I think I’ve bemoaned University of Toronto’s pathetic open initiatives, they are either dead-in-the-water or, in this case, completely subversive of their intent.
ELPub, the conference hosted here at the University of Toronto is no exception to the line of seriously out-of-touch intitiatives. The theme is Open Scholarship, which I would ASSUME has to do with increasing the accessibility of academic materials and research and broadening the abilities of all researchers and potential students to get involved in the academic process. This would entail reducing the biggest barrier to entry - resource capability - that is money.
Money, more than any single factor is the barrier to involvement. Academics is, by all other measures, fairly inclusive and non-discriminatory (compared to other arenas like say software development) so where in their minds did they believe setting a $160 price tag as the cheapest ticket ($250 at the door) for students make sense? Especially given the topic at hand.
I’m pretty well off financially by Canadian domestic college student standards and I simply cannot justify that expense. I won’t try to speak for the many other students who are struggling with comparatively mountainous debt and meagre earning potential but I’m sure they don’t appreciate this.
It’s this kind of out-of-touch silliness that grates on me as a UofT student. So many organizations on campus are vacuous wind-bags that attempt (futily) to get attention on “the issues” without remembering to lead by example and to first and foremost be principled and cooperative, I’m looking at you ASSU.
Open means open. I understand you need to a) pay the bills and b) discourage wing-nuts who want to loaf around the conference c) keep the attendance count manageable but $160 is absurd. $50 is probably more along the right lines and even then there should be an optional subsidy process for applicants.
You want open, open your conference - otherwise it isn’t any better than the semi-mythical ivory-tower academics who lounge in their leather armchairs pontificating about the suffering of the masses, or the post-modern version; of the khaki-clad MacBook totting “activist” with his $40 American Apparel hoodie, $120 Converse Chuck Ts screaming at pedestrians about oppression.
Everything now, coming out of the event is tinged with disingenuousness and that, with conferences like this, is worse than failure.