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[minimimi]

I can't believe I've reached such a decrepit age without ever organizing a conference. I've reviewed abstracts, but never been involved in the scheduling, so I suspect this question is a bit ignorant. I couldn't find anything in the archives, so the answer may be obvious.

Here's my problem: I'm presenting at a large conference in two months and would like to book my flight and hotel to accommodate my uni's bureaucracy and, truth be told, to maximize the rewards on my credit card. (My shop requires travel authorization well in advance but does not reimburse until we've returned with proof of travel.) I teach late Thursday nights, and the conference begins on Friday. The night class meets only once weekly and is half my teaching load, so I'm loath to cancel. The earliest I can get to Conference City is Saturday morning.

Would it be obnoxious to ask the organizers not to schedule our panel on Friday? Given the big@$$ness of the conference, and the fact that this panel is one in a sequence of four panels by my specialist organization, I imagine such requests would be a bother.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

[notaprof]

In my experience with conference timing slots, the conference organizers are human beings with all the same frailties and quirks of anyone and there is no guarantee as to how they would react to your request.  It will either be ignored, accommodated or spitefully treated to be as inconvenient as possible. I have seen the latter happen actually.

I think your issue with the policies of travel reimbursement would be met with indifference since everyone attending the conference may have similar reasons for wanting to know a time slot early and if they could get the time slots announced to everyone earlier they would do so.  However your second issue seems reasonable to ask for some consideration.  Many may have to cancel classes to attend a conference but not everyone would have a Thursday night, meets-once-per-week class to deal with.  (The weekend starts Thursday at 4:00 pm on this campus so such a class would never happen here!). 

Good luck!

Notaprof (whose every conference presentation has been scheduled at the least desirable time)

[polly_mer]

Minimimi, it's reasonable to ask for a panel not to be scheduled on a particular day because you can't be at the conference that day.  However, you have to make that request when submitting your abstract or as early in the scheduling process as possible.  That's when people who are inclined to accommodate you (as many people are because we've all been in the situation of having limitations on travel schedules) will be able to do so with minimal difficulty.  Waiting too long increases the probability that people will ignore your request.

[ucprof]

If you don't ask you don't get.  But always be polite.

[fiona]

Honestly, I wouldn't ask. Conference organizers are always besieged with I-want-this-time-I-want-that-time from people who have relatively small issues, and sometimes just prima donna-ism.

This year, especially, no-shows have become a conference plague.

Unless it's a conference in, say, Beijing, just make it easier for the organizers and go when they schedule you. You can always cancel a class, and students are usually grateful for the time off. Just give 'em a large-ish research assignment.

Conference organizers, too, are grateful for people who are willing to take whatever time they're given, and are cheerful about arrangements. That's become rarer and rarer.

The Fiona

[larryc]

You can ask. I have done this twice, once it worked and once it didn't.

[ucprof]

I ask all the time.  Sometimes I get kicked out of the conference but only upon mutual agreement.  I have one invitation for a plenary talk in another country during the last week of classes.  So I should do it but I have a complicated teaching/final schedule to work around, not to mention 15 hr flights each way.  So I asked them for a specific day for my talk and told them why and they said OK.  Another time I had two confs scheduled same week.  I told them I would try to go to both but it would be require getting both to match up.  The second one basically said they could not do it and would I mind giving up my slot for someone who could go the entire time.  The obvious answer was "of course" and so I gave up on that one.  In another meeting I was scheduled on my teaching day, but the symposium had sessions on two days so I asked a colleague to switch days so I would not  miss teaching my class.  They agreed and everything was OK.  Still there is another meeting where we all put in contributed talks and the meeting is known for a "no scheduling exceptions" policy so I would not even try to ask for that meeting.  You have to figure out what makes sense.  But at least in my field it is completely kosher to ask for a specific time/date if you have a teaching conflict.

Often the issue comes down to this:  My academic job requires me to be there on my teaching days so I try best as possible not to have research activities interfere with class time.  At the same time I have responsibilities for sponsored research which sometimes require me to be at a PI meeting or conf presentation on a particular set of days.  It is sometimes darn hard to avoid conflicts between these activities if you just let people schedule things as they like.  So I have no choice but to ask them to work with me on the schedule so that I can fulfill both teaching duties and sponsored research activities on grants and contracts.

