I would just like to present myself as a case study in the opposite - from my experiences at meetings (both AAG and ESA), collaborations emerge all the time, and not just over late-night beers. For ESA this year, I organized an oral session and not only participated in but facilitated new collaboration, participated in my section meeting and met new colleagues and made connections for post-docs, learned some valuable skills from workshops in Bayes, manuscript writing, and grant-writing (none of which are offered at my university), and have a notebook full of research ideas. All in less than a week! I don't want to get into the foot-print wars game, but as someone who lives car-free, pays for carbon offsets for my flights through TerraPass, and buys green power offsets (and all as a poor grad student!), I feel as though my total budget can handle an airline flight or two.
I think the bottom line is that we can make the choices to get out of these things what we want to, and in some casees proportionate to what we put in. We weigh our choices, but they should be personal ones, and not projected on to others. We're all close to our fields - the water folks would probably like us to shower less, and the air folks might have us take out our air conditioners. I am trusting my fellow ecologists to make smart decisions and to do good work in their field, and one of the joys of coming to meetings is seeing that they do, and that it's getting better all the time. Respectfully, Jacquelyn ************************ Jacquelyn Gill Graduate Research Assistant Jack Williams Lab University of Wisconsin - Madison Department of Geography 550 North Park St. Madison, WI 53706 608.890.1188 (phone) 608.265.9331 (fax) ----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Park <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Thursday, August 9, 2007 12:26 am Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Skipping meetings To: [email protected] > Liane, > > I respect your view, but I am rather unconvinced. Most of the > advantages you state can be gained from reading abstracts in the > literature, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Science, Nature and > Proceedings. One can talk with authors by phone or e-mail. I do it > > all the time. I am currently collaborating with an author who I have > > never even met on a manuscript. > > The one thing that cannot be substituted for is the joy of face to > face human contact, and the possibility of an exciting new research > direction emerging over late night beers. But (a) how often does that > > happen? and (b) does it continue to justify carbon-intensive travel? > > Quoting Liane Cochran-Stafira <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > At 04:53 PM 8/6/2007, Andrew Park wrote: > >> Dear Ecologgers, > >> > >> As for meetings, I suspect that they are usually more about networking > >> (careerism again) and less about achieving progress in a particular > >> field. That's why I do not go to them these days unless I am > >> presenting something specific. > > > > Andy, > > I'm rather surprised by this statement. Yes, grad students and recent > > grads may be looking for potential employers, but that is hardly the > > main reason people attend ESA or any other scientific meetings. The > > main goal is to find out what is going on in our own little corner of > > the research world as well as to scout out what's new in other areas > of > > ecology, microbiology, or whatever. As someone else has mentioned, > > it's impossible to read all the ecological research papers, but if I > > spot an interesting abstract, I can easily get more information in the > > form of a talk, seminar presentation, or poster session. And, I can > > discuss the research with the author in person. Not sure what > > meetings you've been attending to come away with such a narrow view > of > > their value. > > > > Cheers, > > Liane > > > > > > > > *************************** > > D. Liane Cochran-Stafira, Ph.D. > > Associate Professor > > Department of Biological Sciences > > Saint Xavier University > > 3700 West 103rd Street > > Chicago, Illinois 60655 > > > > phone: 773-298-3514 > > fax: 773-298-3536 > > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://faculty.sxu.edu/~cochran/
