This June I went to my first in-person conference in over two years. It was in UMSL, which is in the town I'm currently based in (St Louis), so it was an easy transition. And it was lovely–exhausting but lovely. I also have a couple of more events lined up this fall. After a hiatus of in-person conferencing, there's a general sense for many academics that "it's endemic now." We can't really expect improvements in vaccine effectiveness or transmission rates, so basically we have to do life under these circumstances. And academic life involves (for many of us) in-person conferences.
But I worry that this creates disparity in opportunities and professional development, exacerbating disparities that already exist in many cases, such as for disabled and chronically ill people.
I got Covid in late April 2022 after being very cautious for over two years, and was quite sick for several weeks (sicker I thought I would be given that I got the full vaccination and a booster.) For the few weeks after recovery I reckoned I was OK in terms of immunity and went to a few events that I normally still deem to risky, such as a lovely dinner organized by the local Jesuit training center which is associated to SLU. It was a great event and the food was great, but it was also a very poorly ventilated area with so many people.
This made me think of the many people who, for whatever reason, do not wish to risk repeat infections and what this means for them, academically and professionally. It's not just immunosuppressed and immunocompromised people who are (generally) more cautious. There are also people without adequate health coverage, an enduring problem in the US which resulted in a disproportionate pandemic death toll. For my part, I have little to no in person support network where I live, having moved here right before the pandemic. I am also the sole breadwinner of my family, and have already some health risk factors, so I feel I cannot afford to become very ill. It also seems rational that even if you have none of these factors, you want to be cautious: from a preprint of a study that had surprisingly little media coverage, we have reasons to believe repeated infections with Covid make one increasingly vulnerable to burdensome health conditions such as diabetes, stroke and heart disease.
However, I also understand that some people have decided to live life as before. The narrative of our governments is basically ignoring the pandemic now. This ignoring takes many forms, also in our interpersonal relationships.
The fact of the matter remains: a new inequity is now permanently there, which exacerbates existing inequities as people who are vulnerable in other respects (financially or health-wise) will make more decisions to opt-out of in person conferencing.
Hybrid as practiced now is a poor alternative. Most hybrid conferences don't work for their remote participants, if my personal experiences are representative. I've been to several now, where one or more of the following things happened: (1) they forgot to turn on video for the Zoom participants, (2) they forget to check for new participants who enter the Zoom room (even after I email them to ask them what's going on), (3) they shift rooms and forget to turn on Zoom in the new room.
One recent conference I attended, the few Zoom participants were forgotten and we were left to chat with each other. It was lovely to catch up, but also frustrating. I understand why hybrid doesn't work that well, organizing an in-person conference is already so organizationally complex that it's hard to do Zoom on top of that. This is one reason why I think, for scholarly reasons, we need fully remote options to remain available (carbon reduction is another reason, as academics we contribute massively to this).
For other purposes, such as networking, in-person conferencing is still important. There is now a further obstacle to it, and I'm unsure how it will change our profession in the years to come. There's no easy solution (especially given that vaccine mandates have lost their effectiveness in preventing spread), but it is something to consider as an added hurdle and obstacle in our professional lives.
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