2006 CONFERENCE: PARTICIPANTS' FEEDBACK

We had 80 attendees at the conference. The venue was provided by Indiana University School of Social Work. The following information is a brief summary of responses provided by the attendees in their evaluation of the conference:

The main reasons for attending the conference centered around learning about Iranians in the United States . As one of the participants wrote, the conference was “ one of the few conferences of its kind on the Iranian American Experience .”

All of the respondents but one who responded ‘somewhat' stated that the conference fulfilled their expectations. One response read “ it is one of the finest conferences I've ever attended; it more than met my expectations .”

Attendees' responses to the question “What were the most beneficial aspects of the conference?” highlighted a combination of intellectual and social reasons that made this conference worth attending. Some of the reasons included: multiple discipline presentations; “ made me proud of being an Iranian ”; discussion of cultural concepts, traditions, and dynamics about the livelihood of Iranian-Americans; all of the information was extremely beneficial, bringing scholars and others of the community together; quality of presentations; the wonderful people – presenters and attendees; the good organization, delicious food; expansion of knowledge on various aspects of Iranians living abroad, and getting to know a lot of wonderful people.

Finally, the topics recommended for future conferences/workshops/presentations indicated a number of areas, such as, religion and Iranians in America; second generation Iranian Americans; transnationalism – Iran, the United States and Iranian-Americans; gender differences and similarities; impact of technology on Iranians and Iranian-American communication; disabilities in the Iranian-American community and service delivery; and advocacy, policy and how to build stronger communities.

We close this report with the following encouraging comments: “ This was superb! I liked the mix of topics…. ” But mostly the atmosphere and the people. ”

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