Newsletter
Volume 31 | 2008 | Number 2
Continued Convention Success in 2008!
Recap of ABAI 2008 in San Diego
By Dr. Maria E. Malott
The Association for Behavior Analysis International honored its roots during our return to Chicago for the successful 34th Annual Convention. We had 4,602 registrants, and Figure 1 shows how convention attendance has continued to grow over the past 10 years.
This attendee number does not reflect the visiting registrants from the Association for Psychological Science (APS) annual convention, with whom we were able to share our scholarly event for the first time this year. In exchange, our registrants were able to take advantage of the opportunity to visit the APS convention as well.
Figure 1. Ten-year attendance at the ABA convention. |
Also new this year was the “State of the Science” lecture series, which highlighted ABAI’s scientific foundation and was a big hit. Attendees were captivated by speakers Dr. Edmund Fantino (University of California, San Diego); Dr. Tony Nevin (University of New Hampshire); Dr. Murray Sidman (see Figure 2, right) and Dr. Travis Thompson (University of Minnesota). |
Figure 2. Dr. Murry Sidman and wife, Rita. |
Attendees came from all over the world. There was representation from 33 countries as well as from 49 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Of 4,559 evaluations sent to attendees, 762 were returned: a 17% response rate. Of those returned, 91% rated the convention program as Excellent–Very Good overall. Figure 3 (below) shows the percentage of respondents who evaluated various aspects of the convention as “Very Good” to “Excellent.”
Figure 3. Percent of survey responses "Very Good" |
Figure 4. Drs. Julie and Ernest Vargas. |
The ABAI Cooperative Bookstore featured over 700 titles and over 9,000 books. This year customers were able to take advantage of a convenient new shipping service available right in the bookstore. In Figure 4 (left) you can see Drs. Julie and Ernest Vargas in the ABAI Bookstore. |
The dedicated commitment and hard work of many individuals made the success of the ABAI convention possible. The Program Committee did its usual extraordinary job scheduling events and encouraging submissions for many fine invited events and tutorials. Many thanks to Dr. Ramona Houmanfar and the area coordinators (see Dr. H’s Program Board update beginning on page 23).
I need to thank the ABAI staff, who, as usual, were among the highest-rated aspects of the convention in the survey results. 96% of responses from our members indicated that the staff provided excellent/very good services. This team of professionals, made up of ABAI employees and convention volunteers, worked incredibly hard behind the scenes to ensure the event went smoothly. A total of 75 people worked the event. Our event staff members were Michael Cooper, Emily Drilich, Jennifer Hauglie, Deb Lemons, Jack Lingbeek, Joseph Romeo, Majda Seuss, Kayleen Van Gelder, Nancy Wood, and Amanda Wright from the Association for Behavior Analysis International. Kristin Cook, Jessica Grow, Erin Kammers, Jori Mitchell, Rachel Ooms, Nanea Thomas, Cory Visser, and Emilie Warren from Calvin College joined our team, as well as Amberly Bassett, Shelby Crisan, Rachel Pullman, and Rachel VanderWiel from Grand Valley State University. In addition, from the University of Michigan we had Emily Laughlin and from Western Michigan University, Kelly Floyd.
We are already planning for ABAI 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona. Event details are being prepared and the 2009 Call for Papers is published on the ABAI Web site. The 2009 convention Web pages will be updated as the schedule, program, and other details are finalized. In addition, ABAI just experienced great success with its first Education Conference in Reston, Virginia, September 5–7 and looks forward to the third Autism Conference in Jacksonville, Florida, February 6–8, 2009.
We hope you can join us for at least one of these exciting and informative events next year!
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| Figure 5. Poster presentations were |
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