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[airball]

Here's a lovely description of the AHA from a couple of years ago:

http://chronicle.com/article/What-I-Saw-at-the-Job/45577/

[whiteknight]

In addition, I remain bemused by the idea that going to the big conference in your field is somehow an imposition for people.  Yes, I recall the many times people have pointed out how the MLA or AHA is not relevant to their particular research area, which is nicely covered by a smaller conference.  However, in my experience, that just means that you should get your fellow niche area people together to form a group that can organize panels that you, collectively, want to see to make going to the conference worth while.  You can whine or you can change the system.  Of course, I am also in fields where one can usually apply for aid as a student or underemployed person to attend the conference because the biggest push is to lower the unemployment rate of good, but unlucky, people because industry is usually hiring, even if academia is not.

I usually like you, polly, but this attitude pisses me off. It isn't as easy as snapping one's fingers and making the AHA bureaucracy disappear.

Changing the system would require those wanting change to be in positions of power, which they are not. Getting into a position of power would take time and would likely be a danger to careers if the desire for change were known. Only senior scholars could take the risk, but they don't seem to see the problem, maybe b/c they are the ones benefitting. Those in power have no reason to change the system, so unless there is an Obama among historians that I don't know about, I don't see the bureaucracy changing.

As for simply getting a group together and proposing panels, that has been done, but there is no guarantee of acceptance on the program.

As for funding to attend the conference, those opportunities are rare. I'm not sure if the AHA even offers such funding; if so, it is miniscule.

[paul_robeson]

...and search committees justify notifying candidates of last-minute AHA interviews by saying (and this is a direct quote) "Any serious job candidate will be there anyway." So some poor desperate bastard scraping together a $15,000-a-year living adjuncting pays for a last-minute plane fare and hotel out by the airport and pays full conference registration (because you can't interview if you are not registered) to be one of a dozen people to spend 20 minutes with two bored senior professors who are pushing through the interviews quickly so they can use their free drink coupons before happy hour is over.

In his hotel room that night he calls his wife and puts a brave face on it and says by the way we can't afford day care next month after all. While in the hotel bar the two senior profs confess to not having taken notes and having no idea who they talked to and let's just invite the blond and someone else to campus next month.

The AHA interview system must be destroyed.

I had this experience just this week in one of my related fields.  SC wanted to interview me at a conference this weekend -- a conference held outside the United States.  I figured that between the airfare, hotel, and registration, it would have run me at least $1,500 -- the equivalent of a mortgage payment for a single 20-minute interview. 

[onion]

In addition, I remain bemused by the idea that going to the big conference in your field is somehow an imposition for people.  Yes, I recall the many times people have pointed out how the MLA or AHA is not relevant to their particular research area, which is nicely covered by a smaller conference.  However, in my experience, that just means that you should get your fellow niche area people together to form a group that can organize panels that you, collectively, want to see to make going to the conference worth while.  You can whine or you can change the system.  Of course, I am also in fields where one can usually apply for aid as a student or underemployed person to attend the conference because the biggest push is to lower the unemployment rate of good, but unlucky, people because industry is usually hiring, even if academia is not.

I usually like you, polly, but this attitude pisses me off. It isn't as easy as snapping one's fingers and making the AHA bureaucracy disappear.

Changing the system would require those wanting change to be in positions of power, which they are not. Getting into a position of power would take time and would likely be a danger to careers if the desire for change were known. Only senior scholars could take the risk, but they don't seem to see the problem, maybe b/c they are the ones benefitting. Those in power have no reason to change the system, so unless there is an Obama among historians that I don't know about, I don't see the bureaucracy changing.

As for simply getting a group together and proposing panels, that has been done, but there is no guarantee of acceptance on the program.

As for funding to attend the conference, those opportunities are rare. I'm not sure if the AHA even offers such funding; if so, it is miniscule.

I agree with you, White Knight.  My problem with the AHA as a conference-qua-conference, and why I prefer the OAH, is that the AHA is for all historians of every region and subfield.  It literally covers all of history.  There have been entire years where there wasn't a single paper that was even remotely related to my research and teaching interests, and when there are, the geniuses at the AHA  schedule them all for the same time.

