The Our Voices in Classics conference was created with the intent of providing a space for members of traditionally marginalized groups to share not only their research based on the ancient Mediterranean world and the pedagogy thereof, but also their personal experiences in academia in a way that was as economically accessible as possible. We also wanted to create an opportunity for people who have not always had access to traditional academic spaces and those people who are interested in changing the culture of classics to be able to listen to and participate in conversations about the future of the field.
Over the course of February 15th and 16th, there were ten separate sessions, each containing three separate tracks: pedagogy, inclusivity, and Latin readings/spoken Latin or Greek. There were nearly 50 speakers/presenters, who ranged from undergraduates to tenured faculty; approximately 115 in-person attendees, who ranged from high school students onwards; and almost 100 who registered for the live-streams and/or to receive notifications of when the videos of sessions would be available, including live watch parties at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Gonzaga University. While participants primarily came from the New York / New England region, a substantial number of participants came from beyond this area and traveled from as far away as Washington state, Texas, and Georgia to participate.
In our effort to minimize the barriers to participation, the conference was financed on a pay-what-you-can model, with suggested donations of $20, $40, or a maximum of $60, based one’s own self-determined ability to pay. From the payments made for registration ($3197.71) as well as direct, independent donations from supportive colleagues and friends ($3058.65), we were able to raise a total of $6181.36. This money allowed us to cover the costs of travel for presenters in order that the financial barrier was lowered not only for participants but also for presenters (full financial report available here). The contributions of space, money, and labor from Columbia University’s Classics department was integral to the success of this conference. Because we were able to use classrooms, Classics library, and common areas for free, by collaborating with Columbia Classics Department Graduate Research Colloquium, we were able to avoid a substantial cost. Additionally, Columbia Classics undergraduate and graduate students volunteered their time to help with conference logistics, and the Classics Department also generously provided coffee and tea throughout the conference. Furthermore, helped by the generous support of the Classical Association of New England and the Women’s Classical Caucus ($500 donations from each group), we offered subsidized meals options to further lessen the financial burden for participants.
Due to the low cost, a wider variety of speakers and presenters than is typical, ranging from high school students to tenured faculty, were able to participate in this conference both in-person and online via the livestream. Out of our total budget, 55% went to travel subsidies for presenters, and yet we were still able to keep the costs to participants low. The average money paid by each participant was less than $30/person and the overall cost of the conference ($4,985.51 for 115 in-person participants) came to approximately $52 per in-person participant. If we account for those who live-streamed the content, the cost per participant was potentially as low as $25. We think this demonstrates how much can be done on a relatively small conference budget and that this could be a model for other conferences.
What Went Well?
Participant response was overall overwhelmingly positive, and we were heartened to learn that there is in fact a great demand and interest in this sort of conference. We were also encouraged to see that a pay-what-you-can model can work for an academic conference. On a scale of 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent), 53% answered 5 and 87% rated the conference overall a 4 or higher. The overwhelming majority of responders (c. 90%) said they would be likely or very likely to attend in the future and recommend the conference to their friends and colleagues.
We were also able to successfully live-stream almost all the conference sessions. We had a total of 246 participants at different times live-streaming the sessions and as of 3/9/20, we’ve had almost 500 views of the videos of the sessions (493, to be precise) on YouTube. This was done with effectively no budget or investment in equipment (using personal laptops and cameras), and while there were some technical difficulties that should be ironed out in future iterations, we feel that we demonstrated that live-streaming of conference sessions can be done on a very small budget. You can find a full report on the technological aspects here.
We were also able to provide meals for all conference attendees: breakfasts of bagels, fruit, donuts, and coffee and tea, subsidized sandwiches for lunch, and free pizza, salad, and vegan options for dinner. This prevented attendees from being excluded from mealtimes if they could not afford to eat at a particular restaurant or a sometimes pricey conference banquet. It was very important to us that money not exclude anyone from full conference participation, and that no one faced food insecurity (as much as we could prevent it) during the conference. We also made a point to offer travel stipends in advance of travel, so people would not have to pay out of pocket and then wait to be reimbursed at a later point (as is often the case with academic reimbursements).
Most importantly, conference presenters and attendees had, for the most part, a very positive experience and formed meaningful connections with like minded students and teachers. Attendees spoke movingly of feeling accepted and welcomed at this conference in ways they had never experienced at an academic conference.
Responses to the question “Did this year’s event meet your expectations? Why or why not?”
What was your favorite part of the conference?
Other comments
Caveats and Miscellany
In order to make a conference work on a shoe-string budget, some of the elements of the conference were not as sleek and polished as other academic conferences. This was both intentional and a product of the special circumstances under which the conference was organized. There was very limited swag (something no one particularly lamented — I think all attendees felt the money was better spent on other things), and conference organizers and volunteers did all the tech support and food procurement. This was a very substantial commitment of time and energy. In the midst of conversations about overwork, we should note that organizing a conference with a team of five people represented a significant undertaking. This conference model was feasible, but it did come at the cost of uncompensated labor, and we have real concerns about whether this is an ethical model going forward.
