THE PURPOSE OF THE ACADEMIC CONFERENCE

Academics go to conferences for a variety of reasons, many of which are determined by the stage of their career or the type of institution that employs them. Although all academics may benefit from both the dissemination of and feedback on their intellectual work, graduate students, junior faculty, and senior professors have differing expectations of academic conferences. Those earlier in their career want to create professional networks outside of their graduate program. They seek opportunities to meet other scholars in their field, not only for purposes of future collaboration but also for mentoring. It may be the relationship building at conferences and meeting people with shared interests that become the most valuable aspects of their attendance. Rom recognizes this need (2012, 340) and identifies it as one of the primary principles of his new conference model. However, his primary concession appears to be the co-location of panels on parallel topics so that people with shared interests can be “in close proximity to each other.” His other two suggestions are the recognition of voting networks and the clear visibility of names and affiliations when voting. Although this may serve as an impetus for network development, I am not sure how this is very different from his characterization of the APSA’s current conference: “[w]hether or not a community is built depends entirely on the initiative of otherwise isolated individuals” (2012, 343).

For more established scholars, the opportunities for new collaborations are significant, but conferences also can be an opportunity to maintain established networks and develop new projects. Clearly, face-to-face meetings are not essential for network construction or maintenance; I have published work with colleagues whom I have never physically met, even after a decade of electronic collaboration. However, in-person meetings at conferences may create opportunities that might not be replicable in a virtual world. The happenstance at conferences in which casual acquaintances end up at dinner sharing common interests is another important by-product.

The nature of our working environment also might determine what individuals require of the academic conference. The experience of faculty in these smaller programs often is not captured in APSA data because these political scientists are not always represented in its membership. Costs are prohibitive and, traditionally, many have not seen the value of joining. With the advent of the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference and fears of declining membership, the time might be right to work to capture these political scientists. Although not ideal, faculty in these departments often teach courses in which they have received minimal training, or are covering for colleagues on leave, with virtually no preparation. As more PhDs gravitate to community colleges and as Advanced Placement offerings in high school increase, the need for substantive help from the discipline for those who teach across numerous subfields in the ubiquitous survey course expands. The academic conference could provide opportunities for these academics to stay engaged in their discipline and current in the classroom.

A slightly different need is expressed by academics teaching in smaller departments, where they are the only ones with expertise in their field. I do not mean that they are the only ones with expertise in presidential discretionary power but rather that they are the only American institutionalists in their department who teach the executive politics course. When someone is the only person in their department—even a relatively larger department—in their subfield, teaching courses in their area, and reading similar journals, it can be intellectually isolating. The advent of blogs and listservs have created a broader community in which it is easier to engage, but conferences still provide an important function for this unique but not small constituency.

New faculty and graduate students, who are embarking on their teaching careers, comprise another group with unique needs that academic conferences should consider. Although doctoral programs are doing a better job in preparing graduate students for teaching careers, there is still a role for disciplinary conferences to help political scientists foster those skills. Many universities and colleges have vibrant teaching and learning centers, but the programs tend not to have any disciplinary orientation. Learning from colleagues who have taught in one’s field, who have tried a simulation, who failed at flipping that classroom, and who will help with putting one’s international relations course online is beneficial.

Finally, there are many people who at specific points in their career have disciplinary-specific professional development needs not addressed by their home institutions. How does a graduate student at a research university prepare a successful job application for a political science department at a two- or four-year institution? What does a meaningful assessment plan for a political science doctoral program look like? How does one prepare a successful grant for the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the area of diplomacy? What options exist for a PhD who is seeking to leave academia? What about learning a new research methodology or creating a new subfield in the discipline? These discipline-specific questions need to be addressed by communities of political scientists who bridge a variety of institutional experiences.

As a discipline, we also have specific needs and concerns that could be centered on the role of the conference. The national conference is a time when there is media focus on our discipline, and our research could have heightened attention and impact. We can encourage people to think more systemically and wisely about politics, distinguishing the partisan from the political; in doing so, our collective contribution to the nation’s civic engagement and commitment could be significant. An annual gathering of 7,000 political scientists should be our moment to discuss, debate, and then communicate our collective concerns and interests to relevant audiences.

