ASR NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
Volume 33, Number 3 Spring 1999
CHICAGOLAND EXPRESS: THE PRELIMINARY PROGRAM
This issue of News & Announcements brings the 1999 preliminary program. As you can see, it is a full one. Papers, addresses, and authors-meet-critics sessions feature outstanding colleagues from around the world. Now it is time for you to respond by completing your preregistration materials.
Your preregistration (note: the time for preregistration is now over. Please register at the conference) entitles you to save money and also is of enormous assistance to us in making adequate plans for the meeting to serve everyone most effectively. Preregistration requirements will be strictly enforced, both in terms of program participation and charges. Try to firm up your plans in the next few days, and send in your materials.
Please note, in particular, the following:
If you are on the program, you must be a current ASR member. (In the case of co-authored papers, this requirement is met by one of the authors being a member, but note that all co-authors attending the meeting must pay registration fees.)
If you are on the program, you must be preregistered.
The deadline for preregistration is a June 15 postmark. If you do not preregister, you can register at the Essex Inn in Chicago at 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, August 4th, and daily throughout the meeting.
Those not on the program are also encouraged to preregister. On-site registration fees will be higher for all categories of attendees.
The Women's Network Breakfast is available only by preregistration.
Information on hotel registration is provided below. Note that the hotel has a later reservation date than the preregistration date. Don't confuse the two. Note that you must mail, fax, phone, or email (a first!) the hotel directly. Do not send the hotel form to the Executive Office. You are urged to ask for a written confirmation.
Preregistration fees are NONrefundable.
You will receive an acknowledgment of your preregistration by mail prior to the meeting, probably the last week in July.
The program is about the same size as last year. Read carefully! We are grateful for the number of submissions received, and we look forward to your presentations. Click here to go to the Preliminary Program.
Note, too, that you may pay 2000 dues at this time, using the preregistration form, even if you are not attending the meeting.
Airline Reservations
United Airlines is the "official airline" for the ASR. You will get an 5% discount off the lowest published United fare for the date and time of your trip at the time you make your reservations. You will get a 10% discount if you book on or before 3 June. We have approximately a one-week "window" (August 2-10) around our actual conference dates, so you can come early to tour and/or stay for ASA and still use this plan. Our "meeting ID" code is 543ZS. While you may make your arrangements with United directly, we prefer that you make them with our travel agent, Picture Perfect Travel; call Mary at 1-800-411-8388 or e-mail <picturep@derbytech.com>. It will cost you nothing to make the call except a little time. You may also fax PPT at 1-309-786-9529. (Non-North American participants must call 309-788-0500, if you do not fax or e-mail.) In all cases, you will be assured of the lowest possible rate for the time at which you make your reservation and choose to arrive and depart, as well as prompt, courteous service.
Getting in From the Airport
Limousine, cab, and shuttle service is available at the airport, but one of the great blessings of a Chicago meeting site is the CTA (subway/el). You can come in from either O'Hare or Midway on the CTA and be within a short walk of the hotel. (Shuttles go to the Chicago Hilton, immediately across the street from our hotel.) You will find directions for the CTA on the back of the Preliminary Program. It is also possible to get a city bus to our hotel directly from Union Station, if you arrive by train, and the hotel probably has the most reasonable guest parking rates in the city, for those who drive. We hope to have CTA maps at the registration desk. They are too bulky to mail.
Getting In Without Getting Poor
If you are coming into O'Hare: Follow the signs for the CTA. It is a hike from many parts of the airport, but it is all enclosed. You will be on the Blue line. Change at Washington or Jackson for the Red line. (The Jackson interchange has full ADA facilities.) Get off at Harrison and walk east two blocks to Michigan Avenue. Turn right and walk three blocks to the hotel. (If it is raining, you can walk only two blocks, then duck into the Hilton, which covers a full block, and walk through it.) NB: The Harrison Street stop closes at 10:00 p.m. In that case, change at Clark to the Orange line, and follow the instructions for Midway.
If you are coming into Midway (thus not using United): Follow the signs for the CTA. It is a hike too. You will be on the Orange line. Get off at Roosevelt (full ADA facilities). Walk east one block to Michigan Avenue. Turn left and walk two blocks to the hotel. The Roosevelt stop is open as long as the trains are running.
If it's dark and you aren't sure which way is east and which way is west, ask before you leave the station!
If you are coming into Union Station (Amtrak), take Bus 1 from the east side of the station. It comes right to the hotel (push/pull the buzzer gizmo as you pass the Hilton). If you are coming in on the South Shore Line, get off at the Roosevelt Road Station, walk west to Michigan Avenue, cross the street, and walk a block and a half north.
If you are driving from outside the city, you will almost certainly enter via Congress Parkway. When you get to Michigan Avenue turn right (south), go five blocks, and turn right onto 9th. The hotel and parking garage are on your left. (Spot it by the Hilton, turn right immediately after the Hilton.)
Hotel Shuttle
The hotel shuttle will take you for free to the art institute and symphony,
Watertower Place (shopping), and to within one block of the Palmer House.
Tell the shuttle driver you want to get off at Monroe. Cross the street
and walk one block west. You will need to make arrangements with the shuttle
driver about getting back if you don't want walk or take a cab. You can
alternatively, up to 10:00, take the Red line CTA from Harrison to Monroe
and back again, or the Orange line from Roosevelt to Madison, cutting out
about six blocks. The Palmer House is nine blocks from our hotel.
