Dear All:
Thanks for the budget information, Jim.
It appears that we are working with a pretty restricted budget at this point: $25,000 won’t go very far. I understand that we are hoping to attract more funds from other
sources, but we will need to be careful until we know we’ll have more money for travel and other costs. It might be useful for us to develop a ballpark idea about how much we expect to get from registrations and contributions.
Meanwhile, I would appreciate it if this committee would consider whether we can offer air fare for this scholar if that person chose to submit a proposal and it was
accepted. Air fare would probably be about $800.
This person is an established and well-regarded labour historian who has published two very well-regarded monographs with prestigious academic presses as well as a number
of articles in highly ranked academic journals. In other words, this labour historian would add significant value and prestige to our conference.
The person does not have an academic position and therefore does not have access to research funds, which people in faculty positions do have.
At this point, things are not looking good for us. We have far too few paper proposals and no panel proposals. I have reached out to my friends across Canada and I believe
a few established labour historians do plan to propose. But at the moment, I suggest we do our best to attract a few more papers by offering at least air fare to worthy proposals from people who do not have faculty positions.
Perhaps committee members would weigh in on this so I can respond to the scholar with information that a subsidy can be found for a proposal that is accepted from a
precariously employed scholar.
Thanks for responding!
julie
Hi Folks,
The only thing that I might add is that the budgeting exercise was predicated on the Committee's desire to provide travel assistance to invited roundtable participants, graduate students and (poorly paid)
community/labour activists who were contributing to the conference in one way or other, and other participants who might not be able to afford their own travel costs. The SSHRC grant for which we intend to apply would provide at least $25,000 for that express
purpose. Other funds which we may acquire - from unions and other sponsors might also be directed in this direction. It seemed that this was the will of the committee and was generally agreed to in preliminary budget discussions - but no hard and fast rules
or policies have been established - at least not that I know of.
Jim M.
Good point; I think we can begin the discussion on the listserv.
We did have a brief discussion of this last meeting in the context of the roundtables in which we affirmed that the first priority is to pay the travel
and accommodation of roundtable participants. It is hard to know what that will add up to. I think it is our intention of being able to subsidize low wage academics and activists beyond this but I’m not sure how concrete we can be about amounts. Jim M.
and Rhonda, who have been working on the budget can add something here, if they can. The call for papers did indicate that we were applying for funding for the general purpose of subsidizing attendance to the extent that it is possible. I’m just not sure
how much more we can say about this until we know how successful our SSHRC application is.
Comments?
Jim
James Naylor
Professor
Department of History
Brandon University
270 18th Street
Brandon, MB R7A 6A9
Canada
Office: 204 727 9664
Cell: 204 720 2117
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Indeed, I would agree with that.
I have been inviting people who’ve written on labour history to submit proposals and have started to get good responses. But a question has come up that
I can’t answer about travel subsidies for low-income and precariously employed scholars and activists.
I do not recall that we have a policy, but perhaps the committee developed one at a meeting in the summer when I was away. I don’t see anything about that
on our website. If we do have one, could someone please send me the details? If we don’t have one, I suggest that it’s urgent to get one before our deadline of 28 February.
The possibility of travel support will make a critical difference to some potential presenters. One for sure is a person we’d be very happy to have.
If we do not have a policy, I suggest we develop one before the deadline, even if that requires us to meet (as it were) online.
Esyllt Jones
Professor, Dept of History
Dean of Studies St John's College
College of New Scholars, Artists and