I gather attendance was down, but not much else. Observations from attendees? Comments can be anonymous as long as there is a valid e-mail address (which will not appear).
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9 responses to “Thoughts on the Atlanta APA?”
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Duke interviewed at the APA (& met with a dozen superb candidates). But it is pretty clear that most departments conducted Skype interviews. I suspect that we will do so in the future. Whether there are good reasons for a December-January APA meeting independent of hiring remains to be seen. A lot of excellent philosophy gets done at Central and especially Pacific. Perhaps they will suffice or perhaps a reconceived Eastern meeting in late August or early autumn for the Eastern division to do philosophy without placement would be good.
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Attendance was certainly down as compared to D.C. last year. I can't speak to any APAs prior to last year, because last year's was my first. I came away from the Atlanta APA with a very positive impression. MARTA rail service was conveniently located and inexpensive. As a job market candidate, I found people generally supportive and friendly, including fellow job market candidates. I had an easy time using the placement service and finding the table where I was interviewing. I didn't notice anything particularly egregious or awkward at the Friday evening reception. The hotel was less expensive than last year's hotel (though you had to go around the APA's booking rates to get the best rates, which is a glaring problem the APA needs to address). There were few, if any, weather-related problems, which helps make a very strong case for holding the Eastern in the South regularly. My flight to Atlanta was actually less than half the price of my flight to D.C. last year. The papers presented at the conference were great, and the sessions I attended were well moderated and productive.
As far as negatives go, the hotel's main restaurant was very lousy. Attendance was down, but that was probably due to more departments holding interviews via Skype or phone.
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Commenting on one bit in Matt Drabek's post: My understanding is that the APA has to negotiate rates several years in advance in order to secure a venue (at least as hotels now do things). It then is out of their hands when rates drop. Incidentally, they also have to guarantee a minimum. When the minimum isn't met (as happened in DC), there are huge penalties (very high 5 figures last year, I believe)). I'm told that this past year the APA negotiated after the fact strenuously and successfully to have the penalties significantly reduced. -Perhaps there's another way, but just supplying some info I picked up about how things tend to work at the moment.
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I thought the registration went much more smoothly than in the past, and in general the organization and planing seemed better. If it were up to me, I'd make on-line early registration end sooner and then have badges pre-printed and ready for people who pre-registered, though the trade-offs between that and letting people pre-register right up until the conference date are real. In general, the administrative changes for the APA seem to be having some pay-offs.
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If I understand Steven Gross's comment correctly, the APA contracts with the hotel to sell X number of rooms at $Y each. If the APA fails to fill X rooms at rate $Y, the APA has to pay the hotel an extra exorbitant fee. The conference hotel then proceeds to sell a large number of rooms at substantially less than the conference rate for the same dates, and the APA gets stuck with the fee. Am I missing something here? Because this sounds like a ludicrous contract for the APA to enter into. At the very least, it should be stipulated that if the hotel rate drops in the interim, the conference rate will drop to reflect it, otherwise there is nothing to prevent the hotel from maximizing their profit by intentionally under-selling the conference.
For reference, the conference rate at the hotel this year was $139 for students, I'm not sure what it was for full members. It has been reported at PhilAnon that some paid as little as $79/night for a room at the conference hotel.
BL COMMENT: It's a pretty standard contract: the APA wants to GUARANTEE a certain number of rooms, and so has to pay to do so.
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The registration process was much improved from last year. Attendance seemed low. I went to many talks, many of them were boring. (Although Thomson's dewey lecture was interesting to attend.)
I had an interview in a suite. It was fine. Most of my friends on the market that came to the conference had 0-3 interviews. Many of those who had an APA interview also had at least one Skype interview. There were rumors of a significant drop this year in the number suites reserved for interviews (*rumor*).
Saw some old friends. Drank some cold beers. Met some new people. Most conversations revolved around jobs and interviews, but once in awhile they drifted onto philosophy, e.g. when a bright-eyed grad student was around. It was depressing to learn of all the very qualified people trying for the same jobs.
Atlanta had some tasty food. The locals seemed very friendly. I was happy to get home.
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In response to Danielle, while hotel contracts vary, the contracts that the Pacific Division signs work as follows. If we don't fill as many rooms as we guarantee, then we're liable for the hotel's loss of expected revenue. However, we're credited for "resold" rooms, where a "resold" room is any room that could not have been sold if we had made our guarantee. As a result, there's little incentive for a hotel with such a contract to intentionally undersell their rooms.
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Does anyone know where I can find a list of colleges and universities that interviewed at the 2012 APA in Atanta?
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It looked like there were at least 50 round tables in the big ballroom where interviews happen, and it looked like they were all being used, though not at the same time. And I know there were a number of suite interviews.
I was VERY happy with the online registration. It was very smooth and easy, much better than previous years.
Overall, minus the stresses of job interviewing (some of which have nothing to do with the APA), it was a good time. I went to one paper by Nathan Ballantyne called "Counterfactual Philosophers", which was both excellent and followed by a great discussion. (The idea is that knowledge that philosophers who don't exist but could have give us a defeater for our philosophical beliefs.)
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