Language Technologies Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Bid for Hosting NAACL 2001

Local CL Community
------------------

The Language Technologies Institute (LTI) has a core faculty of 18
researchers focusing on machine translation, information retrieval,
and speech recognition.  Knowledge-based and statistical approaches
are represented.  In addition to the core faculty, there are about ten
adjunct and related faculty who work in language technologies or a
related field like machine learning.  There are currently about 40
students at the LTI.  Our web page, http://lti.cs.cmu.edu, contains a
list of faculty, students, and research projects.

Other computational linguists are found in the Intelligent Systems
Program at the University of Pittsburgh, and the CIRCLE intelligent
tutoring center (http://www.pitt.edu/~circle), for which a major
research focus is natural language dialogue with intelligent tutors.

Local companies employing computational linguists are Claritech and
Interactive Systems Inc.  (Just Systems recently closed its
Pittsburgh research center.)

Meeting Space
-------------

The LTI faculty feel strongly about having the meeting on campus.  Our
University Center has the following facilities:

Auditorium:  Holds 450 people.  Very high tech; we have to hire
someone to run the equipment.  An adjoining room can be used for
registration. 

Ballroom:  Can be divided into three parts for separate sessions.

Various meeting rooms for small meetings.

Demos can be held at the LTI.

(If the University Center doesn't work out, we might consider the
Doubletree Hotel or the Westin William Penn Hotel.)

Dates
-----

We are working with the University Center on finding dates in the
Spring or Fall when all of the meeting rooms are available.  The UC
prefers dates when classes are not in session, but those dates are not
ideal for the conference --- our Spring Break is the same week as the
AAAI Spring Symposium; summer dates are too close to ACL/EACL (July
6).

Hotels
------

The Holiday Inn is a 20 minute walk from campus.  They provide a
courtesy van to CMU and are on a city bus line.

The Hampton Inn and Wyndham Garden are a 25 minute walk from campus.
Courtesy vans and city busses are also available. 

The Shadyside Inn is a short-term apartment complex that has nightly
and weekly rates.  Apartments are very nice and the smaller ones are
the same price as the Holiday Inn.  This is a 15 minute walk from
campus.  Also on a city bus line.

The better hotels (Westin William Penn, Doubletree, Hyatt, Hilton)
are downtown and are not really convenient to CMU; 20 minutes driving
or 30 minutes by city bus.

There are some fancy, expensive bed and breakfasts within a 15 minute
walk to CMU.

Dorms will not be available while classes are in session.

If people want to drive from their hotels, parking will be difficult. 

Travel to Pittsburgh
--------------------

Pittsburgh is a hub for USAir.  It is easy to get to from all major
airlines.  The airport is far from the city, but a city bus runs about
every half hour for $1.95.  Taxi fare to CMU is about $40.  A van that
stops at the Holiday Inn and Wyndham Garden is about $20.

Food/Entertainment/Banquet/Receptions
-------------------------------------

Possible banquet locations are: the Carnegie Museum sculpture court or
music hall lobby (less than five minutes walk from CMU), a private
golf club (also less than five minutes walk from LTI), the lawn of the
Frick Museum (in late Spring or early Fall) (20 minutes drive from CMU);
the Pittsburgh History Center.

Lunch: The University Center has a food court, but it cannot handle
hundreds of people.  We would probably have to set up a buffet or
boxed lunch catered by the university.  The problem with a buffet
lunch is that it would take up a meeting room.

Coffee Breaks: These will have to be catered by the university. 

Local Arrangements
------------------

Chair and Co-chair: Lori Levin and Alon Lavie

Volunteer Labor: about 15 people -- students, faculty, and other
people from the local CL community have said that they are willing to
work in order to have the conference here. 

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Budget Estimates:
-----------------

The UC auditorium is about $150 per day.  We don't have prices on the
other meeting rooms yet, or on food or AV equipment.  After we get the UC
to commit to a date, we will get the rest of the estimates.

We will need a half time secretary.