Community college folks generally don’t get to go to as many conferences as our counterparts in the four-year sectors. That’s a function mostly of ever-thinner travel budgets, combined with either high teaching loads or jobs formed as combinations of former jobs through years of cutting by attrition. But in pre-COVID times, “fewer” didn’t mean “none.” I tried to go to at least one per year -- usually either AACC or the League for Innovation on my own, plus Middle States as part of a delegation. (Brookdale is accredited through Middle States.) Typically there would be half or more of a day devoted to travel, two to three days on-site, and a half or more of a day to return.

In the days before smartphones, conferences really meant being “away.” Other than the occasional phone call if something really drastic happened, you’d pretty much be out of the campus loop for several days. That changed about 10 years ago, with expectations of remote connection gradually (and without anyone explicitly saying so) increasing every year. Physical travel still took the time it took, but you were expected to keep up (mostly) with what was happening on your own campus in something close to real time.

That was a gain and a loss. The gain, obviously, was that things didn’t fester quite as long. The loss was more subtle at first, but over time it became harder to throw oneself entirely into the goings-on at a conference. In hallways, you’d see people bent over their phones, looking furrowed and intense as they sorted through the crises of the day. The effect of a change of scene was reduced by the continued presence of the campus via the phone. I discovered, for instance, that I preferred Sunday conference sessions to Monday sessions, because the emails mostly quieted on Sundays. I could actually pay attention to the conference on Sundays.