In addition, the annual meeting is a necessary place for us to attend to our discipline’s internal business and report to one another. As higher education changes, we want to not only have an impact on policy development; we also need to think about the impact of political science in higher education curriculum, assessment, and values. In a more complex higher-education environment, with its heightened accountability from external evaluating organizations, legislatures, and federal entities, the ability to speak with a collective voice on the part of our membership is increasingly important. As a discipline without an external accrediting body, the capacity to voice “best practices” that department chairs can use internally on their campus as leverage during budget discussions (e.g., recommended staffing levels, class size, and budget expectations) would benefit many cash-strapped programs. Identification of best practices in undergraduate curriculum can assist departments in developing student-learning outcomes and curriculum mapping, saving departments from the necessity of reinvention. A clearinghouse of assessment tools or nationally normed questions measuring disciplinary knowledge connected to what is currently taught in undergraduate political science classrooms across the country nationwide would be helpful for the innumerable departments in the assessment pinch or seeking to demonstrate that their students are nationally competitive. Because funding from federal agencies such as the NSF is under constant threat, we have found the importance of speaking with a single voice for advocacy purposes; in the future, we will find it increasingly necessary. It is at the APSA Annual Meeting that we have sustained time to think about these questions, determine our collective interests, form study groups, receive feedback from the discipline, and report our findings. Rom’s model disregards these vital roles that the conference has outside the research component of the discipline.

The conference model as currently exercised is as problematic as Rom demonstrates; it was designed for the exchange and presentation of research by those at doctoral institutions. However, the role of the conference has changed; many of those initial key functions have been adopted by other venues or can be subsumed by technology. The online repository of papers has removed the need for the paper room, providing access to our work to a much broader, continuous audience. As the academic world has changed, so has the research conference—and the conference must continue to change. Although debates about how we select the research to be presented at conferences are interesting and can speak to the radical changes in the scope of the discipline, such a narrow focus on the conference is gazing on the clichéd tree and missing the forest. The dissemination of and feedback about new research can be achieved more quickly and efficiently, as well as targeted through other means, than at a conference. As Rom demonstrates, if conference participants visit only 2.7 panels, other needs are being met by their attendance. However, with the expansion of the discipline in scope, content, and membership, there are needs that a face-to-face conference can meet more efficiently than other approaches. Rather than being concerned about the paper-selection processes, we could spend our resources considering questions of calendar and conference structure to make these disciplinary activities and opportunities more compatible with heavier teaching schedules and smaller travel budgets.

RECENT ADAPTATIONS OF THE CONFERENCE MODEL

Rom overstates the static nature of the conference model; the APSA and the annual conference committees attempt to adapt to these new needs of the discipline and its membership. The creation of the short courses, which precede the conference, allows members and local political scientists to learn new skills, embrace new content, and engage in professional development relevant to the extra-campus needs of membership. One of the most difficult times for young scholars just out of graduate school is during the transition from the graduate-student cohort to creating a new cohort relevant to their nascent career. The national conference can be alienating and difficult for people without a preexisting network of colleagues; many who attend right after graduate school are not to be seen again after they gain employment or earn tenure. To help these individuals to transition into a career without losing them from APSA membership, the disciplinary association has created several new elements to the conference. The working-group model allows faculty to find a small group of individuals sharing a specific topic of interest to participate together in the conference. Attendees can join a working group or create their own at no additional cost, thereby finding a new intellectual community. As topics are generated by the membership, the working-group model can adapt to changing disciplinary interests, allowing them to address cutting-edge topics. The Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) implemented a similar approach at its annual meeting. Members can post topics with MPSA around which a dinner conversation will be sponsored. Reservations at a local restaurant are made for a limited number and those who sign up to attend pay for their own meal. Receptions for new attendees, graduate students, and other special groups have been hosted by the APSA to integrate them into the organization and its membership, providing an opportunity to meet others with similar interests and to make the leadership of the organization more accessible.

Many conferences in political science are currently offered around the country and the world, allowing for more specialized groups of academics to meet and discuss the idiosyncrasies of their work and interests. The meetings are hosted by regional organizations, sections of the discipline, membership groups, and the APSA Teaching and Learning Conference. The conferences ensure that there is sufficient time for discussion of the content of various subfields, generally more time than the annual meeting can provide. However, this means that research dissemination no longer must be the sole purpose of the conference. With the need to integrate more individuals into the discussion of research, the conference attempts to provide for this expansion through the use of poster sessions and roundtables.

There is an increasing recognition by the APSA leadership of the diversity of institutions and the concomitant demands on disciplinary organizations. There is a need for more discussions that consider how faculty from different types of institutions have unique requirements of the annual conference. For instance, those who are from more teaching-oriented institutions may need updated content and research substance at the meeting, however, those from research-intensive institutions may need time and space to think about their teaching. Rom makes an apt observation that at times we need feedback on the substance of our research and at other times we seek to disseminate our work; academic conferences should provide time for both. The current discussion about the purposes of the APSA website and the changing needs of our membership reflects this understanding of how program activities must change to meet these needs. Now is a good time to rethink how the research to be highlighted at the APSA Annual Meeting is to be selected. However, we should not neglect to consider that the purpose of the conference is much larger than merely research dissemination and that the constituencies impacted by new structures are much broader than the tenured faculty at research institutions.