Summer Spectacular: Children's Literature Workshops, Institutes, and Classes.

Two veteran planners of summer literature conferences. Professors Linda Pavonetti and Karen Huff, share their perspectives, successes, and advice for planning summer literature events.NO MATTER HOW LONG you've been out of school, or how many children's literature classes you've taught, when summer comes, most of us long to "go back to class." The reason? The intriguing, exciting, reinvigorating institutes and conferences our colleagues offer in summer. We who attend and learn from these courses covet the experiences for our students, and sometimes wonder if we, too, could ever have the courage, the resources, the organization skills, and the stamina to host a summer institute in our own backyards.Two extremely popular and well-established summer offerings are hosted by Linda Pavonetti of Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, and Karen Huf f of Shenandoah University, Winchester, Virginia. I asked both of these experienced professors to talk about planning and hosting summer institutes.NANCY ROSER (NR) It must be costly to host a summer institute. What kinds of financial resources are available to you? Do your universities help?LINDA PAVONETTI (LP) When Oakland University was a new institution, the administration decided to grow its summer enrollment. The Provost proposed incentives that would allow departments to retain any profits they realized from summer classes. Recognizing that teachers have more time during the summer months, Oakland's Reading and Language Arts Department created a course focused on the art and craft of authors and illustrators. Initially, all the tuition came back to our department to pay expenses ("please keep the change"); later, course tuitions moved to the dean's office. Today, all incentives have vanished, and the class must support itself to survive. Currently, enrollment is down due to the economy, while expenses are up because of inflation. Costs of airfare, gas, hotels, and meals have escalated. Further, our costs are carefully scrutinized by administration, and I must conserve wherever possible. For example, we're inviting more regional authors - many big names - who can drive to our campus, and using our web and Moodle instead of incurring printing costs.KAREN HUFF (KH)Things are similar at Shenandoah. We also use tuition fees to pay expenses, and we are required to budget 30% of tuition and fees for the overhead costs of the institution. I, too, have noticed that costs have risen, including honoraria and travel costs for the speakers. For the past four years, we have not raised the cost of our summer conference, but have tried to increase enrollment through additional advertising and by booking authors who have name recognition among teachers. At least 30-40% of the participants each summer are returning students. For the past three years, we have received a small grant to support eight to ten teachers from one school system in Virginia. These teachers come from a school system having a high poverty level. Both the constraints of budgets and cuts in professional development support make it even more difficult to predict enrollment - which is typically around 300 participants. Gaining support from the administration of the college or university is essential to these kinds of undertakings. Each fall, after final enrollment data are available from the previous summer, the proposed budget for the next year is submitted. The administration expects all special programs to cover expenses through tuition income. Most authors/ illustrators have set honorarium fees, and we must budget for those fees. Sometimes, we negotiate fees with the author/illustrator or publisher. Rarely have we received support from the publisher for the author/illustrator honorarium fee or travel costs.NR Do you offer "levels of enrollment"? That is, do some attendees earn university credit, while others earn professional development credit?Yes, teachers may elect to take the course for 2-3 hours of graduate credit in reading or writing. …