A picture is worth 1,000 slides

At the American Sociological Association conference in Chicago I noticed something else that demonstrates the ways that faculty members are just as bad as students when they are in the audience instead of standing at the front of class. During several presentations audience members took pictures of PowerPoint slides so that they did not have to write information down. This practice was made worse by the fake camera noises that their phones made as they took the pictures (I’m not sure whether or not all phones have the ability to turn the camera noise off). The most egregious example of this was in a presentation with a lot of references on slides. Those who wanted to record the references just took pictures. Worst of all was the fact that the presenter made very clear at the beginning that he would send the complete presentation via e-mail to anybody who was interested.

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The 2015 ASA Scavenger Hunt

Conference bingo cards are fun to read but fail because bingo can’t actually be played unless everybody is in the same room. Conference scavenger hunts are infinitely better. Thus, for the fourth straight year I give you the ASA Scavenger Hunt! You can download the 2015 ASA Scavenger Hunt and, for your convenience, I have also listed the items below. Post your progress and results in this SJMR thread. Good luck!

2015 ASA Scavenger Hunt

Instructions: Record the dates, times, locations, and/or session numbers for the items below between Friday, August 21 and midnight on Tuesday, August 25. Post your results in the “2015 ASA Scavenger Hunt” thread at SJMR. Good luck!

1. Attend a friend’s roundtable session
2. Hear a presenter explain technological difficulties with, “I’m used to my Mac”
3. Hear somebody refer to the Chicago School in a presentation
4. Attend a workshop
5. Attend a great talk by an “unknown” sociologist
6. Check out the poster presentations
7. Use the ASA App
8. Walk past the Employment Service area and observe the job candidates
9. Discuss the pros and cons of replication
10. Overhear a sociologist make a racist/sexist/homophobic (etc.) comment
11. Talk to somebody about SJMR
12. Eat some candy at the book exhibit
13. Turn the paper part of your nametag upside-down to make tag-checking more obvious
14. Find the unisex restrooms and rate their implementation on a scale of 1-10
15. Pour one out for DAN
16. Get a free drink at a section reception
17. Spot Fabio (bonus points if he’s wearing a fanny pack)
18. Talk to somebody from a liberal arts school about his or her research
19. Talk to somebody from a research school about his or her teaching
20. Talk to somebody on the job market about his or her ideal job
21. Introduce two people you know to each other
22. For Faculty: Buy a student coffee or a meal; For Students: Accept coffee or a meal from a faculty member
23. Eat a meal alone
24. Have an awkward conversation with an acquaintance
25. Post on social media about ASA
26. During conversation, move somebody across the room by slowly inching closer to them
27. Walk to the Navy Pier
28. Spend an entire day in Chicago without attending a session
29. Take a picture with that shiny bean (a.k.a. Cloud Gate Chicago)
30. Eat deep-dish pizza

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DAN is on life support

At the American Sociological Association conference, the cool departments have private parties. For the rest of the departments around the country, there is DAN, or the Departmental Alumni Night. Traditionally, DAN was an event where you could get together with faculty and fellow graduates of your uncool institution and purchase high-priced, standard-quality beer and wine while slowly watching Indiana graduate students claim the tables of other schools. Today, DAN is on life support.

Things weren’t always bad. According to the ASA program, at least 45 departments participated in DAN in 2006 (I say “at least” because it appears that departments can pay to participate later even if they don’t make the cut for inclusion in the program). In 2009, the year after “the crash,” however, only 25 departments participated. 2010 saw a slight increase to 31, but the writing was on the wall. In 2012 and 2013 only 12 departments were listed in the program. Last year, only 10. This year? The ASA app only lists five.

Unfortunately, I doubt that DAN’s decline has been the result of a surge in private parties. Maybe it is easier today to use technology to meet up with the people at ASA that you actually want to see. Maybe nobody from uncool schools can afford to come to ASA these days. Maybe their semesters have already started. In any case, it appears that it is time for the ASA to pull the plug and put DAN out of its misery.

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The new and improved ASA App

Was it really just last year that the American Sociological Association released an “app” that was really just a web page? After seeking feedback, the ASA really has tried to do better this year. For example, if you are registered for the conference and logged into the ASA website the online program actually lets you see the locations of sessions, hopefully ending the practice of searching for sessions online and then having to look those sessions up again when you get the actual program to find the locations (at least when exporting the schedule didn’t work).

More interesting are the developments in ASA app land. These developments center on the fact that this year there is an actual app that you can download to your phone. The app provides session information as well as maps and directions to get from your location to particular sessions. (Of course, all of this will depend on the strength of the ASA’s wifi signal.)

Scatterplot has some instructions for downloading the app, because of course the ASA needs to make it more complicated than necessary by putting the link to the app page on the Member Portal and not on the conference website where somebody might expect to find it. Once you’ve downloaded the app, you need to login with your userid and the ASA’s app password (which you get from the app website), but then to access your saved sessions and information you need to login again with your normal ASA password. Once you’ve done all of this, you can search for sessions, set reminders for sessions, use the maps, etc.

The ASA is trying, so hopefully everything works well when we all get to Chicago! Now, about the conference dates…

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