After the APSA Meeting: Why Conferences?

A while back on Prawfs Blawg there was a post-thread in which academics talked about how they described their daily work regimens to non-academics. One aspect of that regimen (although not daily) is conference attendance. However, conferences are not something unique to academics. Many professions and trades have conferences and, in fact, in some occupations conferences (or similar events) are required to maintain a license (e.g. Continuing Legal Education for attorneys). In academia, conferences play an important part of the vocation. But with technological advances that allow us to correspond and exchange information rapidly and effectively, is there as much of a need for all of us to gather together in a big hotel several times a year to engage in these activities? A tentative answer to this question, and more questions below the fold….

First, there are probably different answers to this question depending on the vocation at issue. While some professions require continuing education, such learning activities can and have been adapted to non-conference style formats (e.g. remote audio/video classes). Be you a plumber or political scientist your conferences could probably be replaced with alternative methods of accomplishing stated goals. So, what do we accomplish in conferences and why are conferences the preferred means for achieving these goals? As far as I can tell, we do the following in political science conferences (I won’t speak for other vocations):

• We present and critique research and, more generally, discuss ideas
• We administer and organize the profession (e.g. business meetings)
• We use it as a recruitment/hiring opportunity, both formally and informally
• We interact with academic publishers

Of course, there is more going on than this at conferences and perhaps it is the less tangible aspects of conferences (professionalizing new members, maintaining connections, etc.) that are the most important. With this in mind, why conferences? In other words, why are they especially well suited to advancing the profession? Why are they superior to teleconferencing and other alternative methods? Here are some tentative answers:

• While teleconferencing, blogging, and email listserves are all valuable means of communication, the scale and flexibility of interaction at a conference is likely better. Thousands of people can interact in a relatively small venue in groups of varying sizes in a time effective and substantively meaningful manner.
• Face to face communication will likely always remain the preferred way of communicating. If not, then why bother to bring in job candidates for interviews – just give them a call, or better yet, have a group instant-message session with them. People will probably always require face to face meetings for important interactions and decision making (e.g. testimony on the witness stand in trials over simply providing a written statement).
• We like conferences. We don’t like them all the time, but on balance, we do like them. It provides a break from the normal routine and gives us a feeling of solidarity in our vocation. It also provides a venue for the profession to adjust to evolving norms and expectations. In short, these meetings help to define what the profession is going to be, whether it be a trade association or an academic organization.

With these ideas in mind we might begin to reconsider how such conferences are organized and run. While we see some new technology in recent years (e.g. we no longer leave paper notes for each other on a bulletin board, but rather use electronic boards), the basic structure and format of conferences has remained largely the same for a long time. Is it possible that we might rethink the way that we interact at these conferences (e.g. the structure and handling of research panels)? Might we reconsider the basic structuring of meetings (e.g. moving from large conferences to smaller, more field specific meetings)?

Jeff