The Midwest North Regional Node held its second in-person meeting at the University of Detroit-Mercy on September 17-18, 2022. The University of Detroit-Mercy provided the meeting space for free, as well as free IT support and the use of a 15 passenger van at no cost. This meeting included Node faculty, undergraduates, and keynote speaker Dr. Chris Shaffer (Washington University in St. Louis). At the two day event, the following were discussed:
1) A state of the Node report from Node leader Dr. Jackie Wittke-Thompson (University of St. Francis),
2) Research talks from undergraduate GEP researchers,
3) Panel discussions on GEP implementation from both seasoned and newer implementers,
4) Keynote presentation from Dr. Chris Shaffer,
5) Undergraduate student discussion from GEP alumni presented via Zoom,
6) Discussion of future Node events, including potential recruitment from community colleges, an online presentation, etc
What worked well for your event that might help others plan similar events?
The use of the Detroit-Mercy Campus, having undergraduates present data from the different GEP projects, and splitting faculty into seasoned and new faculty for group discussions on implementation worked really well for this event.
What would your Node do differently based on your experiences?
The Node leader suggests hosting meetings at other locations in the Node besides the University of Detroit-Mercy. The low cost makes Detroit-Mercy a good location, but it’s possible that some members that live further away from Detroit are unable to take part in the Node activities. This was part of the discussion at the September 2022 meeting.
Since this meeting, the Midwest North and South Regional Nodes have been combined into a single Midwest Regional Node. This will result in additional locations that can be used to host Regional Node meetings.
