was chosen to take advantage of the meeting's proximity to state and federal capitals, as well as major NGOs, multinational banks, and federal agencies that are the source of most policy that underlies conservation efforts worldwide.
The meeting will begin with a reception and plenary session on Friday 17 June, continue with three days of symposia, contributed paper and poster sessions, and conclude with optional field trips beginning on 21 June. One evening event will probably be scheduled at the National Zoo. As additional information about the meeting becomes available it will be posted to the meeting web site, http://www.inform.umd.edu/scb/. Deadlines (later ones are tentative) include:
1 October 1998: symposium proposals due
15 January 1999: abstracts for papers and posters due
15 April 1999: deadline for early (discounted) registration
15 May 1999: deadline for normal registration
The University of Maryland's Program on the Biology of Small Populations, funded by an NSF Research Training Grant, will sponsor its annual symposium in conjunction with the Society's annual meeting. This symposium will be open to those attending the SCB meeting. Additional details will become available on the Program's home page: http://www.life.umd.edu/bsprtg/index.html.
Call for symposium, workshop, and discussion proposals
The local organizing committee invites proposals for symposia to be held as part of the 1999 annual meeting. The schedule includes opportunities for both 2-hour and 3.5-hour symposia. Proposals should include (1) a synopsis of the symposium theme, (2) a tentative list of speakers and topics, and your choice of length (2 or 3.5-hour), (3) a rationale for the symposium explaining why this topic and these speakers are particularly appropriate for a Society-sponsored symposium, and (4) email and postal addresses and telephone numbers for the symposium organizers. Up to three of the six symposia currently scheduled will focus on the meeting theme. For the remaining proposals we will favor topics that address newly emerging topics, fields ripe for synthesis, and topics different from those considered in recent Society symposia. All proposers will be notified about their proposals in late October. If our requests for funding are successful we may be able to provide partial support for organizers and speakers. For full consideration, proposals must be received by David Inouye at the address below by 1 October. Email submissions (the preferred means of communication) can be sent as attachments.
The schedule also will include opportunities for workshops and organized discussions. If you are interested in proposing a topic for either of these formats, send information about the topic, who will be leading the session, a preferred date and time (including length), and contact information to David Inouye at the address below by 1 October.
A general call for papers will be issued in the November newsletter and posted on the conference home page. For more information contact David Inouye, Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 20742, Telephone (301) 405-6946, FAX (301) 314-9358, Email di5@umail.umd.edu.
