Academic and Institutional Humility

This week was another week where I was very much about contemplating the interconnected threads of what happens in academe. I know we sort of in principle understand how so much of what we do in higher education is connected. People talk about that interconnectedness in principle all the time in different ways. But I don't think one really deeply reflects on that interconnectedness until asks come in and you have to give yourself a moment of pause and reflect and realize how one sided a relationship is and how boundaries are a thing that need to be respected.

This had me in turn thinking about humility. And I see that the last time I went on my humility diatribe it was pretty much exactly two years ago so I guess it is time to revisit this. As we are entering conference season, a lot of folk are sending in abstracts, or receiving emails that their work was accepted or the opposite poorly framed rejections that demonstrate that no care was actually given in the review of the abstracts, with harmful feedback that reinscribes all the -isms we see in eduspace. And at the same time these conferences are demonstrating zero humility about the processes of conference design and abstract review, zero humility as to why in a space where there's so many conferences that one can choose to be a part of, that they should actually care about the presenters, the venue, and the organization of the conference.

There is a deep sense of arrogance on behalf of conference organizers. That arrogance comes from the belief that they are doing presenters a favour, that somehow being part of their conference is them helping presenters "do academe." And yes in some ways that is true. Until promotion and tenure review comes to appreciate the different ways that knowledge translation happens, or hiring committees can see outside the little boxes that HR lays out for them, there is a lot of arrogance built into this system, as a "maker" of CVs. But that only works if we continue to not believe there are ways to disrupt status quo in conferences. I use the Accessible Canada conference as an active example of what could be. Basically what I am saying is that we are allowing them to be arrogant by continuing to buy into these systems. 

At the same time I want folk to really think about the reciprocal nature of community and relationship building. If I am sending in an abstract that I worked hard on, you reject it, and then fill the conference with status quo non-innovative things that people have heard a thousand times about accessibility, do not then a few days later send an email asking for help about a project coming from that same place that didn't see my work important enough to be part of the conference but now I apparently know things they want and need. I know this probably reads and sounds like sour grapes to some folk. But what I am really trying to get at is that institutions, service areas, and academic conferences need to deeply realize the reciprocal nature of the work we are supposed to do, and cannot tell someone one day their work has no value and then two days later ask them for help on something because suddenly they realize they need help and you now have value to them because their own deadline is knocking.

People's value does not fluctuate. People are valuable in different ways and the knowledge and experience they bring cannot be helpful only when you have a deadline for a funded project you realize you are not going to make, and not valuable when you are trying to be "king makers" (an actual phrase that came out of a former colleague's mouth once about my need to associate with different kinds of institutional people with zero sense of irony, it still gives me ick) with a conference. 

Institutions, like humans, have deep impostor syndrome. And some ways small institutions try to counteract this is to have zero sense of humility or ability to reflect on how to build community, mentor meaningfully, and value the skills, voices, and expertise around them. The lack of institutional humility, leads to the sort of churn that Sarah Silverman, Cait Kirby and others have been talking about in teaching and learning centres, and is what creates the holy grail type stuff we see about the big conferences where someone with their whole chest can come into my mentions to tell me the best conference is a Lilly Conference, complete with their inaccessible websites, venues, and $500USD plus registration fees, and not see the irony of those conferences just being a vehicle for one of many over-exposed American academics with zero commitment to mentorship of folk in precarious or junior positions. 

Institutions and academic associations need a large dose of humility. People approach them like it is a sellers market with a scarcity mindset that forces folk into perpetual reactionary work, where nothing innovative happens, and a bunch of checklists are brought out to make sure the bare minimum is met and nothing more. I find myself sometimes wanting to say "stop trying to make fetch happen" where a bunch of academic Gretchen Wieners are trying really hard to make themselves seem like they have credibility and are more interested in overly cited names with empty/vapid zero praxis engagement than community building, mentorship opportunities, and reciprocal relationship awareness.

I don't want to get all Janet Jackson, but "what have you done for me lately?" (I need more recent cultural references). Honestly what are these institutions, associations, scholars with teaching and learning books everyone cites but are not inclusively framed (do a ctrl+F for "disab" on any of these works and tell me what you find), done for us, done for community, except reinforce overly expensive inaccessible conferences as the way and place that knowledge is exchanged. A glorified Hilton branded epistemology holder complete with re-warmed banquet chicken. And it's the same knowledge, the same talking points, that do not include disabled folk, do not understand disabled lived experience, do not acknowledge queer or Mad or neurodivergent or chronically ill knowledge as contributing amazing things to higher education. 

So maybe it is time that every institution and academic association collectively gets over themselves. Because if they don't nothing of value will ever happen in these places. Posturing will only get one so far, and quickly folks will come to see that these are not places of care, these are not trauma-informed spaces, and not places worthy of ones' time and incredible ideas. What if they built a conference and no one showed up? I think we are about to find out.