For the next week I am on an austerity budget and many pasta meals are will be on the menu. I am good at budgeting my expenses. I rarely splurge on material things and in the estimation of my son am among the cheapest humans on the planet. My budget is stretched to the limit however in large part because I have been to two conferences in little over a month. At the time it did not seem like I was going to spend a lot and in truth I have not spent that much. But the price of gas and food alone put a small dent in my budget. The money I have spent is on my mind since I heard one scholar at the last conference I attended implore people with a disability to attend conferences. Great advice I thought which was quickly followed by a second thought: who can afford to attend these conferences without institutional backing? When I attend a conference all expenses come out of my pocket including registration. All academic conference are expensive and I draw the line at $200. This line eliminates many conferences I would like to attend and I will admit I make exceptions and spend more once in a while. Am I being cheap as my son would suggest? I think not when one adds in the cost to register, hotel or motel accommodations, food and transportation. For instance the conference I attended last weekend at Union College cost me almost $500. To me, that is an expensive weekend--a work weekend no less.
Another conference is coming up--the Society for Disability Studies in Philadelphia. After listening to the speaker last weekend, a scholar I respect, I thought, don't be so cheap, go ahead and splurge. Go to the SDS conference. I have not been in many years and Philadelphia is not too far from New York. So on-line I went and was astonished by the pricing. Yes, the SDS meeting is a yearly event, and yes I knew it would be expensive, and yes, I knew staying in a major city would cost a lot. But nothing prepared me for the below pricing for the SDS conference found on the SDS website:
Registration Category earlybird Cost regular rates
member - full conference registration (income above $45000) $315.00 $350.00
member - full conference registration (income between $20000 & $44999) $290.00 $325.00
member - full conference registration (income below $20000) $135.00 $150.00
member - single-day $180.00 $200.00
nonmember - full conference registration (income above $45000) $450.00 $450.00
nonmember - full conference registration (income between $20000 & $44999) $425.00 $425.00
nonmember - full conference registration (income below $20000) $200.00 $200.00
nonmember - single-day registration $250.00 $250.00
film pass only $20.00 $20.00
adjunct pass $50.00 $50.00
The above cost effectively eliminates any person without an institutional affiliation. The costs also eliminate virtually every person I know with a disability myself included. A quick bit of math reveals it will cost me $350 to get in the door and at least $100 to stay over night, With gas and tolls that is about a $500 day. The conference is four days long. So much for inclusion. Surely the people that run the SDS know that 66% of people with a disability are unemployed and that most live at or below the poverty line. I find this ironic in that the very people the SDS study could not possibly afford to attend their annual conference. No wonder I feel estranged from the SDS. Why for years I could not even afford to read the so called flagship journal of the organization--or have access to an article I wrote! Thankfully this has changed and I hope some semblance of sanity will prevail when it comes to registration costs for the SDS annual meetings. To me, the cost of conferences is a form of exclusion. Ivory Towers do exist and conferences are for those with an institutional backing or significant economic resources. I realize hosting conference is expensive but surely there must be a way of being inclusive. In fact I would speculate conferences would be far more lively and innovative is they were more inclusive.