Will Academic Travel Ever Go Back To "Normal"?

Will Universities be willing to fund travel? Will professors even want to travel?

The COVID-19 pandemic will soon celebrate its first birthday. During the past nine months, I have not boarded a plane or stayed in a hotel. I haven't even left Houston! I can sometimes go weeks without leaving my zip code. This sudden change, for me at least, was radical. Over the past few years, I averaged about 100,000 miles a year, and would spend 75 nights annually in a hotel.

You might think that I would miss life on the road. I don't. Quite the opposite. I thoroughly enjoy being home with my family every day. Indeed, I feel guilty for all the days that I missed in the past. I also feel more well rested. Travel wore me down, even if I handled it better than most. And–perhaps most relevant to you–I am far more productive. I no longer have to waste time sprinting from sea to shining sea for a series of one hour presentations. I am writing far more in less time. Granted, family life is taking a bigger share of my day, but the time I devote to writing is far more effective.

There are drawbacks, of course. I sincerely miss meeting with students at different law schools. That interaction was one of the highlights of my career. Zoom will never substitute for having dinner with engaged students. Never. I also enjoy kibitzing with other law professors. Though, to be frank, law professors have acclimated to Zoom far better than I anticipated. I interact with colleagues at other schools far more now than I ever did in the past. It is so much easier to set up a Zoom meeting with another professor than to try to coordinate schedules during my visits to other campuses. Even when travel becomes feasible for me, I doubt I will travel nearly as much as I used to.

At some point, society will return to "normal," whatever that means. Will business travel ever return to "normal"? (Read Gary Leff's excellent post on View from the Wing). Will academic travel, in particular, ever return to "normal"? This question is two-fold. First, will Universities be willing to fund travel? Second, will professors even want to travel?

As a threshold matter, many university face existential fiscal crises. Travel is an easy line-item to delete. And universities may generate budgets for the foreseeable future based on these reduced levels of expenditures. Professors will have difficulty getting travel requests approved. An inability to travel to academic conferences could hamper potential for growth. Even if conferences allow participation by Zoom, in-person networking will become impossible for professors–especially junior scholars–stuck behind their webcams. Tenure committees will need to take stock of this new normal when making promotion decisions.

Next, let's assume that some Universities are willing to fund some travel. Will professors still want to make these trips? Here, I think we need to separate senior scholars from junior scholars. Specifically, scholars that were able to establish themselves prior to the COVID-19 pandemic (the before times) and those who have not yet done so. Professors in the former category are in a much more stable spot. They can easily default to Zoom participation, and rely on pre-existing social networks. Professors in the latter category will still have to hustle and go to conferences. But–and there is a big but–those professors will have fewer attendees. After all, the senior scholars may stay home. As a result, conferences may become less of a draw, and there will be less need to attend in person. And so on.

My thoughts here are tentative. Perhaps when the pandemic finally subsides, things will snap back to normal. We can party like its 2019 again! I'm doubtful. I think the COVID-19 pandemic was a paradigm shift in how our society functions. And academic will not be immune from this quantum leap.

Comments

[DaivdBehar]

All of it is pointless, wasteful, expensive, disrutptive, worthless travel. Even is scheduled for a lecture, why not have thousands in the virtual audience instead of dozens in the physical one?

The same is true of space travel. It costs 10 times as much to support a human as a machine. Machines are 100 times better at any task than living beings. As far as Mars is concerned, it will be a one way trip unless a Cape Canaveral can be shipped and built there. Why not spend all that money and effort on more discovery?

[DaivdBehar]

Attendance at conferences and in person lectures, unless highly paid, are a waste of time for an academic career. Publications and bringing in grants and donations are the path to academic career enhancement. To the extent you could be writing a book or article instead of pacing at an airport or sleeping on a plane, travel is harmful to the academic career.

As to side activities, watch videos of the Pyramids, or go on Tinder to have an affair. Also, a female academic lawyer would be out of the question for any relationship, however brief. Can you imagine talking to one?