Let's face it: the AHA would no longer exist, or would exist in extremely shriveled form, if the job interviews did not take place there.  The conference is dull, I don't know who you have to blow to get on the program committtee, and the AHR is no longer relevant.  But as several folks have already pointed out, there are entrenched, vested interests that keep this system up and running.

I'll be letting my AHA membership lapse after this year.  Even membership is expensive, and benefits, now that I'm not on the market? I don't know what they are.  I'm sticking with the OAH (which is technically the big conference in my field, as it is the organization for historians of the US from all over the world).

[temporaryname]

<snip>

In addition, I remain bemused by the idea that going to the big conference in your field is somehow an imposition for people.  Yes, I recall the many times people have pointed out how the MLA or AHA is not relevant to their particular research area, which is nicely covered by a smaller conference.  However, in my experience, that just means that you should get your fellow niche area people together to form a group that can organize panels that you, collectively, want to see to make going to the conference worth while.  You can whine or you can change the system.  Of course, I am also in fields where one can usually apply for aid as a student or underemployed person to attend the conference because the biggest push is to lower the unemployment rate of good, but unlucky, people because industry is usually hiring, even if academia is not.

Except that the interview conference for your field isn't always the research conference for your field.

I'm a linguist. Linguists get hired by language (English and other) departments and linguistics departments. (In fact, most academic linguists are, I suspect, not based in linguistics departments.) The linguistics departments hold interviews at the LSA, the language departments hold interviews at the MLA.

Okay, fine, I'm in a field where you have to go to two phenomenally expensive conferences to get hired--those are the breaks. But at the LSA, at least, there are a lot of presentations on subjects any linguist would find worthwhile, no matter their specialty. At the MLA, linguistics topics are lucky to get a session and a half worth of time, and the networking worth of the MLA is essentially zero, since so few linguists attend it unless they're on the market. The only reason for attending the MLA, for the vast majority of linguists, is because you're on the market, or because you're a linguist in a language department who's on a hiring committee. And why organize a panel for the MLA when submitting a paper to the LSA (remember, these conferences are generally a week or two apart) is a much simpler process, and is much more likely to get your work noticed by people who matter in your field?

(The fun part for my field is that, starting January 2011, the MLA and the LSA are going to be occasionally running on the same weekend in different cities. I'm very curious to see what that does to the interview process in linguistics.)

[punchnpie]

Wow. That is just criminal

I was searching for a word to describe this mess; I think you found it.

[sibyl]

(because you can't interview if you are not registered) 

Wow. That is just criminal.  I mean, the whole stupid business is, but why the AHA gets to profit off of the misery of its most vulnerable members is just . . . . agh!

I think that at least part of the reason applicants have to register is so they can't slip into the book exhibition for free.  I can see why vendors would put pressure on AHA to keep out the riff-raff.

On preview:  Come to think of it, that's silly.  They could create a guest-level registration for candidates that is no good in the book room.

But larryc is right as usual:  The system must be destroyed.

[sugaree]

(because you can't interview if you are not registered) 

Wow. That is just criminal.  I mean, the whole stupid business is, but why the AHA gets to profit off of the misery of its most vulnerable members is just . . . . agh!

I think that at least part of the reason applicants have to register is so they can't slip into the book exhibition for free.  I can see why vendors would put pressure on AHA to keep out the riff-raff.

On preview:  Come to think of it, that's silly.  They could create a guest-level registration for candidates that is no good in the book room.

But larryc is right as usual:  The system must be destroyed.

Security at the book exhibit is tighter than at most airports. There is no "slipping in for free." Nor can you get into the "pit" for interviews without proper registration. (thanks onion, for the memories - they are spot on!). It used to be that you could go without registering and risk that your SCs (should you be so lucky to be contacted in a timely fashion for a conference interview - and I too have been called the day before the conference begins so that timing is iffy) have reserved interview suites, rather than spots in the pit. But for the past few years, proof of registration is required to get the conference rate at the hotels in order to avoid people taking advantage of cheap rates in big cities around New Year's. And the conference rates aren't even that cheap anymore (although certainly MUCH MUCH better than the regular rates at these ridiculously overpriced hotels).

It is an evil system and I don't know what to do with it. But god forbid we start skyping - that would be the end of me participating in phone interviews while wearing my jammies!

