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20.08 / Conferences

Policy Statement:
All WSU units wishing to sponsor noncredit activities, including conferences and seminars, will coordinate these through the Office of University Conferences and Noncredit Programs, and that office will be partially funded through coordination fees charged to the sponsor.

Rationale:
To assure the most cost-effective use of University resources and staff time, and to insure that University noncredit activities appropriately and consistently reflect the University's mission.

Implementation:
Definition of noncredit activities covered by this policy: A defined event or set of noncredit activities which charges a fee that has a stated list of objectives and subjects to be covered and that is sanctioned by the University.

This policy does not apply to campus units which regularly offer noncredit programming as their primary mission.  As of the effective date of this policy (September 29, 1994) these units are the Center for Management Development, the Center for Urban Studies, the Institute of Fine Arts, and the Marcus Center for Continuing Education.

Campus units will contact the Office of University Conferences as soon as the decision is made by the sponsoring unit to offer a conference, seminar or noncredit activity covered under this policy.

The Office of University Conferences will meet with the requesting unit to determine the following: budget, marketing plan and publicity, time line, and conference office fee based on the total number of conference staff hours required to produce the noncredit event.

If the Office of University Conferences is not able to accommodate the requesting unit due to previous conference commitments, that unit may use other conference management services.  Also, if the requesting unit objects to paying a fee to the conference office, the unit may submit to the appropriate vice president a plan for how the conference will be managed internally.

That plan should include the following:

  1. Identification of all University personnel within the sponsoring unit who will be assigned to conference duties (including faculty, staff, and students).
  2. Estimate, with University Conferences staff assistance, the total number of unit staff hours involved and computation of the total hourly salaries and benefits of unit staff assigned to the conference.
  3. The unit's vice president will make a decision as to which is the most cost-effective course of action.

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