[Dilan Esper]

Conferences are helpful in theory because they are a form of peer review. You present and then a bunch of people ask you questions, which can help you see flaws or hone your research.

[Don Nico]

Rather simply, Mr Behar, one cannot collaborate in depth with colleagues at a level of 30 – 50 hour per week over zoom.

[IPLawyer]

Professor Blackman’s visits are entirely free to the inviting institution, save for the pizza he eats.

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[apedad]

Yes things will get back to 2019 “normal” eventually (obviously with some changes), because the reasons we have academic travel are still there.

– Universities/groups like to sponsor meetings and host conventions (otherwise they’ll become irrevelant)
– People like to business travel
– Face-to-face contact has benefits
– You can’t have a tryst over Zoom (at least not a good one)

[apedad]

Ugh…irrelevant…

[Rossami]

The other point you missed is
– They’re not paying with their own money.

Turn off the educational-subsidy gravy train and much of that travel will dry up in amazingly short order.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It will be interesting to see what happens in 2026 when undergrad academia becomes a true buyers’ market — and if IHEs start to value teaching again (as they did in the 19th Century).

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, I’m going to say this: The primary purpose of law school used to be to teach legal research, how to look stuff up via the paper resources of the era, complete with the pocket packs in the back. Even using Lexis involved playing three dimensional chess with various (unlinked) databases and obscure commands.

The web and modern search engines have ended that, most law schools stopped updating their (paper) out-of-state statute & case books a decade ago. A modern lawyer neither needs access to a law library nor to know how to use it.

And Zoom Skool has shown that students also don’t need to be physically present for lectures, either. So what is the credible need for a physical law school anymore?

[Don Nico]

Rossami,
Grants typically have the travel budget included and reviewed. For researchers that means paying for their students to travel to do experiments to present the results of research to professional conferences, etc.
Yes, the amount of travel will drop but your calling all travel a gravy train is as short-sighted as Behar’s screeds

[Rossami]

You’re missing the point, Don Nico. It’s not travel that’s the gravy train – it’s the apparently endless funding of “research” into underwater basketweaving and other nonsense disciplines. It’s the ever-increasing student loans, grants and guarantees that eliminate any pressure on universities to control their costs.

Travel for legitimate research in useful fields will and should be supported. And if you cut off the massive educational subsidies, my prediction is that travel (and most other spend) would soon restrict itself to those fields.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I predicted all of this 20 years ago when the web was young — both academia and professional organizations are obsolete. There isn’t the funding base — and as to trysts, in the “me too” era of neo-puritanism, they alone are a reason to not fund conference travel.

And as to academic conference proceedings and academic journals — outside of our individual niche fields, who ever reads them? Law may be different but between the leftist politics and the irrelevance to the larger society — they don’t generate value to society as a whole.

We’re going to go back to the 19th Century era of independent scholars that the larger society values.

[Dilan Esper]

You can’t have a tryst over Zoom (at least not a good one)

Tell that to Toobin!

[Don Nico]

That guy was pathetic.

[bernard11]

Was?

[VinniUSMC]

The Artie bot is slacking. I can’t believe he hasn’t been along yet to say something about how it is good that students haven’t had to be subjected to Blackman, disaffected, something, blahblah… clinger… yadda yadda.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Happy holidays, clingers!

May your journey be peaceful . . . until you contribute to America’s continuing improvement by being replaced, by your betters.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Ah, Arty, celebrating the persecution of the Falun Gong and Ethnic Muslims in China. Or as he likes to put it, he enjoys the Chinese Government replacing these “backwards fools” with their “betters”….

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Your lies befit your character, you obsolete, bigoted, right-wing loser.

You should be nicer to your betters, lest they stop being so gracious in decisive victory.

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, what’s critical to understand here, in the language that our good Reverend is using, and how it parallels that language that have been used by groups in the past.

1. “Betters”. You’ll note our RAK uses this terminology consistently. IE some groups (ethnic, religious, etc.) are “better” than others. Now, I don’t follow such a concept. To me, all groups (ethnic, gender, religious, etc) are equal. Different, but equal. But to our good RAK, some types of people are “better” than other types of people.

