General Information

Important Dates

September 15:	Call for symposium proposals and exhibitor sign-up web pages open
February 1:	Registration and housing sign-up web pages open, along with abstract submission, and travel grant application
April 15:	Deadline for abstract submission, early registration, and travel grant applications
May 15:	Notify participants of abstract acceptance, mail out invitation letters; deadline for symposium proposals
June 15:	Program details and sessions posted on website
July 1:	Last day to request cancellation refunds of registration and housing fees. The refund processing fee is 10% or $50 (whichever is less).
August 9:	Arrival in Ithaca, congress starts
August 14:	Conference banquet, end of formal congress
August 15:	Post-congress symposia, departure

Society Membership

We strongly encourage you to become a member of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology before registering for the Congress. One can sign up for ISBE membership with or without a journal subscription by following the link on the Society membership website. Annual membership is very inexpensive, US $15 or EU €12. If you are unsure whether your membership is valid, email OUP's Customer Services with your name, address, and subscription number if you know it, and put 'ISBE subscription' in the subject line.

There will be an open Society business meeting during lunch on Wednesday August 13, in which you will hear reports from the Society's officers and journal editors. This meeting provides an opportunity for everyone to contribute feedback and ideas for ISBE's future activities.

Accommodation Options

We strongly urge participants to stay in the North Campus residence halls. Many of the congress activities will take place here, including the initial registration desk and room check-in, the welcome reception, the evening social events, and the soccer tournament. We will be the only group occupying North Campus during this period. The new residence hall rooms are quite nice, with air conditioning, lounge and meeting rooms, and kitchen and laundry facilities. Single and double occupancy rooms are arranged in suites of 3-5 so that restroom facilities are shared with a small number of people. We will also offer a budget residence hall option in the older residence hall buildings, which do not have air conditioning. Finally, some of the 2-bedroom apartment residence halls will be available to participants. Participants traveling with family and children will receive first priority access to these apartments, but groups may also be interested in booking some of the apartments.

Hotel space will be extremely limited during this period, because the congress overlaps with the annual NASCAR auto-racing event in nearby Watkins Glen. This huge event books every hotel room within 100 miles. We have reserved 80 rooms total in three hotels close to the campus and will provide shuttle bus rides from these hotels to the campus. If you earnestly prefer to stay in a hotel, please book early.

For details on residence hall rates and designated hotels, see the Housing web page.

Child Care

Cornell University does not have a licensed childcare facility on campus to provide drop-in care for children, and we were unable to set up a temporary one during the week of our Congress. However, we do have some alternative options for parents who would like to bring their children with them to Ithaca.

For school-aged children (4.5 to 12 years) we recommend signing up your child for a one-week day camp program at the local YMCA. The Y is directly adjacent to two of our Congress hotels, the Ramada Inn and the EconoLodge, which can provide very reasonable accommodations for families. The timing of the daily program at the Y fits well with the Congress schedule and we can coordinate drop off and pick up with our shuttle van trips to the hotels. The cost for the camp is estimated to be about $200. The Y also has a half-day program for children aged 3-5. The summer camp program is popular among the locals, so ISBE parents should sign up by April or May at the latest. For more information, please refer to the YMCA website.

For infants and toddlers, we have two suggestions. The first is to book your housing in one of the residence hall townhouse apartments, and hire a private babysitter. We will provide a list of available babysitters, including Cornell students and local teenagers who have received a Red Cross babysitter training certificate. We will also attempt to borrow some cribs and toys for the week. Parents can screen and contact the sitters in advance of arriving. Hourly rates range from about $6 to $10 per hour, depending on number and ages of children. Babysitters cannot be hired to care for children in the regular residence halls. The second option is the public Drop-in Children's Center located in downtown Ithaca. The drive is approximately 8 minutes from North Campus. The Center requires an application form with a $25 fee, a 50% down-payment, and an immunization record form signed by your doctor. The cost is $65 per day for an infant, somewhat less for toddlers. If you would like to receive the babysitter list (available sometime in May), and/or if you would like to be included in an email list of other ISBE parents to coordinate transportation or share babysitting, please contact .

Email Access

There will be multiple ways for congress participants to check their email. Nearly all buildings we will be using have RedRover wireless access, including Barton Hall and all of the residence hall rooms. Bring your laptops if you are an email addict, but be sure to charge them up in your room at night because electrical connections are often not available. The campus also has several public computer rooms, and your congress name badge will give you free access to these computers (but not printing). We will include a map with the locations of all computer labs. Finally, we will have our own dedicated computer and preview room set up in Barton Hall. Speakers who need to preview their PowerPoint presentations will have priority of access to workstations in this room.