In the interest of creating more just, inclusive, and productive conference sessions, the AJS has developed a set of guidelines for chairs and participants. Please read these carefully.
1. Pre conference meeting. Chairs have oversight over the panel and should therefore make sure that your presenters and respondents also participate in an inclusive intellectual community in the session. Please schedule a conference call (either phone, Zoom, or Skype) in advance of the conference to remind people of their roles and their time limits, including respondents. Then allow the presenters to speak briefly about their paper, confirm titles of their papers, and their professional biographies. Remind panelists of the order of their presentations, which is how it appears in the session listing. Also remind panelists that their presentations should either avoid or translate jargon or foreign language phrases that one could not assume that all session attendees would understand. This call should not take more than 30 minutes.
2. Circulating papers. Presenters should send the chair and respondent their presentation version of the papers no less than one week in advance of the conference. This is to ensure that the paper is an appropriate length and that the respondent, should a panel have one, has sufficient time to prepare a response.
3. Visuals. Presenters should caption all photographs and videos; slides should be in at least 18 point font for greater accessibility. If anyone uses anything other than English on a slide, they should also provide English translation
4. Time keeping. We want to make sure each person on the panel has an equal opportunity to present their paper. Panelists, please know that your allotted speaking time is 12 minutes for a 4-person panel or 15 minutes for a 3-person panel. During the conference, chairs will be providing a five-minute warning, a one-minute warning, and an indication that “time is up.”
1. Please make each presenter a co-host in order to enable them to share their screens and to unmute themselves. Make sure the audience is set to mute. Remind presenters and respondents to unmute themselves before they speak. The audience should be instructed to enter their questions into the chat box, which will be read off by the chair to the presenters during the Q&A.
2. Please ask panelists to define or translate any technical jargon or foreign language terms or phrases used.
3. Refer to all panelists equally. Studies show that it is more common for women to be referred to by their first names even when they have professional titles. Be consistent among all panelists. When introducing speakers, use their first name and last name, but avoid using titles that some presenters/respondents might not have. That information can be conveyed in the brief biography you read out at the beginning of each presentation.
4. Remind presenters that you will be strictly enforcing time and demonstrate that if any presenter goes over. Ideally, there should always be at least 30 minutes for question and answer.
5. Fielding questions. Review the questions entered into the chat box and cluster similar questions together. When reading questions to the presenters, please select questions from a diverse cross-section of the audience (with respect to gender, career stage, etc.) Research shows that when women or gender non-conforming people are called on first, there tends to be more gender balance among subsequent questioners.
