Conference Organization and Planning

Because multiple entities across Grounds provide conference and/or event planning services, conference organizers struggle to manage numerous contact points to ensure a successful event.  Furthermore, concern among some University faculty suggests infrastructure is not robust enough to support conference planning efforts during the academic year. Believing that shared and centralized services would produce a more efficient and effective process, this team aimed to streamline conference planning services for the University community and to enhance institutional capacity to host large conferences on Grounds, especially during the academic year.  Information gathering efforts included convening two focus groups consisting of U.Va faculty and staff to understand individual experiences with conference planning, interviewing internal conference planning groups at the University to understand current processes, and benchmarking other universities to determine best practices.  The team expects to issue a final report at the end of summer 2009.