NEW TOPIC: Academia and Industry

[Ann L. Wiley Consultants Inc.]

So concerned was I with links between academia and industry that I managed 
the Education and Research SIG through the transformation that led to 
dissolving that group in favor of the Academic Community. At the end of the 
process, I was still concerned with links between academia and industry.

The feelings expressed here by members of the academic community regarding 
cost of the conference and its accessibility are pretty much identical to 
the feelings I've heard expressed by practitioners who don't attend the 
conference, which is the largest percentage of STC members. (I last attended 
in 1992 and have never been to an awards dinner.)

The other day I read something compelling on a list outside STC. A young 
father said he is simply not interested in expensive conferences at a 
distance, requiring travel in addition to registration and hotel costs. 
Could it be that large conferences in a single geographic location are 
becoming a thing of the past?

Students are the practitioners, teachers, and STC members of the future--and 
faculty see students every day. We're best able to make connections between 
faculty and students, and people working in the field in our chapters. 
Orlando and Rochester do very well with this--but so does tiny Central New 
York. Finding out about all the great initiatives in the chapters is hard. 
The current issue of the Lone Star chapter newsletter has a beautiful 
article on collaboration between a student and a technical writer.

Tommy has opened a topic on academic conference rates on the STC Forum. 
Asking for what we want on the Forum gets attention and action fairly fast 
(example, Israel is no longer in Tier 1 for dues payment). We could open 
another topic on what we'd like to see STC-wide in the way of cooperation 
between industry and academia. It's likely the Board and the Office would 
cooperate with any initiative we'd propose and would work on.

Ann

Ann L. Wiley Ph.D.
Ann L. Wiley Consultants Int.
ann at annlwiley.com
Fellow, Rochester and Central New York (and other) chapters