4 Tips for Bringing Undergraduates to Professional Conferences

In the environmental humanities, as in the humanities more broadly, involving undergraduates in my research is challenging.  I write articles and books, and it's difficult to outsource any of that work.  One of the ways humanists can professionalize students and integrate them in our research is by introducing them to our professional organizations and networks.  Bringing students to conferences has been the main way I've achieved this.

In my role as Vice President of the Association of the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE), I was part of a great group (Stephen Siperstein, Sarah Wald, Salma Monani, Kevin Maier) that drafted guidelines for faculty seeking to bring undergrads to our conference.  Below, I summarize some key tips for faculty who want to bring students to conferences but don't want to hand-hold while conferencing. I go to conferences to immerse myself in my intellectual community, not to chaperone undergrads.  I've found some good strategies:

Here I am at ASLE in Moscow, Idaho in 2015, with Humboldt State undergrads and my baby.  The four students who came were Ivan Soto, Noemi Pacheco-Ramirez, Paradise Graff, and Hannah Zivolich (not pictured). 

1. Pre-Mentor
Prepare your students en masse prior to the conference and be transparent about your availability at the conference itself.  I hold information sessions that I require students going to ASLE with me to attend.  I explain what conferences are about, walk them through the program, talk about etiquette,  talk about how presentations go, brainstorm what they hope to achieve there, build confidence, and answer loads of questions.  Even better, plan a "mock-conference" panel of those students so they can practice their presentations.

2. Spread the Love
Drawing on ASLE's fabulous graduate mentoring program, which pairs grad students with seasoned scholars to mentor while at the conference, I asked ASLE's Graduate Student Liaisons to pair my undergrads with grad student mentors to hang out with at the conference.  I needn't be the only mentor to my undergrads; in fact, they benefit from widening their mentoring circle in the field. It also expands their network, and taps them into the student scene at the conference.

3. Funding
My institution tries to support any efforts to engage undergrads in my research, through Research,  Scholarly, and Creative Activity Awards.  I apply for these to help support students attending the conference, and ask students to apply for other travel awards through the college. We don't have a lot of money at Humboldt State, but we can rustle up $500 or more.  This can be a deal-breaker, and it's certainly the most challenging part of taking students to conferences.

4. Follow-up
After the conference, get together to download.  Encourage students to follow up with emails to people they met and may like to contact in the future about grad school, or other kinds of advice or mentoring. Post-mentoring is really important too; get feedback about what they gained and observed.  Collaborate with them to write up something for whatever media source announces your institution's achievements.  Use the students' testimonies to recruit majors by posting pictures of everybody together at the conference.  These efforts may generate longer-term payoffs for the work it took to take them.

I have taken undergrads to ASLE for the past four conferences, and I get great pleasure from enabling this kind of professionalization.  The field benefits too; these are the next generation of thinkers who will push us in new directions.  It's synergistic in my workload as well, as it combines my professional service and teaching.

And it provides further evidence to my students that I'm not the only wacky academic out there who thinks the humanities is crucial for saving the planet.  I may be the only one at my institution, but when they see what all these amazing people in my field are doing, they are more keen to join the environmental arts/humanities resistance.