The 2011 ASHS Annual Conference

The Ohio State University Nursery Short Course (OSU NSC) has been providing the green industry with cutting edge educational information, research updates, and innovations for nursery, landscape, garden center, tree care and turf professionals for 82 years.  The three sponsors of the OSU NSC: The Ohio State University Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, The OSU Extension Nursery, Landscape and Turf Team, and The Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association, work closely together in the planning and implementation of this program.  On January 24-26, 2011, nearly 100 sessions were presented by nationally and locally recognized experts and industry leaders to more than 2000 attendees.  The educational sessions are organized into tracks of five 60-minute presentations per track that focus on selected topics. The afternoon tracks are all back to basic topics so that managers will have time at the trade show while employees attend sessions.Annual on-site attendee evaluations of each speaker have been used from 2007 through 2011.  Using a Likert scale evaluation tool, data has been analyzed concerning the quality of the speaker, usefulness of the presentation, and how applicable the session information is to the participants’ job.Analyzing five years of attendance in relation to speaker fees indicates spending more on speakers will not necessarily equate to larger attendance numbers. A further analysis of participant satisfaction surveys for these same years will also be considered to clarify what warrants attendance increases in educational programs.