State History

This article originally appeared on the Inside Higher Ed website. 

Colleges and universities are wrestling with how to reopen their campuses for the fall semester. With social distancing requirements likely in place through the rest of the year, any environment that brings large groups of people together in close proximity can create new opportunities for the coronavirus to flourish.

That includes professional meetings. Institutions may also be reticent to permit faculty to travel to such meetings, fearing that they may bring the virus back to their campuses. It could result in new spikes of cases or, at best, require travelers to quarantine for 14 days upon their return, disrupting many of their academic responsibilities. Given that professional societies sponsor many such meetings, they are in the precarious situation of planning professional meetings for their members with the uncertainty of who will or can attend these events.

Professional meetings allow academic researchers to come together to build research relationships and network. The genus of many new ideas and collaborations often grows out of one-to-one and small group interactions at those meetings. Research presentations provide a forum for learning about the newest research in the field and the opportunity to speak one on one with presenters, creating a fertile intellectual environment for discussion and debate. In short, the professional meeting is an important mechanism through which research advances can occur. Read more...