Dear Ulla, I read all of the postings regarding absenteeism at the Air conferences, and the truth of the matter is that the reason I did not attend this year's conference is because it was held in September. I don't know about other people's schedules, but I do have a full teaching load and it's pretty difficult for me to escape to a conference during term time. In my opinion, if Air really wanted to have a full house, then the conferences should be held between May and August - a time when most academics have more free time to travel around the world and give 20-minute papers. Hope my 'two-cents'counts for a bit more than a drop in the ocean. Cheers! Peter Jakubowicz The Chinese University of Hong Kong --- Ulla Bunz <bunz@scils.rutgers.edu> wrote:
I would concur with Mark Johns that AoIR does fairly well with regard to show/no show panelists. I have chaired panels at the larger Communication conferences and also at AoIR, and my policy is to start right on time with the first listed presenter who is actually present. If the other person shows up along the way, then they will have to go last and deal with it if there is not enough time or less time for their presentation. Then of course, it's also my policy to a) indicate time throughout presentations, and b) stand up and eventually interrupt a speaker if they go over their allotted limit. I've been told that's rude, but I think it's even ruder to have one person present for such a long time that another has only a couple of minutes left. Already at AoIR we allot 15-20 minutes per paper. At the big Communication conferences you often have only about 10 minutes. Hopefully people who are interested in each others' presentations find time to continue the conversation during breaks or over lunch. Ulla
---------------------------------------------------- Ulla Bunz Assistant Professor Department of Communication Rutgers University 4 Huntington Street New Brunswick, NJ 08901 Email: bunz@scils.rutgers.edu ----------------------------------------------------
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-aoir.org-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-aoir.org-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Mark D. Johns Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2004 11:27 AM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Conference absenteeism?
At 09:37 PM 9/25/2004, you wrote:
I would be interested in knowing people's experiences at other conferences.
My highly subjective and non-scientific reaction is that we do far better at AoIR than some of the big conferences, such as the National Communication Association. Yes, we had some people who had to cancel because they were being chased by hurricanes and what not, but generally
people were there, and even more, there were people present to hear the presentations. I can't count how many times I've been in NCA sessions where the panelists -- sometimes only two of the four scheduled -- merely presented to one another. Cassandra, I think what you experienced was something of a fluke for AoIR.
------ Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Asst. Professor of Communication/Linguistics, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa http://faculty.luther.edu/~johnsmar/ ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain
_______________________________________________ Air-l-aoir.org mailing list Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
_______________________________________________ Air-l-aoir.org mailing list Air-l-aoir.org@listserv.aoir.org http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
_______________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Declare Yourself - Register online to vote today! http://vote.yahoo.com