Flightless and nearly carbon neutral conferencing is an emerging genre of research sharing focused on sustainability and the inclusion of researchers regardless of ability to travel. As a Victorianist and faculty developer, I have been actively involved in the organization and support of virtual and flightless conferences.
Conference Organizing and Support
As a member of the advisory board of the 2024 North American Studies Association conference, Event, I support development of the conference web site and the conferencing platform environment. This innovative flightless conference will use the hub model in which face-to-face events are held simultaneously at different locations along with synchronous online events, such as keynotes.
Through the partnership of the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship and the English department, I organized a viewing site for the flightless conference, Ecology and Religion in 19th Century Studies.
In the following post from that year, I discuss the innovative conference further.
Flightless Conferences Promote Sustainability and Equity - Did you know that there's a Victorian conference on poetry, literature, and history that you can watch right now for free?
Organizer
“Digital Salon and Round Table.” North American Victorian Studies Association Unconference, May 20, 2021.
“New Directions for Victorian Poetry: A Conversation on Research, Teaching, and Professionalization.” North American Victorian Studies Association Unconference, November 14, 2020.
Emory viewing site. Ecology and Religion in 19th Century Studies: Armstrong Browning Library Flightless Conference, Waco, Texas, September 18-21, 2019.
Chair of Panel
“Difference.” Hopkins, Voice and Echo: Gerard Manley Hopkins International Conference, September 24, 2022.
“Hopkins’s Life and Contexts.” Hopkins and His Environments: Gerard Manley Hopkins International Conference, June 24, 2021.
Technical Consultant
“Care: Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Conference.” University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota, March 24-25, 2022.
“Panel 41: Women in Politics.” Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Society Unconference, October 19, 2021.
Pan-Lingua: Undergraduate Conference on Languages and Cultures, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota, October 18-19, 2021.
“IdeaFest.” University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota, April 7-8, 2021.
“Women’s History Month Lecture by Martha S. Jones—‘Vanguard: Leading on Voting Rights,
Leading the Nation.’” Schell History and Gunderson Lecture in Honor of Women’s History Month, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota, March 18, 2021.
“The Fifty-Sixth Annual Student History Conference.” Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota, February 25, 2021.
Faculty Development
To support faculty who needed to organize virtual conferences in response to the pandemic, I offered workshops and consultations on organizing conferences. Joshua King of Baylor University, who had organized multiple conferences, was invited to co-facilitate an introduction to different models of virtual conferencing. Following the original workshop, I organized a panel on virtual conferencing with faculty who had lead virtual or hybrid conferences.
ORGANIZING VIRTUAL CONFERENCES PANEL
Description: Flightless and nearly carbon neutral conferencing is an emerging genre of research sharing focused on sustainability and the inclusion of researchers regardless of ability to travel. This workshop introduces participants to different virtual conferencing models and discusses best practices. Join us after the short workshop for a panel on virtual conference organization featuring April Carrillo, Angela Helmer, and Clayton Lehmann.
Research
I propose in my recent article on public scholarship that virtual conferencing has the potential to offer a new forum for community engagement.
Extract
The Public Potential of Virtual Conferencing
The pedagogical workshops were followed by one on organizing virtual conferences. This workshop targeted University of South Dakota faculty who were either preparing to organize or had expressed interest in organizing virtual conferences. Joshua King of Baylor University, who had organized multiple flightless conferences, was invited to co-facilitate the workshop. Multiple conferencing models were presented with a focus on the hub model used by King, which maintains the benefits of virtual and in-person conferencing while also dispersing the responsibility of organization across partner institutions. It was also noted in the workshop that virtual conferencing has rich pedagogical potential where student researchers can be involved in organizing, managing social media, and presenting at the conference regardless of funding available in their respective programs. In the end, participants who were preparing virtual conferences had a chance to discuss the topic with King as an experienced organizer.
Since many academics found themselves organizing or participating in virtual conferences during the pandemic, this addition to the program schedule seemed necessary even though its connection to public scholarship may not be readily apparent. Before the pandemic, flightless and nearly carbon neutral conferences were already an emerging genre of research sharing focused on sustainability and the inclusion of researchers regardless of ability to travel. The driving argument informing this workshop, however, was that virtual conferencing has more public scholarship potential than our more closed conferences. Writing about the same conference he presented on at the workshop, King (2019) notes that “streaming conference sessions open-access . . . opened them to a diverse and global audience well beyond the academy” and further proposes that “making immediate and practical adjustments to how we conference can empower agency, enliven the imagination to new possibilities for academic exchange, and inspire adaptation in the scholarly associations and institutions that support the academy.” Not only are these conferences greener and more equitable, but they could be open to the public or posted online.
As a new genre, virtual conferencing can learn from the practices of community engagement as presenters consider moving beyond traditional recitation strategies and craft presentations designed for a broad audience. The recent International Hopkins Conference, which focuses on the life and poetry of the Victorian Jesuit, Gerard Manley Hopkins, offered an example of the public potential of this developing genre. In response to the pandemic, the conference was completely online and open to all with free registration. Although filled with traditional panels and recited papers, the conference was a site of community engagement. Francis Fennell organized cultural programming interludes that showcased artistic adaptations of the poet’s work, including, for example, explorations of Hopkins’s regional influences by the Monasterevin (Ireland) Hopkins Society. Even as more conferences return to previous modalities, there is potential for partnering at the local level and mutual enrichment between researchers, artists, and other interested community members.
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