I'll add my thanks to PAL, their staffers, the small army of volunteers, and
the folks at Talley Management Group. This year's meeting (while expensive)
went very well overall and everyone should be very satisfied. I liked a
number of things that the organizers did this year, including some timing
issues and the co-exhibition of academic/professional posters and book room
exhibitors.
I'll also remind individual members, however, that a paper session chair
should never, EVER, permit the presenters to deviate from the printed
schedule. When over a THOUSAND people have based their day's activities and
appointments on the printed version, you can't just arbitrarily decide to
switch the pre-printed order because two presenters chatted in the bar
during the night before and discovered that it made "more sense" a different
way. I missed a number of papers I wished to see because people permitted
this.
If one presenter is a no-show, you insert a break into the session and send
people for coffee. If one presenter is late, can not get their 35mm slides
into a functioning carousel, or their laptop/digital projector to work, that
presenter misses their slot. They should never be swapped in the schedule
with a later presenter, which people will show up later expecting to hear.
While it is undesirable for a session to run late, that is difficult to
control. I believe that moderators and session chairs should keep people
within their allotted time, but it is hard to get someone to shut up when
you admire them or hope to work for them some day.
You must rely upon the printed program because everyone else expects you
will. Put most simply, the other thousand attendees are collectively more
important than any single speaker and deserve the courtesy this implies.
My thoughts,
Tim
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Timothy James Scarlett
Assistant Professor of Archaeology
Program in Industrial History and Archaeology
Department of Social Sciences
Michigan Technological University
1400 Townsend Drive
Houghton, Michigan 49931-1295 USA
Tel (906) 487-2113 Fax (906) 487-2468 Internet [log in to unmask]
MTU Website: http://www.industrialarchaeology.net
SHA Website: http://www.sha.org SIA Website: http://www.sia-web.org
********************************************************************
"What drives graduate students to immerse themselves in some little known
field of study is not expectation of reward-- though we may hope for it.
The driving force is passion. And passion cannot be judged, graded, or put
on a salary scale."
-- Philip Brady, "Tom Clancy and Me" NEA Higher Education Journal 2002.
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