I second Beth’s recommendation that we keep the discussion going here. As a non-ISA member, but a GEP-Ed member for some years, and someone who is grappling with these issues in other professional societies in which I am active, this is rich and heady stuff. The tension and balance between virtual and in-person professional meetings is getting some research attention, as well. This past winter I read a review of some largely anecdotal research on professional society goal-fulfillment using the two forums, and you can guess which was more likely to fulfill the goals: face-to-face. So it’s important to note the costs not only for us as individuals but for our organizations. Decisions as to which forum to pursue have bearing on maintaining and growing our organizations. I haven’t seen any data on this yet, but I would guess that a move toward online conferencing would lower meeting costs but would also lower meeting revenues (will academic publishers, for example, be willing to shell out hundreds or even thousands of dollars to sponsor what will amount to an ad on a website, as opposed to a table at conference, where they can sell books, promote course adoptions, and meet prospective authors? And what of the cost to the professional society of losing this interaction?). As well, a shift toward virtual conferencing will likely result in more difficult times for membership recruitment for professional societies – something many societies are already struggling with. We already use the internet for all manner of membership recruitment, but have relatively few forums for backing that up with more tangible psychological support, much less physical product – mostly, we have journals and conferences. I share everyone’s sense of the risks of this perspective – by holding conferences in person, we are not demonstrating the best behavior vis-a-vis sustainability, at the same time we are decrying the fact that society as a whole is not active enough on this front. So, it's a multifaceted values (ethics/economics/ecology/etc.) question: if we choose to continue meeting in person, are the trade-offs worth it? Rich Wallace Ursinus College
From: gep-ed@googlegroups.com [mailto:gep...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Beth DeSombre Sent: Friday, March 12, 2010 10:00 AM To: gep-ed@googlegroups.com Subject: [gep-ed] Conference greening and the role of conferences I appreciate Mike's effort to keep the list clear of extraneous traffic and relevant to those who are on it, but I actually think that this discussion is precisely the sort of thing that it's useful to have a collective discussion about rather than individual messages to the people on the "greening" committee. And, heck, if we can't do that in the best electronic forum that currently exists for talking about global environmental politics issues, then the idea of substituting electronic communication for some aspects of conferences is definitely a non-starter! I think it's worth discussing here because I think it's about broader issues than Mike and I are going to be looking at, and in that broadness is relevant to the question of what it is that conferences *do*. And in that sense, if anyone on the list attends, or considers attending, any conferences, it's relevant more broadly than to the ISA conference. I am second to none in my appreciation for and use of electronic communication opportunities, and I think they have indeed enriched our academic community and discourse. But I also think that there is a way in which they operate differently than as opportunities to make your latest research available and to get feedback on it. It's the same reason that I think that teaching a class collectively, with people present at the same time in the same room, is a fundamentally different activity than teaching an online class. When I teach I go in with a plan about the information I want to convey. And the act of presenting it to a room full of people changes what I say -- I make connections I didn't imagine I would make in the act of presenting, and present it differently. And that's even before there is discussion -- and, ideally (and often) that discussion, questions that build off each other in real time, leads the conversation to a place that it would never have otherwise gone, and leads me to think about what I'm saying in completely different ways. It happens because we're in the same place at the same time. That's just the presentation/discussion aspect of a conference. Sure, you could find ways to replicate that -- imperfectly (and I honestly think that it would be imperfect) -- but that's also only part of what is valuable about being physically present together at conferences. Part of the reason I think gep-ed works so well is that some of us know others of us -- there's a core of common experience at its base. And that experience expands outwards. But having the hallway discussions, the dinners out, the fortuitous connections that happen at a conference when you run into someone whose electronic site you wouldn't have thought to go visit if we were just talking about an electronic conference, the grad student you happen to be able to hook up for coffee with the person whose work she should know when you see them both in the book room, is what makes conferences worthwhile for me. I agree that as environmentalists we need to think seriously about how to live more sustainably in our world. And conferences are a part of that, and air travel is problematic. But they're one small aspect of what we do in our daily lives, and if you haven't taken steps that are just as drastic to shift the fundamental way we interact with the world (do you take the kids to visit their grandparents? Wouldn't skype be just as good?) I'm not convinced that doing away with conference travel is necessarily the first place I'd start. Beth (who might now be impeached from the conference greening committee!) Elizabeth R. DeSombre Wellesley College