We did get some mixed responses about the spoken Latin aspects of the conference (some thought there was too much, others thought there was too little). As an organizing committee, we think that we should have been more explicit about why there was a spoken Latin element (because this conference was meant, in part, to be an alternative to Paideia’s conference that weekend, for those who wanted to enjoy the spoken Latin experience, without the hostile and toxic elements that have been widely reported and corroborated at this point) and what its purpose was (we feel that spoken ancient language pedagogy can and should be an instrument for creating greater equity in classics, as cogently argued by John Bracey and others). However, better communication on our part surely would have helped participants know what to expect and prevented any confusion about the abundance or nature of Latin activities offered.
Room for Improvement
Based on the organizers’ own experiences as well as direct and anonymous feedback from participants, there are 3 or 4 areas we would like to focus on improving in the future: technology, logistics/communication, accessibility, and diversity.
Technology and logistics: Because we had no idea how many people would be interested in attending, some of our timelines and plans were fairly last minute. We did not announce our conference until December 16th for a February 15th conference — we only started planning it a few months earlier. We wanted to welcome anyone who was interested in attending all or part of the conference, so we didn’t set a deadline for registrations and truly had no idea how many people to expect. A result of that was that some of the logistics (taking lunch orders, providing food that met everyone’s dietary restrictions) were not as smooth as they might have been. That said, we are confident that with a better understanding of the high demand for such a conference and with a longer timeline to prepare, we will be able to better address all these issues.
From a technological perspective, we had some issues in the earliest panels and would have really benefited from having a few more designated tech people who could have been monitoring the streams and fielding questions and comments from people on the live-stream. In a perfect world, we would be able to acquire streaming equipment that would provide a better camera angle and higher quality audio (particularly for audience discussion) for subsequent iterations of this conference. With more planning time, we are looking into funding to upgrade our streaming equipment, and we also will be soliciting more volunteers to help monitor the live streams.
Accessibility: This starts to get into the more complex issues. The building we were provided on Columbia’s campus is not a very accessible one (the elevator is small and there are not gender neutral bathrooms). Furthermore, because we had no pre-existing funds, we had to rely on whatever microphones we personally owned or were able to borrow from our institutions on short notice. So while we had a few of our own microphones to supplement the built-in system present in two of the three rooms made available by Columbia, we could have used more, so that every room had a wireless one that could be passed around. We are looking into funding to acquire additional technology to increase the accessibility of these rooms.
Also, due to campus policies, we needed to have a security guard watching the main door of the building on Sunday. This was not communicated well to the attendees and created a climate that some understandably found unwelcoming. With more advance notice for next year, we anticipate being able to use a space that is more conducive to our goals and will not require a security presence.
Diversity: Despite being comparatively quite diverse for a classics event, the majority of attendees were nevertheless white, and some BIPOC attendees expressed feeling tokenized. And while one of our organizing committee members is Asian American, there were no BIPOC (Black and Indigenous People of Color) on the organizing committee, which may have made BIPOC attendees less likely to report incidents or circumstances that caused them discomfort. A few incidents were reported to us after the conference was over — incidents which represent violations of our printed and distributed code of conduct — which were not reported when they occurred, but that we took very seriously when reported after the conference. We are working on ways to anticipate and avoid this in the future.
We Welcome Ideas
Participant feedback gave us a good idea of areas where we can improve for next year. What we are less sure of is how to fix all these issues. We would like the organizing committee to be more diverse and, at the same time, there were legitimate reasons we did not ask many folks to be part of the organizing this year. One of them was the risk of repercussions, retaliation, and/or lawsuits directed at those involved, which was (and possibly still is) a risk. Everyone who took a visible role in the organizing of this conference felt comfortable taking that risk, but we were hesitant to ask other people to take that risk and face potential retaliation.
The larger issue is not limited to this year: every person of color in academia is constantly asked to do “diversity work” (almost always meaning unpaid and undervalued work), and we did not want to replicate those systems by putting more demands on the time of people who come from marginalized identities. Service work counts for very little in higher education, and it is not the responsibility of people who have been harmed or excluded by the field of classics to do the work to fix it. And so, we recognize and affirm that some of the areas in which we fell short were undoubtedly due to our own blindspots — because of this, we are not sure how best to remedy these problems — but we welcome suggestions. And, if you feel so inclined, we welcome you to consider joining us as we move forward.
Overall, based both on our experience as organizers and on feedback from participants, we feel that this was a very positive and successful conference and a promising experiment in a new model of academic conferences that prioritizes economic accessibility and centers equitable pedagogy. We have begun planning for next year’s conference already and are very excited about building on this year’s conference to address and build upon the previously noted areas of improvement and to work to make Our Voices in Classics 2021 the best possible conference for all involved. Finally, if you are interested in participating in the planning of Our Voices 2021, volunteering to help run it, or if you have a presentation proposal, please let us know!
It was wonderful to be able to stream it. Such great perspectives, and I love the report-all conferences should do this.