About the Hotel
We are based at the Essex Inn at Grant Park, a small hotel made most attractive to us by its location vis-à-vis the Chicago Hilton. The phone number for making a reservation for the conference is 1-800-621-6909. Click here to go to the hotel reservation form. While some rooms do have million dollar views of Lake Michigan, the hotel is not a luxury property by any means. We nevertheless have a very good rate. Generous contributions will also enable us to provide a continental breakfast on Thursday morning to those members who arrive on Wednesday night. The hotel provides hair dryers. Irons and ironing boards are available on request. There are no in-room coffee makers. There are minibars. There are also refrigerators in some rooms. If you need a refrigerator for medical reasons, you should alert the hotel to that at the time you make your reservation.
Note the hotel deadline of 7 July. It is later than the preregistration deadline, but only a limited number of rooms are available. If you have difficulty making reservations with the hotel before the deadline, please contact the Executive Office at once (727-844-5990; <swatos @microd.com>). After the deadline, there's not a lot we can do to help you. We do have a window on either side of our meeting dates, so you can stay on in our hotel for as much of as ASA as you wish. The hotel is in the renovation process. The restaurant has been completely redone. Some guest rooms will be nicer than others. None will be large. The hotel also provides free shuttle service up and down Michigan Avenue, which can facilitate both shopping and less of a walk to the Palmer House, where some ASA sessions will be held. (We have been promised by ASA that the Sociology of Religion Section sessions will be in the Chicago Hilton. We will also use the Hilton for the Furfey Lecture, to be given by ASA Section Chair Mary Jo Neitz. Section attendees will join us for the Furfey reception and the presentation of some Section awards, which will take place at our hotel.) There is an outdoor pool on the fourth floor of our hotel, where our receptions will be held, weather permitting.
Eating and Working Out
The hotel has a restaurant, the Hilton has at least three, and the Blackstone Grill on the next corner is legendary. (The new owner of our hotel restaurant also operates the Blackstone Grill.) Skip the Congress. The Artists Cafe and a super bakery are a block or two farther north. For other restaurants, walk one or two blocks west and head north. The good, bad, and the ugly are all there. That is also where you will find groceries, liquor stores, drug stores, and so on.
Grant Park is directly across Michigan Avenue from the hotel (as its name implies). This is an excellent venue for walkers and runners. Also in Grant Park are the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, and Adler Planetarium. A much longer jog/walk, but still in the park, will take you to the Museum of Science and Industry, which is only a short walk east from the University of Chicago. Bus 1 will do the same thing. (Just north of our hotel, on Michigan, is the Spertus Museum of Judaica. We have a limited number of free tickets. Check at the registration desk. At some times of the year, there is also a free day.) For Chicago tourist information click here.
Audiovisual Equipment
The ASR does not provide audiovisual equipment. You must either bring your own or make arrangements with the hotel's a-v service provider. The Executive Office and Program Chair will work with you in this case in order to try to minimize your costs. If you show up at the meeting at the last minute asking for on-site a-v equipment you have not ordered previously, you almost certainly will go without it.
Registration and the Book Exhibit
Our registration desk will be open Wednesday from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m., Thursday and Friday from 8:00 to 3:00; Saturday from 8:00 to noon. Although there is still some flux surrounding the timing of the book exhibit, we should be able to go from noon Thursday through Saturday morning, with pick up of purchases from 8:15 to 10:15, and the final sale from 10:15 'til noon.
Ralph A. Gallagher Travel Awards
Gallagher grants to assist with travel to attend the ASR annual meeting are offered each year by the Council to graduate students and foreign scholars whose papers are accepted for inclusion on the program. A total of $4,500 is available for the 1999 meeting. Applications for travel grants not previously submitted to the program chair should be sent in letter form to the Executive Office (<swatos@ microd. com>, fax 727-844-5990); final grants are determined by an ad hoc committee composed of the Program Chair, President, and Executive Officer. All Gallagher applications must be submitted by 1 June. (That is the date by which they must arrive, not the postmark date.) In general awards to foreign scholars will not exceed $500, nor will those to North American graduate students exceed $300.
News
The Religious Research Association and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion will meet 5-7 November at the Swisshôtel, Boston. This meeting has been chosen to mark the 50th anniversary of both organizations and offers an outstanding collection of program materials. If you are not a member of either organization and wish more information, contact the SSSR office: Department of Sociology, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602-5388.
Roger Finke announces the availability of the American Religion Data Archive, an Internet-based archive. ARDA stores quantitative files collected on American religion and allows you to download the data files, codebooks, and MicroCase's Explorit software for analyzing the data on your own PC--or you can review the codebook and complete initial analysis on line. The site also supports search features allowing scholars to search for questions of interest in a single data file or a group of data files. Once you find questions of interest, you can look at results from a single date file, compare results across files, or save a question for constructing your own survey--hence, ARDA serves as a repository of both data and questions. Interested? Check it out at <www.arda.tm>.
Ana Maria Díaz Stevens became New York City's Union Theological Seminary's first tenured Latino/a professor in early February. See the write up in the National Catholic Reporter of 26 February.
Tony Blasi has recently published Organized Religion and Seniors' Mental Health with University Press of America (Lanham, Maryland).
We regret to announce the deaths of two colleagues this winter. Ross Scherer, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Loyola University Chicago, died suddenly at his home at the end of February. Ross was a past president of the Religious Research Association and had submitted a paper for this year's ASR meeting. Don Ploch, a former ASR member and retired faculty member of the sociology department of the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, also died suddenly at a Knoxville hospital, only a few weeks after Ross. Don last served ASR as Chair of the McNamara Award Committee for two years. May they rest in peace.