[larryc]

I'll be letting my AHA membership lapse after this year.  Even membership is expensive, and benefits, now that I'm not on the market? I don't know what they are.  I'm sticking with the OAH (which is technically the big conference in my field, as it is the organization for historians of the US from all over the world).

I wonder if a boycott of the AHA is the way to attack the conference monster?

[secretweapon]

But it's all worth it for that priceless face-to-face connection, don't you think?

<bangs head against wall and goes in search of booze>

If it weren't for the Forum Meetups over $12 Yuenglings, I would've jumped out of the Hilton.  But seeing fellow forumites, who are beyond any doubt the most fun and funny people at the AHA, made it all worthwhile.  Ahh.

[concordancia]

RE: papers from the same field being scheduled at the same time. For MLA there are certain discussion groups that basically get assigned a room and there are a couple of panels in the same room over the course of the conference - this happened with Kafka one year and while it isn't my field, just related to my research, it was kind of nice to see some familiar faces. For my own discussion group, the panels all get scheduled at the same time.

[onion]

But it's all worth it for that priceless face-to-face connection, don't you think?

<bangs head against wall and goes in search of booze>

If it weren't for the Forum Meetups over $12 Yuenglings, I would've jumped out of the Hilton.  But seeing fellow forumites, who are beyond any doubt the most fun and funny people at the AHA, made it all worthwhile.  Ahh.

Good times, good times.
BUT!  You don't have to register for the AHA to go sit in the hotel bar and pay too much for beer.  ;D

[the_honey_badger]

In my dept we just had the phone vs. AHA interview fight. It was the *junior* faculty who carried the vote on going to AHA.  They did the: I want to look at their body language! argument but several in the halls admitted that they either wanted to "get their time on the other side of the table" or "I want a free trip to San Diego--no fair we'd ditch it when they are going somewhere *good!*

We have four searches including two joint-appointment lines so the junior contingent and their friends want to preserve the paid trips because..."its our turn!"***  So, it certainly wasn't the senior faculty wanting a junket at the state's expense in our meeting.

****since earlier today i lectured on the ability of the elite planter class to convince non-slaveholding whites that their best bet was to preserve the system in case the poorer whites got a chance to rise in status, you can only imagine the ironic tone this mess had in my mind...

[secretweapon]

But it's all worth it for that priceless face-to-face connection, don't you think?

<bangs head against wall and goes in search of booze>

If it weren't for the Forum Meetups over $12 Yuenglings, I would've jumped out of the Hilton.  But seeing fellow forumites, who are beyond any doubt the most fun and funny people at the AHA, made it all worthwhile.  Ahh.

Good times, good times.
BUT!  You don't have to register for the AHA to go sit in the hotel bar and pay too much for beer.  ;D

True! 

Oh, and I've let my AHA membership lapse.  And I won't be going to San Diego, either.

[oseph]

In my dept we just had the phone vs. AHA interview fight. It was the *junior* faculty who carried the vote on going to AHA.  They did the: I want to look at their body language! argument but several in the halls admitted that they either wanted to "get their time on the other side of the table" or "I want a free trip to San Diego--no fair we'd ditch it when they are going somewhere *good!*

We have four searches including two joint-appointment lines so the junior contingent and their friends want to preserve the paid trips because..."its our turn!"***  So, it certainly wasn't the senior faculty wanting a junket at the state's expense in our meeting.

****since earlier today i lectured on the ability of the elite planter class to convince non-slaveholding whites that their best bet was to preserve the system in case the poorer whites got a chance to rise in status, you can only imagine the ironic tone this mess had in my mind...

I cannot conceive of having enough free time on my hands that I would want to go to a big impersonal conference that cuts into both the end of the holidays and the beginning of the term just because it was "my turn."  If their selfish reason for wanting to go is because it is an all-expenses-paid chance to reconnect with good friends, that is understandable, but you have to have an awful lot of free time to want to do this because of some sort of power trip.  As for the "free vacation" thing, well, maybe if it were in Barbados and there were vast blocks of unscheduled time, I would get it, but they're going to be spending most of their time in cavernous, impersonal hotels, catching other people's colds.  San Diego is nice and all, but a Marriott or a Hilton is a Marriott or a Hilton.  That's a big old expenditure of time and energy to eat one or two overpriced, vaguely Mexican dinners and collect some shampoo samples.