2. “Replace” Not only are some groups “better” but they will also “replace” the “not-better” groups. Through various means.

There has been a lot of this type of talk in the past. The ethnic Han Chinese “replacing” the Muslims in China. The Whites in South Africa “replacing” the black, native population with their “betters”. And how can we forget 1939? Again, “replacing” ethnic/religious groups with their “betters”. This is what RAK stand for. And his consistent language demonstrates it.

But, we tolerate him, because we are an accepting, tolerant group. Even if he isn’t.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I stand for calling a bigot a bigot. I object to political correctness, and in particular to enabling right-wingers to hide their bigotry, superstition, and backwardness behind euphemisms such as “traditional values,” “family values,” “heartland,” conservative values,” and “Republican.” Appeasing clingers in that manner is immoral and counterproductive.

The replacement I envision has been occurring for decades. Cranky, old conservatives take their stale, ugly thinking to the grave and are replaced in our electorate by better, younger people. This is the natural order in our culture war, which is not over but has been settled. The liberal-libertarian mainstream shapes American progress against the wishes and efforts of conservatives. This has occurred so long as those reading this have been alive and seems destined to continue until everyone reading this has died.

I don’t like half-educated bigots, superstitious goobers, disaffected clingers, and anti-social culture war casualties. In other words. . . the Republican base.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Got it.

You stand for persecution. For treating people differently because they think or believe different things. For believing some people are just “better” than other people. For replacing those “inferior” people with “better” people. You stand for religious discrimination, for racism, for sexism, for eugenics, for apartheid…and you’re just calling it a different name these days, and hoping no one notices.

[Don Nico]

AL,
He’s is a bigot and a tedious bore. He can’t help himself.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Kirkland, Trump is going to do on the national level what Stacy Abrams has spent the past few years doing in Georgia and the consequences will be similar — but national.

It’s you who will be replaced….

[Jimmy the Dane]

I do not think the left understand the wrath that is coming. They have decided to deal with the 40-45% of America that are done with their child like behavior by engaging in a heightened amount of such behavior. Your standard issue lib thinks it is funny as hell to joke around and call names, but the person who is the brunt of that joke is not so amused. The disconnect in reality this has formed in such a short period of time is stark. Mid terms are not that far away and Trump clearly has something up his sleeve. Sure maybe that fizzles like “drain the swamp” did, but for all the rancor over him he was able to move the ball in DC more than a few yards over the last four years. And he is just going to be the first, not the last.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It takes at least a million dollars for an unknown to mount a credible campaign for Congress — it took a then largely unknown Harvard law professor named Elizabeth Warren $42,506,349 to win her first race.

Trump is great at rallies — he has the ability to draw a large crowd and instantly give unknowns a lot of both “earned media” and campaign volunteers. It’s what political parties used to do (and why they existed) in an era before the mass media. And once these fledgling candidates become credible challengers, they will start getting donations.

And while her New Georgia Project appears to be an indictment looking for a place to happen (now it’s unpaid UI taxes, see below), Stacy Abrams has waved the bloody shirt of a stolen election to the point where Raphael Warnock has a credible chance of wining a USS seat.

I can see Trump doing that on a national scale — and as to waving the bloody shirt of a stolen election, another populist named Andrew Jackson did that quite successfully after JQA became POTUS.

https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/warnocks-voter-registration-group-failed-to-pay-unemployment-taxes/

[Dr. Ed 2]

There’s also going to be a backlash to all of these COVID decrees.

Michael Dukakis was first elected MA Governor in 1974, and was running for re-election in 1978. There was an early February blizzard in 1978 and Dukakis made it illegal for most people to drive for a week. People were quietly pissed about that and he wasn’t even renominated — he lost the Democratic Primary.

Yes, he came back four years later and then went on to run for POTUS, he was a popular politician (until the Commonwealth’s economy imploded when the DOD funding dried up at the end of the Cold War). But he lost his own primary in 1978.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

All-talk clingers are among my favorite culture war casualties.

Well, all-talk clingers and faux libertarian hypocrites.

