The Association of Writing Programs announced its accepted events for the 2012 convention in Chicago on Friday, and my Facebook page/Twitter feed blew up with joy and anguish alike. The panel I’d been asked to be a part of missed the cut (as has been the case for me most years). I was on a panel that made the cut the first time I was asked, back in 2005, and haven’t made it since then, so I’ve wondered what the criteria are, how the panels are chosen, and so on.
So has Amy King, and she’s asking the right questions, I think.
“Why is AWP capable of spending time judging, tallying, averaging, ranking and then informing each applicant of their accepted or rejected status, but it remains impossible, despite having already ranked each proposal and reached a consensus, to inform us of that ranking? If you want the process to be as “democratic and transparent” as possible, wouldn’t sharing those final scores with your applicants be a step in making more transparent this democratic process? ”
I want to say that the AWP isn’t duty bound to make the process open or democratic–it’s their conference, after all. But if they’re going to make the claim that it is, then they ought to make it as open as is humanly possible. After all, they’re depending on writers–many of whom are barely scraping by on contingent faculty wages (and I use the term “wages” loosely) or student loan money or tips–to help pay for the event. If they’re trying to encourage us to take part in the event, then a little help on how to make our panel proposals better would be good, I’d think.
2 responses
It is always frustrating to not have a clear sense of why a panel/paper/workshop at any given conference hasn’t been accepted. Logistically, it would be really difficult to notify every applicant why their panel wasn’t accepted because the reality is that most people don’t want to know where they ranked. They want a yes. For every Amy King who wants to know where she ranked, there are ten people out there who would be hell fury outraged to see where they stand.
One of the problems here, is the expectation that the only beneficial way to attend a conference is to present. Everyone wants to lead, no one wants to follow. I understand that for too many academics, the only way it is cost effective to attend conferences is to also present, but if there’s a conference where everyone is a speaker, who the hell are we speaking TO?
I think probably lots of people look at the conference as only being beneficial if you’re presenting–at least the presentation makes it easier to rationalize the amount of money you spend to get there and stay there–but I’m pretty much the opposite. I’ve been to AWP 3 times since 2005, and only once (the first one, where I presented) did I go to panels. Since then, I’ve gone to the book fair and to off-site readings, but not to panels. I want to go to panels, but it never seems to work out. Maybe this time, in Chicago, I’ll do it.
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