ASLA Call for Education Sessions for 2008 Annual Meeting
Call for proposals is now open and will run through January 11, 2008.

The 2008 ASLA Annual Meeting call for education session, field session, and workshop proposals is now open. The call for proposals will close on January 11, 2008, at midnight pacific standard time. Education program session speakers will receive a complimentary registration to the 2008 ASLA Annual Meeting (over $500 value) and a one-night equivalent discount ($250) on hotel expense at checkout (Marriott headquarters hotel stay required).

A key recommendation from the Annual Meeting Steering Committee in 2007 was to better define the education session levels to guide those submitting proposals. Each education session is identified as introductory, intermediate, or advanced. This identification is meant to guide attendees in choosing sessions that will be most helpful for them in their pursuit of professional development hours. When submitting sessions, please keep these definitions in mind:
 
Introductory—Material covered will be basic and useful to attendees who have degrees in landscape architecture but are not yet licensed or have only a few years of experience in the profession.

Intermediate—Material covered will be most useful to attendees that have a minimum of three or four years in the profession and are licensed or at the career stage of having professional responsibility.

Advanced—Material covered will be most useful to participants that have some experience in the topic and the presentation will not go over the basics of the topic.

The theme of the 2008 meeting is Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities. Sustainability is the number one concern of the landscape architecture profession, the greater design and construction industry, and the owner/manager/client base, as well as a significantly growing concern of the general public at large. It is the highest-rated topic by both annual meeting attendees and nonattendees in the past three years. This year's attendee survey reinforces this trend, showing sustainability across all practice areas at the top of our surveys. The 2008 theme, Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities, reflects this concern, which will be highlighted for five days, October 3–7, 2008, in Philadelphia.

Please click here to submit education program proposals.

Over the past three years, ASLA has focused on the number one reason that attracts participants to the ASLA annual meetings—education topics. In just three years since the 2004 meeting in Salt Lake City, ASLA has increased the professional development hours afforded to registrants by 147 percent, while keying in on the topics that ASLA members value and require in their day-to-day practices. The attendee survey from the 2007 San Francisco meeting reinforces this once again—the education session topics were the top reason ASLA members registered for and traveled to San Francisco (56 percent). And, the education session topics attracted new attendees to the meeting—33 percent of attendees experienced an ASLA Annual Meeting for the first time.

Key topic areas according to the surveys are:

Design: Residential, LEED/Sustainability, Recreation/Play, Golf Courses, Green Roofs

Sustainable Practice and Implementation: Stormwater Management, Wetlands Restoration, Irrigation, Soil, Plants, Permeable Pavement, Lighting

Business: Marketing, Client Constituencies, Public Relations, Legal Contracts, Firm Succession

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