Now all of this said, I am at an R1 where research is, at some level, put at a higher priority than teaching.  At the same time, attendance in class is something I can not skimp on.  So I have to figure out how to get to the conferences _and_ teach my classes - that's an essential part of my job description given the priorities of the university.

[systeme_d_]

On the last panel I organized, I received two such requests.  One presenter needed a certain day, and then after the day was secured, another panelist needed a certain place in presenting order. 

I was able to accommodate both, but only because the day request was made months and months before the conference.

[minimimi]

Thank you everyone. I'm more conflicted than ever. Sorting out this situation takes a steady hand.

Since I'm not the panel organizer, I've sent a message to that colleague to ask for to be put on the last of the specialist organization's panels. The conference doesn't actually occur until early April (in my mind it's already February), and I wasn't thinking about the teaching conflict when I submitted my abstract—on the request of the panel organizer—back in early October. In fact, I may not have received my spring teaching schedule back then.

The rub might occur at the conference level, and if I'm Friday night's entertainment, well, then them's the breaks, and I'll pull out. The irony? My class consists of first-year grad students whose final assignment is a conference presentation. Heh.

[tenured_feminist]

Can you run a discussion on Blackboard for the students? This can be an OK substitute. If your students are responsible, they should be able to shift for themselves with a little guidance.

I generally don't ask for accommodations based on teaching, but 1) I tend to do multiple sessions at conferences and 2) my admin isn't breathing down my neck about the occasional missed class.

If the conference occurs in early April and is a big one, then yes, by this time, you are asking them to switch things around rather than set them up a priori.

Having worked with people who've done this, I can confirm that 1) some organizers are fine with such requests and some loathe them and 2) dealing with a lot of them is a pain in the tuchis. I would only make such a request if it were really necessary -- someone has to go at 8:30 on Thursday, and someone has to go at 2:00 PM on Sunday. 

Hope it works out for you, but don't sweat it too much if it doesn't. And if someone throws a tantrum, don't be alarmed or take it personally.

[minimimi]

The panel organizer is happy to sequence my panel last. I am so relieved, because the class meeting for which I would have pulled out of this conference (which, I'll now admit, is major in addition to populous) is the first meeting after spring break, on the most difficult material we'll be dealing with all semester.

TF, the only time I set up a research scavenger hunt cum discussion via Blackboard was an abysmal failure. It was my first invited talk, and I had diverted hours to setting up a set of tasks on Blackboard, whose server went down for a day or two when my students were supposed to be carrying on without me. I've never recovered. :-)

[tenured_feminist]

The panel organizer is happy to sequence my panel last. I am so relieved, because the class meeting for which I would have pulled out of this conference (which, I'll now admit, is major in addition to populous) is the first meeting after spring break, on the most difficult material we'll be dealing with all semester.

TF, the only time I set up a research scavenger hunt cum discussion via Blackboard was an abysmal failure. It was my first invited talk, and I had diverted hours to setting up a set of tasks on Blackboard, whose server went down for a day or two when my students were supposed to be carrying on without me. I've never recovered. :-)

Glad it all worked out.

You know, with a good bunch of grad students, and even a few times with a good bunch of undergrads, I have occasionally provided four or so provocative questions to the class a few days before and told them to go ahead and meet and discuss them in my absence for as much of the class period as they need to cover them. I also tell them that I won't count attendance since I'm not there myself. Over the half dozen or so times I've done this, I've found that about 3/4 of the students come and they stay for about 3/4 of the allotted class time. But I've been pretty lucky in getting cohorts of students who can do this responsibly.

[polly_mer]

You know, with a good bunch of grad students, and even a few times with a good bunch of undergrads, I have occasionally provided four or so provocative questions to the class a few days before and told them to go ahead and meet and discuss them in my absence for as much of the class period as they need to cover them. I also tell them that I won't count attendance since I'm not there myself. Over the half dozen or so times I've done this, I've found that about 3/4 of the students come and they stay for about 3/4 of the allotted class time. But I've been pretty lucky in getting cohorts of students who can do this responsibly.

I can't always get students to do this when I'm around in class to guide the discussions.

[minimimi]

I can't always get students to do this when I'm around in class to guide the discussions.

Chime. Alas.