Greetings, Region 2, and welcome back to the blog!

We're ramping up to the conference in March and headed back to the quaint town of Lancaster PA. I've really fond memories of Lancaster, as it was the host city of my first NACADA conference and the beginning of my wild adventures as an academic advisor. We're slam in the middle of downtown this time and there's a ton of things to do in our spare time. We also had an overwhelming response to our call for proposals and the conference committee is putting together what promises to be a fantastic schedule of pre-conference workshops, concurrent sessions and poster presentations to fuel our professional development collaborations (those of you who submitted proposals should find out soon if you've been accepted).

Yes, I said collaborations. I said it not only because it is our conference theme but because I feel that's what these conferences represent--the chance to come together to broaden our knowledge bases and share our experiences with each other in the ultimate act of collaborative professional development. I've said it before and I'll say it again--in my humble opinion, the thing that sets this association apart from others is the extent to which we share with each other. Our conferences always give me a chance to recoup my energy and bolster my imagination and creativity with the wealth of new approaches and interpretations that each presenter brings to SHARE with each of their session attendees. The conversations we have in the hallways, or at lunch, or even in the hospitality suite, totally distanced from the organized events of the conference, are all conducted in such a way as to share with and develop as a result of interactions with our colleagues. And if that doesn't define collaboration, I don't know what does.  

So, I'm searching for the perfect analogy to raising a barn and am totally falling short... I want to say something like, "Come on out to Lancaster this March 19 through 21 and we'll 'raise a barn' full of advising stuff..." but you see how it is unraveling. I'll spare you all what would have certainly been something unspeakably corny and just encourage you to make plans to be in Lancaster for our conference on March 19, 20 and 21--we'll miss you if you don't!

Art Esposito

Region 2 Chair

Montclair State University