[Jimmy the Dane]

And AK proves my point yet again. That seems to happen a lot around these parts.

[Don Nico]

Blah, blah, blah, … clingers, clingers… whine, whine, whine…

[bernard11]

No he’s not.

Even he wanted to he’s too incompetent to be successful, and he doesn’t want to.

He’ll go around and have his rallies and con his followers, just like always.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Trump is more likely to become cell block president than to be a successful national political figure again. If his character is as fragile as many have described, bankruptcy might turn him into a drooling pile of delusion.

[DaivdBehar]

Hi, Artie. All Democrats are cheaters. That is the only way they can win, to impose their tyranny on us. They have gone national with their California act, a permanent one party state.

[Armchair Lawyer]

“Will academic travel ever get back to normal?”
-Yes.

Zoom isn’t a full replacement for in person contact. It’s a poor substitute, at best. Networking, context, informal meetings, spur-of-the-moment talks, all these are best suited to in person meetings.

For established, well known faculty, perhaps Zoom will work. You used to go listen to “TED talks” by these sorts of people, even before the pandemic. But for new faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and more, are you really going to sign into a “zoom meeting” when you could be doing something else? (Or are you doing something else in your zoom meeting with them, while not really paying attention?)

For those college budgets, they still need to attract good talent. They still need to see “what sort of person” a professor is. Those professors still need to communicate with their colleagues to stay on top of the field. And “Zoom meetings” don’t cut it, not really. People can just as easily read the papers that are published. But the meetings and conferences add a context and substance on top of the papers. That is an advantage, a long term one.

[Don Nico]

Some things have worked better in this year of Zoom.
Our faculty has its weekly lunch meetings with students included 90% of the time. All our seminars and colloquia are not webcast and recorded. Allowing all to hear them. We can now have lectures from people that we could not have afforded to invite to campus. We can invite students to speak from distant universities.

[bernard11]

That is an advantage, a long term one.

Well, there is some advantage, though based on the number of “My talk at…” posts we see my impression is that it’s seriously overdone.

Over the past few years, I averaged about 100,000 miles a year, and would spend 75 nights annually in a hotel.

I make that about 40 trips a year. (Houston-Boston is 3200 miles round trip, and Houston-LA is 2800. The average trip will be shorter, and I’m guessing usually two nights, sometimes one.)

Seems like a lot, especially if the school is paying. No wonder tuition is so high.

[Dr. Ed 2]

My guess is that he represented his school at law fairs — most law schools send at least one professor.

Memory is that there is one at UMass and a couple public ones in Boston — and while BU/BC/NEU all have their own law schools, I’d be surprised if they (at least BU & NEU) didn’t have a law fair for their undergrads. And that’s just Massachusetts.

He well could go to 40 law school fairs a year — and one (of the many) reasons why law school is so expensive is the costs involved in recruiting applicants. Recruiting undergrads ain’t cheap either — you’d be amazed at the costs involved.

Expand that

[Armchair Lawyer]

“That is an advantage, a long term one…My talk at…”

That’s not really the type of advantage I’m talking about.

In the sciences and professions, there are strong network and hub effects. This is why you get Silicon Valley and Boston as centers of computer science and bioscience, respectively. You get a critical mass of people, all in the same profession, together, and the informal communication of all these experts together advances the field further, to be the cutting edge.

Conferences act to disseminate this cutting edge among the wider community, and again, it’s the informal communications, the little techniques, the “do you know this person is doing that?” the “have you tried this?” which drives things forward. It allows for a little bit of de-silo-ing of the details that can be lost in formal communications. And that’s…not really available via Zoom meetings.

[bernard11]

I agree with all that, but does it really apply to law?

It does sound like a lot of the Conspirators’ travel is more just talking about their books and so on.

[Don Nico]

I suspect that it applies less to law than to experimental sciences.
One can write books collaboratively without travel. I’ve done so on three large ABA books.

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, that’s an example in the experimental sciences.

In law, connections are everything. There are only so many clerkships that a SCOTUS or circuit court has. And the ability to meet your potential future judge, in person….well, that’s invaluable.

