Annual In-Person Conference Postponed to June 2021

Dear GCC members and supporters,
 
In recent weeks, the GCC executive board has been monitoring situations in the US, Canada, and world-wide with regard to COVID-19, and observing the responses of our institutions and peer organizations. This email is an update for you on some recent decisions.
 
Toronto Conference Postponed to June 2021
After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to cancel our annual meeting this summer and move it a year later  - to be held June 23-25, 2021 in Toronto.  We will similarly shift our plans for subsequent years and will hold our 2022 conference in San Francisco and 2023 conference in Indianapolis.
 
As much as we know that this is the right thing to do for people’s safety and health, as well as necessary given professional and personal restrictions on domestic and international travel, it has nevertheless been a very hard decision to make.  We deeply value the experience of our annual conference and the opportunity to meet, learn from one another, and build community in person. We appreciate the immense support and guidance from Meeting Resource Group (MRG) as we have renegotiated hotel contracts and weighed financial considerations.
 
Conference Session Proposals
The conference committee for 2020, led by conference chair Liam O’Leary, and president-elect Briana Konnick, have put in a tremendous amount of work over the past nine months as they have been planning for the conference.  We are extremely grateful for their efforts and hope that much of it will be able to carry over to next year’s plans, as well as to a potential remote/virtual event this summer (details to be determined!)
 
We also recognize that many of you have recently submitted proposals for member-generated sessions and posters.  Similarly, it is our hope that much of this will be able to be picked up and incorporated into either the 2021 conference or a virtual event of some kind in summer 2020.  Members of the conference committee will be in touch with everyone who submitted proposals to provide additional details, instructions, and options.
 
Conference Refunds
100% of registration fees will be refunded to everyone who is currently registered for the conference, as well as our conference sponsors, and we thank you for your patience as we process these transactions in coming weeks.
 
There is a great deal of uncertainty and difficulty that we are all handling right now, and we are more grateful than ever for our GCC community. We appreciate the open forum recently organized by our Education Research committee and we hope to hold similar online events soon.  We recognize that many of you are shouldering responsibilities for and concerns about yourselves and immediate family members, as well as for your offices, programs, and institutions, not to mention your graduate students and postdocs.  We hope that the GCC can help support each of you through the many challenges you are facing.  Please feel free to reach out to any one of us.
 
The GCC Executive Board