GSA CONFERENCE HOTEL MILWAUKEE HILTON SOLD OUT OF SLEEPING ROOMS ALTERNATE HOTEL SELECTED FOR PARTICIPANTS. SEE HOME PAGE OF THIS WEB SITE FOR FULL INFORMATION!

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Important Events at the Milwaukee Conference

Reduced Price Tickets available during the Registration Process

Luncheon and Banquet Meal Tickets are Discounted during Registration Process - Discounted Prices given on this site!

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Friday Luncheon - Crystal Ballroom, 12:15pm

The Executive Committee plans a surprise event at this luncheon.

FLASH NEWS: This luncheon is entitled "Celebrating the Kleinfeld Era in Verse and Vignettes," speakers and events not to be announced - good grief, it's a roast!

Friday Banquet - Crystal Ballroom, 7pm

This is the Annual Awards Banquet for presentation of prizes. The speaker this year will be Gerald R. Kleinfeld, on "The Past and Future of German-American Relations." It will be his farewell address as Executive Director of the Association.

Saturday Luncheon - Crystal Ballroom, 12:15pm

The speaker will be Lutz Stratmann, Minister for Science and Art, State of Lower Saxony. His topic will be German higher education in a critical phase.

Cocktail Parties - No-Host

The GSA organizes two no-host cocktail parties, one on Thursday evening at 6pm and the other on Friday evening at 5:45pm. Other cocktail parties printed in the Program.

Tickets for the Luncheons and the Banquet may be purchased during the Conference Registration process. Do not forget to buy your luncheon and banquet tickets online.

Twenty-Ninth Annual Conference

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

September 29 - October 2, 2005

Register and book your hotel room NOW!

Only a few days left for hotel rooms at the Milwaukee Hilton. They will be gone!!

The German Studies Association will hold its 29th Annual Conference at the Milwaukee Hilton Hotel, 509 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53203.

Prof. Gerald R. Kleinfeld, GSA founder, founder and Editor for 20 years of the German Studies Review, and Executive Director for 29 years since the beginning of the Association, will step down this year.

The Conference Program

Using links to the left, you will be able to access the preliminary conference program. The "Session Times" is an overview, "Sessions" contains the complete conference information on each session, and the "Index of Participants" is self-explanatory. Other conference events, such as luncheons and the Banquet, are described above, but some will not appear except in the printed program or on  announcement sheets.

Conference Registration and Hotel Reservations

Using the link to the left, you will enter both the Conference Registration and Hotel Reservation system. We have a block of rooms at reduced prices at the Hilton, the Conference Hotel, but these are only available to those who register for the Conference. Of course, it is necessary to register in order to enter the Conference area of the hotel. In order to register, you will need a profile (name, address, e-mail, for example). If you are a member, you already have one. If you are a non-member, but have done something with GSA before, such as perhaps attended a conference previously, you probably also have one, as a non-member profile. DO NOT CREATE a new one. Use the one you have, or the two records will fight one another on the computer. Avoid ghost profiles!

You will not have to pre-pay the hotel room, but you will have to pay conference registration fees when you fill out the form. GSA takes MasterCard and Visa. The Hotel takes other major credit cards as well. Therefore, there are TWO credit card procedures in our system - one for GSA registration, and one for the hotel.

The process is self-explanatory. However, we have a Help Desk at thegsa@earthlink.net. Do not call the GSA office for assistance. Do not write the Executive Director. Please DO use the Help Desk. If you do not have a computer, please ask someone to let you use theirs, or go to an internet cafe or other site where a computer is available. However, you MUST have an e-mail address to register online. The Help Desk is for technical questions relating to filling out the forms.

Remember, you do not have to be a member of GSA to register and reserve a hotel room, but members must use their member ID, and all persons will need to create a logon. Just follow the procedure as described.

WITHDRAWAL FROM THE CONFERENCE

Withdrawal of a paper presenter from the Conference is permitted only if an acceptable reason is presented to the Executive Director in advance of the Conference. If no reason or no acceptable reason is offered, the Executive Committee has decided that such persons may not present a paper at a GSA conference for a period of three years. The Executive Director may be contacted at thegsa@yahoo.com.

INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL SUPPORT

GSA has limited funds to assist a small number of persons who are citizens outside of North America and are travelling internationally to the conference. This support is partial, and is secondary - that is, persons are expected to apply in their own countries for first resort support. It is not available to students. If you believe that you may be eligible, and have failed to secure funding within your own country, and are prepared to pay part of the costs yourself, write to the Executive Director at thegsa@yahoo.com and apply for GSA partial travel support. Since GSA does not reimburse for airline tickets already purchased, it is wise to write BEFORE purchasing a ticket.

GSA REFUND POLICY

Since all fees are charged through credit cards, and GSA pays both a percentage to the credit card company for each purchase and for each refund, and because processing refund requests requires staff intervention, GSA charges a processing fee for each refund, regardless of reason. Refunds of GSA fees paid up to three weeks before the Conference are subject to a $25 processing fee. After three weeks before the Conference, no meals may be refunded, and there is a $25 processing fee for refunds of the registration fees. No refunds are processed at the Conference. No refunds are processed for persons who do not request a refund before the Conference. No-shows are not refunded.

HOTEL RESERVATION CONFIRMATIONS AND CANCELLATIONS

The hotel picks up its reservation information from the site, and indicates which have been confirmed. It can generate an e-mail to each person to confirm. GSA does not itself confirm hotel reservations. GSA does not cancel or change reservations. Once a reservation has been made through our web site with the Hotel, the individual must make any changes or cancellations DIRECTLY with the hotel, and not with GSA. Do not call Hilton Central Reservations. They can do nothing on this special priority conference. Call the hotel itself, and make sure that you are not transferred by them to Hilton Central. It is important to note that the Hotel picks up the reservations at its own schedule, and some time may elapse between when you have made one and the hotel picks it up.