[bernard11]

In law, connections are everything. There are only so many clerkships that a SCOTUS or circuit court has. And the ability to meet your potential future judge, in person….well, that’s invaluable.

That tells us why people benefit by going to these conferences, but not why their school or the study of law in general benefits.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Ah, that’s a different question. And that’s a question of comparative benefit.

Now, the school benefits, if students/professors from their school benefit. In bragging rights and relative reputation, if nothing else.

As for law as a whole…that’s a wash most likely (or pretty close). But “someone” gains the advantage….

[bernard11]

I guess my feeling is that, ultimately, the students pay for the travel, as it is reflected in tuition costs.

Are the benefits to them commensurate with the cost?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Massachusetts General Hospital was founded in 1811 — Boston has been a hub of medicine for a long time, and the biosciences grew out of that. And that there still 144 colleges & universities in Massachusetts..

[Jimmy the Dane]

I do not think business travel, across just about every industry, is ever going to return to its previous levels.

Whereas, there is no substitute for all in-person meetings for some interactions I would say Zoom (or any other video chat) is a close one for a majority. Also business travel is expensive being the third largest controllable expense for just about any company. The realization that spending that amount of money is not “required” is going to change the minds of a lot of executives. And, lastly, business travel is draining. To make it to a half day meeting requires about two days on the road. That is a lot of lost productivity.

I would anticipate about 80% of business travel disappearing when “normal” (whatever that mean) resumes with probably about a total of 50% reduction after several years of “normal”.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I would disagree. In business, a lot of it comes down to personal relationships. And you just can’t really make a personal relationship with a customer via zoom.

If you competitor is having in-person business calls with the clients, and your company isn’t… you’re going to lose the client. Not all the time. Maybe not even half the time. But 20% of the time? Entirely likely.

And if a business loses 20% of its client base, because it won’t pay for travel?

[Jimmy the Dane]

There are a lot of unknown factors such as what you mention. However, if the “norm” is not to spend several thousand dollars for social calls people will adjust. As is with everything time will tell.

One thing I don’t think is going to come back is the huge convention. Those were just expensive and huge time sucks. For a few years I was lead on a team that would go to a big multi-million dollar 5 day long thing. The budget just for travel and entertainment for the entire 10-15 people that would rotate in/out all week was about $200,000 – $300,000 (5 day convention required at least another 2-3 days to set everything up, do “pre” convention events, and then “post” convention wrap up.) That did not include the payroll/benefits for the people who were dedicated to the planning and actual attending. All told it was easily a half a million if not more in expenses (a small percentage of expenses for a large company but still significant).

Although if the “cool kids still do it” other companies will continue to practice. The main question is what are the leaders of your sector going to do because companies will have to follow those practices to some extent.

[Armchair Lawyer]

“However, if the “norm” is not to spend several thousand dollars for social calls people will adjust. As is with everything time will tell.”

If there is an advantage, commercially, to spending several thousand dollars for social calls…. Then some companies will whole-heartedly take that advantage. This is “advertising” or “marketing” respectively. The US spent 250 BILLION dollars in advertising last year.

Conferences represent extraordinarily focused advertising towards your target professional population. For many professions, this is the major marketing/advertising venue. ESPECIALLY for new players. If the client doesn’t know you exist, then your business is dead.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I spent one year putting everything about the decision to attend said convention into a “decision matrix” of sorts. The one side had a lot of the advantages that you talk about – publicity, transparency, networking, opportunity, etc. The other side had things like “hire 8 sales staff for a full year” or “structure half a million in sales incentive bonuses” which would have also moved the football (in Blackman sports speak) probably about as many yards down the field.

We kept on spending the money on the convention. Maybe it was well spent, maybe not. People seemed to think it was, but there was a degree of confirmation bias there (plus it was a mini-vacation for some people so some personal motivation as well.) Now that the preconception of the positives will be in the past I wonder if the advantages will win the day again in 2021 or 2022.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Half a million? That’s some pretty intensive funding going into that conference. Most conferences I know run ~$5K an attendee, after everything, max. At half a mill, you’re close to acting as a sponsor for the conference. Which is its own type of marketing.

