Dear Academic ESUG Members, Since March STIC has an Academic Advisory Board. Yesterday we had a joint meeting of the STIC board and the Academic Advisory Board. And we have started planning an Academic Workshop under the title "Smalltalk Direction". The workshop shall take place as part of STIC conference place in Biloxi, Mississippi, March 19 - 21, 2012. The workshop will be international and shall have a formal program committee with members from all over the world. The papers accepted for the workshop shall be published in an internationally accepted publication. As we took the decision yesterday, not everything has been formalized yet, but I wanted to inform you as soon as possible that you can start panning what you be able to present. For academic Smalltalkers this will be a good chance to present their research in Northern America. To ease the cost we also decided to have a Student Volunteer Program similar to ESUG. I am looking forward to many interesting publications Georg Heeg PS: If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me at Georg@stic.st STIC - Smalltalk Industry Council Executive Director Phone +49-3496-214328, Fax +49-3496-214712