I am a huge fan of the Law & Society Association, an interdisciplinary group of scholars from all fields. The annual meeting has a welcoming and encouraging atmosphere. I’ve been attending the conference since 1995, and I look forward to it every year.
This year LSA understandably has had to cancel this year’s in-person meeting scheduled for Denver. LSA assures everyone it is planning a “virtual conference” with likely (but not confirmed) dates around May 28-31, 2020, the same dates as the original conference. Participants have until April 15, 2020 to withdraw from the conference and receive a full refund. All of that makes sense.
What makes no sense is that LSA is charging the full registration fee to participate in the “virtual conference” without saying what a virtual conference is. It may or may not be a bunch of Zoom meetings.
How much is the registration fee? The same $225 and $390 that LSA charges for an in-person conference. See for yourself (here):
How can LSA justify such a fee?
Here’s the non-specific message on the website (here):
Canceling the in-person meeting will have serious financial consequences for LSA, leading to a substantial budget shortfall. Your willingness to keep your registration and participate in the virtual meeting will help tremendously. For those who do not wish to participate in the virtual meeting, we hope you will consider converting all or part of your registration fee into a tax-deductible contribution to LSA to help mitigate the financial losses that we will sustain.
Why is LSA asking for a bailout funded by faculty or schools?
I understand that LSA needs to cover the costs of whatever technology it needs to host a virtual conference. (Surely LSA could negotiate some discount with Zoom; prices here). Maybe it needs to pay a stipend to staff members who now need to plan a virtual conference instead of an in-person conference. The website will need revamping. That all makes sense.
But charging attendees (and the schools that reimburse them) full freight for a virtual conference so that LSA does not have a budget shortfall? That makes no sense. That's a bailout by individual faculty members or the schools that cover the costs for conference attendees. Charging the in-person rate for an unspecified virtual conference cannot be justified by reference to the cost of a virtual conference or the alleged benefit to the attendees.
In the meantime, as a coordinator of two LSA Collaborative Research Networks this year, I’m receiving emails every day from anxious colleagues. They want more information. I have none. I have received none from LSA. As LSA remains silent, registrants are dropping out. Separate and apart from personal reasons (including illness), registrants are withdrawing because their schools will not reimburse for a virtual conference; because those affiliated with public institutions don’t feel they can justify spending taxpayer money on large conference registration fees for any virtual conference; because faculty members do not believe that the cost of attending a "virtual conference" is justified by the diminished professional opportunities associated with attending/presenting at a virtual conference.
So what is a "virtual conference" anyway?
It is a great frustration--and the reason many attendees are dropping out--that LSA has not provided any information about what this virtual conference might look like. How will it be structured? How could it be structured? Is this going to be anything other than a bunch of password-protected Zoom meetings? If it is a bunch of Zoom meetings, how is a $250 to $390 registration fee justified?
Part of what makes any conference great is the informal conversations that happen in hallways outside of formal sessions, over spontaneous dinners with groups of people one doesn't know well, interactions with new colleagues that one meets at receptions and in the book hall. Can all of these benefits of a conference be replicated virtually? No? Then it is wrong to charge full freight.
Why the secrecy?
Before the deadline for refund of registration fees, LSA should be transparent about what attendees will "get" for $250 to $390 (other than the benefit of helping bail out LSA). If LSA does not know what the virtual conference will look like, just say so. We're all improvising in unusual times and would understand if LSA does not know yet. But push back the refund date until LSA does know.
In communicating with its members, LSA should be transparent about the real costs are associated with running a virtual conference. If I had to guess, I'd venture the real costs are far less than $50 per person.
LSA should reduce the "virtual conference" registration fee to $50 or less.
Who will attend a virtual conference?
In the days running up to the deadline for requesting a refund of registration, there's no way to see who is dropping off panels. Thus, individual participants who were already assigned to panels has no way of knowing whether the other speakers on their assigned panel will attend the virtual conference.
After the refund deadline, the coordinators of the LSA Collaborative Research Networks presumably will be expected to reorganize remaining paper presenters into new panels. I'm just guessing, though. There's been zero communication from LSA leadership.
Why doesn't LSA just ask its members what they want?
Seems to me that after LSA develops a clear vision for a virtual conference, the organization should poll its members. Ask if the membership prefers postponement (mid-year LSA, anyone?), cancellation (see you in 2021!), or the virtual conference option (Zoom again?).
By proceeding ahead with a $250 to $390 registration fee for a conference LSA leadership cannot describe, LSA leadership is getting it completely wrong.
What should LSA do?
- Poll the members. Ask what they want before barrelling ahead.
- If the decision is to go forward with a virtual conference, communicate clearly to participants what that means.
- Allow registrants the opportunity to withdraw after informing them of the contours of the virtual conference.
- If the decision is to go forward with a virtual conference, charge $50 or less for a virtual conference.
- Communicate with the registrants more often and better; communicate with other LSA leaders (the Program Committee? The CRN coordinators? Some volunteer group?) more often and better.
Why am I still attending?
This year I am coordinating or co-coordinating two Collaborative Research Networks that are organizing panels or programs that would have involved over 200 conference participants (pre-COVID; not sure how many will remain after the refund deadline passes). If I were not coordinating two CRNs, I would drop out from sheer frustration with LSA leadership.
Nevertheless, I am committed to doing the job I was asked to do: facilitate others coming together in an organized way for productive and inclusive scholarly dialogue. I will do that within the framework of whatever LSA decides, virtual or not. This won't be the conference that my fellow organizers and I planned, but I am committed to making the best of it.
LSA is one of my favorite professional organizations. The annual meeting is my favorite conference every year. With all that love comes disappointment and distress when LSA makes a big misstep, as I think it is doing now.
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