Now, if you can fund 8 sales staff for a full year on $500,000, that’s something different. (That’s about $62,500 each, after everything, including FICA, employer taxes, and other employer expenses, which is low). Maybe you could. I don’t know. But that does seem low.

[Don Nico]

Once a firm personal relationship is established face-to-face, many business meetings can be moved to an online platform.
Some meetings, such as negotiations and arbitration, will be at best handicapped without face-to-face engagement

[Armchair Lawyer]

To an extent. It helps to maintain the personal relationship to be in person.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Personally I have found some professional relationships better kept on Zoom. I would go out to dinner with the odd salesperson who came calling once a year, but it was mostly just to keep up with the motions. Few I found “fun” in a personal/professional sense. I would rather talk to them for 30 minutes on Zoom once a year then give up an evening.

[Don Nico]

But every meeting need not be in person. And since one need not always travel, contacts can be more frequent.
I would agree that closing an agreement is best done in person

[Sidney r finkel]

I suspect there will be a strong, probably temporary, surge in academic travel as those of us scheduled to give papers and presentations at meeting that were postponed will want to get out there and communicate. So the travel opportunities for Prof. Blackman will take place..

But given that the President and some people like Guiliani, Flynn, Sidney Powell and probably others are engaging in a conspiracy to commit sedition and overthrow the elected government by force, one wonders if a forum like this should not address that problem instead of speculation on academic travel. Of course, given that there is an R after the names of the conspirators we all understand the reluctance of the contributors here to address that topic.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Liberals spent the last four years trying to overturn the election of Trump through various treasonous methods. No one seemed to care then so what makes you think people will pay attention now?

[Sidney r finkel]

I don’t remember them plotting to use the U. S. military to seize voting machines, declare martial law and setting forth a redo of the 2016 election in states that went for Trump, but I may have missed it because the media was obsessed with Kardashians.

[Jimmy the Dane]

No they just used the Deep State to seed illegal wiretaps, drop disinformation, conduct bogus investigations, and insinuate through a two year special counsel witchhunt that the President was in cahoots with the Russians.

[Don Nico]

Sidney,
Stay on point rather than going into a rant.

[Sidney r finkel]

I am on point. Prof. Blackman posted about whether or not academic travel would resume as it had been after Covid was under control. My point, relative his post was that the topic was a fairly minor concern for a law blog that is pointed towards conservative issues, the most important one for conservatives such as myself at this point being the conspiracy to attempt to overthrow the U. S. government by force. Maybe I am biased but I think that is a more important topic given limitations on time and space on this forum, as are many others, than academic travel.

[Don Nico]

Your rant about Trump et al. was NOT on point.
Your “explanation” here is an excuse. Moreover, no one appointed you as the arbiter of what gets posted or discussed.

[mydisplayname]

Look on the bright side: Soylent Green is set in 2022, not 2021.

[AtR]

Of course academic travel will return – I’m planning to travel as soon as possible.

Academic conferences have very little to do with the talks being given, which are typically just a publicly acceptable excuse for a meeting. The main action in conferences is from the interpersonal connections, the random tangents of thought, and the loud arguments that ensue.

Virtual conferences this year have been abysmally attended and largely a waste of time.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yep.

[Burkhard]

Just a quick comment on the financial side. Even though my conferences were all covered in principle either by research grants or my department’s travel grant, I probably saved around £3-4k this year – all the small things that either can’t be claimed, or are too much hassle to claim, add up.
No problem on a professorial salary, and I was lucky enough to start academic life debt free (thanks to free -to-me higher ed) so that even as an early career researcher 28 years back it wasn’t a problem. But what this year made me realize was that these days you have to be able to afford an academic career, which explains a lot about the sector. So the sooner we stop expecting ECRs to go back on the conference circuit the better (or pay them properly, and cover conference expenses in advance etc)

[WJack]

Will Academic Travel Ever Go Back To “Normal”?
We can hope not.