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Dear student,
On behalf of the SAAN 2007 Central Planning Team, we are excited that you are interested in this year’s SAAN 2008 Conference: Catalyst for Change. We can’t wait to share this exciting and transforming experience with you! Below, you will find details about the three day conference and information about registering.
Regards,
Shahid Ali - SAAN IT Officer
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| “What is this conference about?” |
Our goal for the conference is to motivate individuals to reflect on the impact they can have on the world and to inspire action. We believe that this goal will strongly contribute to forming a cohesive South Asian community in the context of an international network. The SAAN 2008 conference will enable participants to evaluate their own role in the global community and will, we hope, ultimately serve as a catalyst for change.
The SAAN conference introduces its participants to relevant topics of discussion which affect the South Asian American community. The uniqueness of this conference is its ability to transcend beyond the South Asian community and reach others who share interest in similar topics of conversation. Some of the issues of this year’s conference include reproductive health, post-911 conflicts, art culture, religion and statehood, transgender and sexuality, and many more. We hope to inspire participants through keynote speeches from rising South Asian Americans and engage them in workshop discussions led by student facilitators.
Since many of the concerns SAAN conference addresses are universally shared by other minority groups and affect the broader population, we highly encourage students outside the South Asian community to take advantage of this conference and bring their ideas and opinions to the table. To encourage a well-rounded and unbiased perspective, we have arranged workshop speakers such as Dr. Bollinger from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who is an expert on healthcare disparities affecting communities originating from the Indian Sub-continent.
For more specific details about the schedule of the conference, please see the student schedule.
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| “What if I am not from the University of Michigan? How do I attend?” |
| We value the diversity of perspectives that can be brought to the conference when participants all across the country participate. In the past we have had participants from other states and schools and will work with you to ensure that your group can make it. If you are interested in signing up individually or as a group, feel free to use our registration page. If you would like to work with us on transportation and housing, we would be happy to assist you, please email us at
saan@umich.edu |
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| “What are Tracks? I’m used to workshops!” |
| This year we are introducing “tracks” at the conference to give participants a more focused experience. The tracks range in topics from “Economics and Development” to “Pop Culture and the Arts.” Based on the track you have chosen, all the workshops will relate to the track selected and will provide participants an opportunity to network with other individuals interested in a particular area. |
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| “What is the formal night?” |
| It has been a SAAN tradition to hold a formal dinner and entertainment night during the Saturday night of the conference. The formal serves as a great opportunity for student participants to network with one another. SAAN has a history of bringing insightful keynotes to the Saturday dinner and entertainers who are creating change through the performance arts. We have a delicious dinner menu in store and we hope it will serve as an opportunity for participants to refresh themselves after attending a full day of workshops and dialogue sessions. |
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| “Registration: Why should I do it and how do I do it?” |
For students registering for the first time, this section will serve to clarify the process. If you have already registered, you may choose to disregard this section. However, please remember that registration and Track selection (detailed below) may affect your experience at the conference. One of the most important questions we get is why should the participant have to fill out multiple pages to attend this conference. The answer is multi-part.
The primary reason for our registration is to obtain your basic information and to ask you if you would like to share your basic contact information (name and email address only) with other registered students. All registered users will be able to login to the website and access the email address database list of all registered users who have opted to share this information. We believe that this is another way we to encourage t participants to maintain ties with one another. If you are concerned about the privacy or security of such information, you may choose to remove your sharing preferences anytime.
Secondly, the registration process allows registrants to tailor the conference to their individual interests. Since we expect this year’s conference to host 300+ participants, we hope that students will take full advantage of the online registration to select Tracks or Workshops (outlined below) that best suit them. The concept of tracks is new to SAAN this year and specializes the conference into different categories (Gender and Sexuality, Pop Culture and Arts, Social Justice and Politics, Economics and Development, Science and Technology). You will be given a choice to rank the aforementioned tracks from 1-5 or to opt out of tracks and by selecting the custom option. This custom option allows you to rank each individual workshop for the three different workshop sessions that will take place. The track selection is the simplest solution as it has pre-selected workshops associated with it for each session relating to the topic of the track. |
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| “What are the Tracks and Workshops offered during the conference?” |
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| “Why should I register early?” |
| At the end of each month, the online registration module will increase the payment option by $5. This means that registering early is in your best interests. |
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| “Ready to register?” |
| Please go to
http://www.saanconf.org/user/reguser1.jsp |
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| “Support SAAN” |
| Please support SAAN by contributing to our organization. We accept all PayPal accounts and any form of major credit cards. Please click on the link below. |
| http://www.saanconf.org/files/SAAN_Finance_Packet_2.pdf |
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