**CANCELLED** 2020 APA-ISS Spring Conference

In light of mounting cancellations and disruptions to travel, the APA-ISS Board has decided to cancel the 2020 APA-ISS Conference in Champaign-Urbana. Please cancel all travel plans associated with this event.

2020 APA-ISS Spring Conference

Cancelled | Champaign-Urbana

The APA-IL Illinois State Section (APA-ISS) has chosen to cancel our annual conference, previously scheduled for April 2-3 in Champaign-Urbana. Over the past several days, the APA-ISS board and the conference planning team have been monitoring developments related to coronavirus across the country. Yesterday, the University of Illinois announced a shutdown of in-person instruction and asked students to stay away from campus as possible. Additionally, The Champaign-Urbana Public Health District and the State of Illinois have both taken meaningful steps in the direction of limiting travel and shutting down group gatherings. Accordingly, the APA-ISS Board believes it is in the best interests of our membership to cancel the conference at this time. Though a number of reasons have factored into our decision, the three below are primary:

This conference was scheduled for this date in this location so that we could draw the largest number of students. Improving student engagement with APA-ISS is one of our goals for this year as a Section. With students being asked to stay away from campus, one of the core goals for this conference cannot be achieved. Our keynote speaker lives in Buffalo, NY and has plane and train travel planned for our conference. Given that both Amtrak and the airlines continue to cut service, there is a growing likelihood that our speaker may find out she's unable to attend only a few days before the conference. For a variety of reasons, we cannot produce alternate programming to fill those schedule gaps.

I anticipate many of our registrants will face employer-imposed travel restrictions in the coming days. This possibility weakens our conference both financially and programmatically. We absolutely look forward to bringing this conference back to our membership in the future! The silver lining is that we are poised to make the conference bigger and better than originally planned since we are starting from a nearly-finished product. If you are a registrant, presenter, vendor, or sponsor, you will be receiving additional communication from us in the near future.

Registration

APA-ISS will be refunding the registration fee for all registrants. It appears to be the case that Eventbrite will refund its registration fee as well. Please contact Ben LeRoy at iss@ilapa.org if you do not receive your refund by Wednesday, March 18th.

Hotel & Travel

Please cancel any hotel, train, or bus reservations you may have made in connection with this event.

Professional Development in 2020

The APA-ISS Board recognizes that a number of our members rely on the APA-ISS conference to maintain their AICP certification. In the near future, we will be assessing our capacity to provide alternate methods for earning CM credits.

Questions

Email the conference organizer and APA-ISS Chairman Ben LeRoy or call 217-403-8800.