If you build it, they will come—at least in America’s Midwest. At the English Language Institute (ELI) at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri, USA we began with a plan to build an in-house workshop to address our professional development needs. We extended an invitation to other programs in the area and members of MIDTESOL (Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and Kansas). Our offer resulted in a regional conference on teacher development and second-language acquisition with attendees from six states and 16 intensive English programs (IEPs).

As the ELI has grown, it has become increasingly difficult to maintain a regular schedule of professional development opportunities. With growth, communicating culture becomes more necessary but more difficult to achieve. Afternoon meetings rarely fit into the schedules of every full-time teacher, and it is even more difficult to accommodate all part-time faculty. In response, we chose to cancel a day of classes and dedicate a full day to come together as a staff to learn from each other and refine our craft. We planned a slate of workshops on several “necessary” topics and opened up other times for our faculty to present.

Our first “Professional Development In-service Day” took place in fall 2014 and included not only our own staff, but also guests from two local universities, Evangel and Drury, and one farther away, Missouri Institute of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri. The second time around, we expanded the schedule from half-day to full and extended the invitation to MIDTESOL members. To our surprise, we found ourselves the host of presenters and attendees from 16 IEPs, representing six states.

We sent the call for proposals for the first conference to our own faculty, and strongly encouraged our graduate teaching assistants and newer instructors to present for the first time. For the second conference, renamed the TESOL and SLA Professional Development Conference, we extended the invitation to other IEPs through the MIDTESOL mailing list and collected both proposals and conference registration using a Google form. We worked to accommodate anyone interested in presenting—offering 45-minute and 20-minute sessions. The final schedule offered 21 sessions and workshops on a variety of topics, including three presentations from students in Missouri State’s TESOL program who were presenting for the first time, and 11 presenters from visiting programs. The conference resulted in a fantastic infusion of ideas for our program and a great opportunity for networking across the region.

For a modest investment of time and money, we received a professional conference experience in-house. The time investment primarily included time spent to set the schedule, email participants, and set up and monitor the Google form for proposals and registration and the webpage for sharing conference information. We offered the conference to our visitors for free (though they were responsible for their own travel expenses), with our university providing the meeting space and our MIDTESOL affiliate providing free promotion, coffee, and breakfast. Not only did the conference provide great and diverse professional development for our staff, but it also provided an opportunity for résumé-building presentation experience and an opportunity to hear from and connect with our peers from as far away as Manhattan, Kansas (4 hours away); Champaign-Urbana, Illinois (6 hours away); and Dubuque, Iowa (10 hours away). If you can’t make your next regional or international TESOL conference, develop and host one yourself, and invite others. If you build it, they will come.

The webpage for the Spring 2015 TESOL & SLA Professional Development Conference is http://international.missouristate.edu/eli/pdconference.asp