*ISA Blog

Up to the end… Annual Convention Proposals and Review

Mike Ryckman, Director of Organizational Development

This is always an exciting time of year at ISA Headquarters. With our June 1st submission deadline, we definitely have a lot going on toward the end of May and in early June. Our members and convention participants are often curious about what all this looks like on our end; so, I thought you’d like to see a brief picture of what we see this week and the work coming this summer.

The Totals

First off, ISA’s Annual Convention has become increasingly popular. In the last few years, the number of people submitting to our convention has increased significantly.

People on Submissions:

• New Orleans (2010) – 5,692
• Montreal (2011) – 6,353
• San Diego (2012) – 6,917
• San Francisco (2013) – ~7,500 (we have some duplicate records to comb through)

Standalone Papers Submitted:

• New Orleans (2010) – 2,878
• Montreal (2011) – 3,213
• San Diego (2012) – 3,818
• San Francisco (2013) – 3,949

Note: these “standalone papers” numbers don’t include papers submitted as a part of a submitted panel. This year, we had about 700 constructed panels submitted, each with about 5 more papers. In total we had over 8,700 unique submission records!

New this year, we have added the “Junior Scholar Symposium” to the ISA conference line-up. These events involve many people from throughout ISA’s leadership, and beyond, to provide a focused environment for junior scholars participating at the conference. We are excited to announce that we had over 270 JSS proposals come in this year. We hope to build on this success and expand the program even further in Toronto in 2014.

Thank you all for your support and participation in the conference – it is your work that really makes this such a great organization!

Right up to the end…

With all the warnings we give to our students about turning in assignments at the last minute, you might think we would see a steady stream of submissions throughout the month of May. In actuality, most of the submissions come in at the very end: we usually get about 40% of all of our submissions on the very last day!

If you ever feel like MyISA is running a little slow when you’re trying to submit your paper, remember, we have more users online that day than almost any other time of year. The only time we get more traffic is the day we announce the program in September.

So far this May, we’ve had 20,980 visits to MyISA by 9,450 unique devices! Next year, we are moving to a new system on a new server; hopefully, it will run better than ever.

Along with all these visits to the site, we get a lot of questions. Headquarters has fielded many hundreds of calls and emails helping users with everything from technical questions to policy clarifications. The Program Chairs, who manage their own email account, have been similarly swamped with questions.

1,687,508 Words to Review!

The task of reviewing these many thousands of proposals falls to our dedicated (and volunteer) Section Program Chairs and Convention Program Chairs. For the San Francisco convention, the abstracts and titles together total 2,941 single-spaced pages of text containing 1,687,508 words!

The ISA program is built over the course of the summer by our conference program chairs. During June and early July, they review these thousands of proposals. Section chairs assemble panels, recommend panel chairs and discussants, and estimate room size requirements. This information is given to the Convention Program Chairs (who act as section chairs for all of the “theme” proposals as well) to place the panels into slots on the program.

ISA typically has over 1,000 panel slots. These slots are filled by the program chairs in late July and early August. This gives time for a thorough review of the program before we make announcements in mid-September. This year, we are announcing the program on September 20th.

The Section Program Chairs and Convention Program Chairs work hard every year to put on the best conference possible. Although they can’t please everybody, they work hard to put out a great product. So, please remember to thank these committed volunteers who take on this monumental task; also, please be patient, if you email and don’t hear back right away, it’s probably because they have a million or so words left to review...

CFP: ISA 2013 Annual Convention

Here is a friendly reminder that the deadline to propose a paper or panel for our 2013 Annual Convention is a week away. The next ISA Annual Convention will be held in San Francisco from 3-6 April 2013. The program chairs invite proposals on the conference theme The Politics of International Diffusion: Regional and Global Dimensions. All proposals should be submitted online by June 1, 2012. Please see the convention website for more information.

Walking Directions for Host Hotels

We have two host hotels for the ISA 2012 Annual Convention in San Diego. The Hilton Gaslamp hotel (401 K Street) is a 10-12 minute walk from the Hilton Bayfront (1 Park Boulevard), and can be seen from the Bayfront main entrance. From the Hilton Bayfront hotel, take the pedestrian bridge that crosses Harbor Drive, located at the parking garage just outside the main entrance.  Walk towards Petco Park baseball stadium. When you reach street level (by stairs or elevator), turn left onto Harbor Drive and walk approximately 5 minutes towards the Gaslamp district.  When you cross Fifth Avenue, the main entrance to the Gaslamp district, you will see Lou & Mickey's restaurant on the left side of Fifth Avenue.  The Hilton Gaslamp hotel is to the left of that restaurant, with the main entrance being around the corner at 401 K Street. We hope these Google Map directions will be helpful:

• Walking Directions Bayfront to Gaslamp
• Driving Directions Bayfront to Gaslamp

Wireless Access at ISA Annual Convention

Will there be wireless access at the ISA Annual Convention? Yes, free wireless internet is provided in Hitlon Bayfront and Gaslamp Hilton lobbies, Bayfront Hilton’s Odysea Lounge and by ISA and our sponsors at the Cyber Café outside the Exhibit Hall (Bayfront, Sapphire Level 4). Internet is NOT available in the meeting room spaces without prior arrangement by panelists.

