I am neutral on this one, and I regularly attend the Saturday sessions. Based on what I see so far, it looks like switching to Saturday - Tuesday with the vendor workshops and other preliminary activities on Friday is family unfriendly but teaching friendly. Even if someone needs to attend the Friday sessions, splitting the 3 weekday part of the conference into the end of one week and beginning of another probably works better for teaching classes.
So as a group, let's make a decision regarding whether family friendly or teaching friendly is more important.
Original Message:
Sent: 09-08-2019 13:47
From: Tamás Terlaky
Subject: Proposal to change INFORMS AM to Saturday-Tuesday? No thanks!
Dear All,
I'd like to encourage everyone to take the survey about the timing of our Annual Meeting.
This is an important issue. We all would love to have, as much as possible, everyone to participate the Annual Meeting
for all the fours days. You most probably remember the returning efforts "to make Wednesday great".
As we are learning every year, Wednesday participation is much lower than the other days, many colleagues request
not to schedule their presentation to Wednesday, and the most frequent reasoning is: "I teach and cannot afford to miss 2 classes in a week".
This information was confirmed by a survey a few years ago.
Of course this is valid for friends from academia, but the fact is that the vast majority of the Annual meeting is from academia,
while the ratio is other way around for the Business Analytics meeting in the Spring.
A Saturday-Tuesday schedule would allow most of us to enjoy the full Annual Meeting.
Thanks for all who share your opinion by filling the survey, posting your opinion, or by emailing me.
Thanks for your support of INFOMRS!
Tamás Terlaky
VP Meetings of INFORMS
George N. and Soteria Kledaras Endowed Chair Professor
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
Lehigh University
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Tamás Terlaky
Professor, Chair
Lehigh University
Bethlehem PA
terlaky@lehigh.edu
Original Message:
Sent: 09-07-2019 01:50
From: Suvrajeet Sen
Subject: Proposal to change INFORMS AM to Saturday-Tuesday? No thanks!
I'm with Alan on this issue: the proposal is certainly not family friendly. Moreover, if pre-conference activities have to start on Friday, then many will have to be away from their workplace for 3 days anyway! The Annual Meeting is one of the more important activities of INFORMS, and this superficial "survey" does not do justice to the issues which have to be considered by the membership and the leadership. - Suvrajeet
Suvrajeet Sen (a member who opposed the change to Sunday sessions way back in '90s)
ISE Department, Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
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Suvrajeet Sen
Professor
University of Southern California
Los Angeles CA
Original Message:
Sent: 09-06-2019 14:21
From: Alan Erera
Subject: Proposal to change INFORMS AM to Saturday-Tuesday? No thanks!
Hi all:
Like many of you, I received a survey this morning about a proposed change to the schedule for future INFORMS annual meetings, shifting the schedule to Saturday through Tuesday (from the current Sunday through Wednesday).
I was surprised that the survey did not include a question like: "Would this change make it more or less likely for you to attend the INFORMS Annual Meeting?" or "Do you think that, on balance, this proposed change is a good idea?" If the survey included such a question, it would have made it easier for me to vote resoundingly against this proposed idea.
Perhaps some believe that by holding a 4-day conference that ends on a Tuesday that more people would be likely to participate on the final day. In my view this is not likely. Many busy people likely believe that a large, general conference that last 4 days is simply too long and changing the start day does not help.
I just wanted to post to say that I am personally not interested in ever having a multi-day conference begin on a Saturday. This is certainly not a family-friendly idea in my opinion. Since the survey did not ask explicitly, I will therefore use this forum instead to vote against this proposed change.
Thanks for listening, and see you (not on Saturday) in Seattle!
Alan
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Alan Erera
President, INFORMS TSL Society
Professor, ISyE, Georgia Tech