2008 Conference Review

In September, NSEE hosted their 2008 Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida at Disney’s Contemporary Hotel. We where thrilled that over 325 people attended the conference. There was energy, enthusiasm, and excitement that began with over 100 people participating in the highly successful preconferences on Wednesday and continued right through to the closing sessions on Friday afternoon.

As usual, many conference attendees were new to NSEE and attended the “Welcome to NSEE” hosted by Lynne Montrose. As usual, the more veteran NSEE members reached out and welcomed the new comers. NSEE continued to live up to our reputation of open sharing of ideas and best practices as we continued to champion the cause of experiential education in classrooms at all levels, in communities and workplaces throughout the United States and around the world.

We are especially proud to have had the opportunity to recognize the important accomplishments of Gene Alpert and Karen Roloff, as our first Michael Steuerman Distinguished Service Award winners during the Awards Luncheon. We also were proud to have had the opportunity to recognize the significant accomplishments of Continental AG; Janet Eyler and Dwight Giles; James La Prad; The center for Social Concerns of the University of Notre Dame; David and Alice Kolb and Keuka College at our Awards Luncheon, again sponsored by Northwestern Mutual Financial Network. Our opening panel on Wednesday helped us to see how rapidly the workplace is changing and the employer’s view of future trends in experiential education. In keeping with the Disney theme the David and Alice Kolb, our keynote speakers, explored the magical and transformational power of experiential learning.

In short, our 37th Annual Conference was tremendously successful. Our preconferences, workshops, roundtables and keynotes enabled us to learn from each other’s ideas and programs. We are grateful to the conference committee for all their hard work. We have now returned to our respective classrooms and organizations with renewed commitment. We trust that part of that commitment will be to join us in Dallas this year, for the 2009 Annual Conference – Informing and Expanding Experiential Education Looking “Deep in the Heart of NSEE”!