The Hilton Bayfront ISA group rate includes free guestroom internet. Contact the hotel front desk to purchase guestroom internet (if not in ISA room bloc) or rent a workstation at the Business Center (Bayfront, Aqua Level 3).

ISA Annual Convention Exhibitors

Attending the Annual Convention? Don't forget to drop by the exhibition hall to see all the latest vendors catering to the academic market. We have almost 100 exhibitors including publishers, non-profits and merchants offering new digital services as well as traditional hard-copy books. The exhibition hall is in the Sapphire Ballroom of the Hilton Bayfront Hotel and will open on Sunday, April 1st. Hall hours:

• Sunday, April 1: 1pm - 6pm
• Mon. April 2-Tuesday, Apr 3: 9am - 6pm
• Wednesday, April 4: 9am - 12 noon

Please see the convention website for more information.

Convention Registration & Check-In

ISA Annual Convention attendees may pick up their programs and name badges at the check-in and registration desk. All attendees must wear name badges at all times while attending the Convention. There will be booths for those who have pre-registered and those who would like to register on-site.  Registration hours are as follows:

• Saturday, March 31:  1pm - 6pm
• Sunday, April 1 - Tuesday, April 3:  7:30am  -  6pm
• Wednesday, April 4:  8am - 4pm

The ISA registration desk will be located at the Hilton Bayfront (1 Park Boulevard), Indigo Foyer Alcove, Level 2. Onsite registration rates have been posted here.

ISA 2012 Presidential Address & Reception

The University of California, Irvine, School of Social Sciences, Department of Political Science, and Program in International Studies are pleased to invite you to the 2012 ISA Presidential Address and Reception featuring:

ETEL SOLINGEN

Chancellor’s Professor, University of California, Irvine

 

“THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL DIFFUSION:

REGIONAL AND GLOBAL DIMENSIONS”

Monday, April 2, 2012
6:15 -7:00 p.m.
Hilton San Diego Bayfront, Room Indigo AE

 Chancellor’s Professor Etel Solingen is an expert on international security, international political economy, and regional orders. Her book Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East (Princeton U.P. 2007) won the American Political Science Association’s Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for best book on government, politics, or international affairs, and the Robert Jervis and Paul Schroeder Award for best book on international history and politics. She also authored Regional Orders at Century's Dawn (Princeton U.P. 1998), Industrial Policy, Technology, and International Bargaining (Stanford U.P. 1996), edited volumes including Sanctions, Statecraft, and Nuclear Proliferation (Cambridge U.P. 2012), and many articles on international relations theory, internationalization, comparative regionalism, institutional theory, democratization, and science and technology.

Solingen served as ISA Vice-President, President of ISA’s International Political Economy Section, Chair of the steering committee of the University of California’s system-wide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, member of APSA’s presidential task-force on U.S. Standing in World Affairs, and various “Track Two” meetings with academic and government officials designed to address international conflicts.  She has lectured extensively at research institutes worldwide. She is also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Research and Writing Award on Peace and International Cooperation, a Social Science Research Council-Mac Arthur Foundation Fellowship on Peace and Security in a Changing World, a Japan Foundation/SSRC Abe Fellowship, Carnegie Corporation, Sloan Foundation, and other grants, an APSA Excellence in Mentorship Award and a UCI Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award.

A reception will follow the address.

Annual Convention Hotels Deadline

Discounted room rates at our overflow hotels expire today. After today you will be able to secure the market rate on available rooms, please contact the individual hotels for information on availability and pricing. We have posted the list on our website here.

Update on Hotels for ISA 2012

Our hotel room blocks for the ISA Annual Convention in San Diego are filling up quickly. ISA’s two primary host hotels have sold-out of the group rate. Overflow hotels are now available for group rate reservations on our convention hotels website. Please remember that group rates are ONLY available until each hotel’s group rate block is sold-out, or until the cutoff date of February 28, 2012, whichever happens first. The Courtyard Marriott ($189 single, $209 double), Doubletree ($189 Single/$209 Double) and Sofia Hotel ($175 Single/$195 Double) have all recently lowered their room rates for our convention participants. The Bristol Hotel is now sold-out at discounted room rates. Please note that there is another city-wide convention taking place in downtown San Diego the week of our convention and rates at equivalent hotels in downtown will be higher than the ISA group rates. Our full list of hotel room rates is available here. Overflow hotels are listed in order of proximity to the host hotels.

ISA 2012 Convention Hotels Update

A quick update on the status of the hotels for our 2012 Annual Convention. Our room block at the two host hotels (where convention events are scheduled) is sold out. The Hilton Bayfront and Hilton Gaslamp are no longer accepting room reservations at the convention rate. Please see our hotels page for information on how to reserve your room at one of our six overflow hotels at convention group rates.