[Air-l] AIR 2007 in Vancouver or else

[Nancy Baym]

>  > Has the board considered a rotational schedule where the conference
>>  would be held in the U.S. every other year? This is a practice that
>>  other associations use and one that benefits conference planners and
>>  members alike. I'm one of those people who is already looking at the
>>  2007 and 2008 conference schedules to see what is being offered in
>>  anticipation of writing papers and making presentations. I imagine there
>  > are others reading this posting who are doing the same


Yes, we currently have a rotation schedule alternating North America 
with not-North America. The hope last time rotation was discussed in 
the previous executive (under my presidency) was that if Brisbane 
goes well, we might eventually be on a rotation schedule that would 
include the Pacific Rim/Asia, as there is a good deal of internet 
research going on not just in Australia, but in Korea, China, Japan 
and other Asian countries as well.

The idea of Mexico and Latin America as meeting places has also been 
discussed and the concerns Suely raises are pretty much those that we 
considered -- that we don't have a Latin American or Mexican base yet 
(if you're there, please tell the internet scholars you know!) and 
that a conference there might well turn into a tourist get-away 
rather than a paper-attending event that brings in regional scholars. 
I think everyone on the executive committee hopes that we will expand 
conferences to other parts of the world eventually. All those of us 
involved in founding and running AoIR have hoped from the start to be 
a true international association (though some of us may have 
underestimated some of the difficult balancing acts this would entail 
and some of the perceptual issues we would have to manage -- plus of 
course we didn't foresee 9/11 turning the US into a problematic place 
to have a conference).

One thing to keep in mind is that these conferences cost a lot of 
money to put on and as a young association with minimal membership 
fees and comparatively low conference fees (though of course, some 
think they're too high anyway) we are really not in a position to 
take financial risks on our conferences lest we bankrupt the 
association in one event (we are not talking about profits here!).

I am really delighted to see so many people engaged in this 
discussion, though, and to hear some of you stepping up offering to 
help plan. That's what makes this association possible,

Nancy