June 16, 2020
Dear Colleagues,
Hopefully all of you have successfully completed spring term and have a bit of respite from all things COVID-19. Soon we have to turn our attention back to it, continue planning for fall, and of course, the entire next academic year.
The real purpose of writing today is for a reason that has not occurred since 1945. PACRAO held its first annual meeting in 1923 and since then, has met every year except 1943, 1944, and 1945. Those annual meetings were not held because of World War II. In November, 2020, this will mark the fourth time in our organization’s history where we do not meet in person, for obvious reasons.
The decision the cancel our meeting is disappointing to the entire PACRAO Executive Board and I know that many members and business partners are also disappointed. The Executive Board and the two planning committees for the Seattle annual meeting worked extremely hard to minimize cancellation costs and financial risk to our organization; we were successful.
The Hyatt Regency partnered with us and agreed to shift our contract with them to 2024. This will cost us no additional funds, however we will need to make a small deposit annually now until 2024. We feel confident that the outcome is the most advantageous to both parties. The next step is to begin planning a virtual meeting for fall 2020 because the feedback we received from all of you included a strong interest in learning from each other virtually in lieu of an in-person meeting this fall.
More details will come over the summer as the planning committees shift their focus to a virtual meeting. In the meantime, know that while we are all disappointed about this shift, we still hope to engage all of our members and our business partners for an enriching meeting this fall with plenty of shared learning opportunities together.
In shared hope for the future,
Rebecca
Rebecca Mathern, PhD
PACRAO President
Associate Provost and University Registrar
Oregon State University
rebecca.mathern@oregonstate.edu
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