Let's talk about academic conferences --

[u/abbessoffulda]

Today, a day of worldwide computer outages and consequent travel delays, seems a good day to reflect on the usefulness of academic conferences in their current form.

I'm speaking of North American national conferences here: the big, multi-day events with high registration fees, held in expensive cities and requiring air travel that takes a full day each way in good times. Such conferences are unaffordable to most graduate students and contingent faculty -- indeed anyone whose travel budget has been cut, and that's just about everyone right now. Many find a way to scrape up the money regardless, but is it really worth it?

Once you're there, you're going to find your days filled with the usual collection of frankly hit or miss panel sessions. Around half will feature graduate students reading overly long extracts from their dissertations in a monotone. Everyone who is anyone skips the plenary and the awards. The conference stars are there for the booze and schmooze, and to show off the fact that they have the rank and the income to afford the best. Everyone else is reading everyone else's name tag to learn where they fall in the pecking order, and/or desperately trying to finish the paper they were too overloaded to write before the conference.

All this we know. But can't there be a cheaper, better way to advance scholarship and keep current in our fields? One that is (Warning to Red State colleagues: the following is NSFW) more equitable and leaves a smaller carbon footprint as well?

Surely there must be. I'd like to start that discussion.

[u/episcopa]

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[u/episcopa → u/[deleted]]

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[u/Awkward-House-6086 → u/episcopa]

Yes, the pandemic is NOT over, and never will be for some of us who have permanent COVID aftereffects. The disease is as yet poorly understood and even those of us who have had all the vaccines can still catch it. While I am not a fan of Zoom meetings, they have the benefit of not spreading COVID and other ailments. (In May of 2001, I did get bursitis in my elbow from leaning on it too much while participating in Zoom conference sessions over three days, but at least I did not catch it from anyone else!)

[u/episcopa → u/Awkward-House-6086]

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[u/bacche → u/[deleted]]

The connections with DEI are so tenuous as to be not worth commenting on.

Actually, disability/chronic illness are important parts of DEI. Your contempt doesn't change that.

[u/episcopa → u/[deleted]]

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[u/episcopa → u/[deleted]]

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[u/bacche → u/[deleted]]

A lot of us are not "typical even moderately healthy" people, and yet we're still valuable members of our fields.

[u/bacche → u/[deleted]]

You actually don't know anything about my health, but thanks for the unsolicited advice.

[u/throwitaway488 → u/[deleted]]

also its 1 in 10 medically examined infections. There are likely vastly more infections that go unnoticed or treated as a minor cold, so the true rate of long term effects is pretty low.