IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Winter 2014 - 12

LETTERs TO THE EDITOR

Excessive Conference Fees
To the Editor: [of the IEEE Reflector]

n the beginning of June of this year I became
aware that the Boston Section of the IEEE was
having a conference devoted to the life, work
and concerns of Norbert Wiener. The conference
was to be at the Westin Hotel in Waltham. I went yesterday, June 25, 2014, and had some surprises.
When I entered the conference area I decided to register. The pleasant lady at the desk informed me that
my late registration would cost me 720 dollars. I was
incredulous. I told her "I'm a retired professor on a
state pension, and I'm not paying." So, off I went to the
plenary session where I heard some good talks. At the
end of the plenary lectures I made friends with another
professor. This is Richard Weiner of Rhode Island College. Richard and I chatted and then he headed for
some of the seminars. At this point he was nailed by
an official running the conference; the problem was
that Richard wasn't wearing a badge because, like me,
he hadn't registered. I told this officious fellow that I
hadn't registered either, that I was a Life Senior Member of the IEEE, had done a great deal of free work for
the IEEE as Book Review Editor for IEEE Technology
and Society Magazine, and that I wasn't going to cough
up the 720 dollars. Because I was on my way home,
it didn't seem to matter, but Richard and I were both
ordered to leave. Richard argued that he had gotten up
at 5 in the morning so as to reach the conference, via
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2014.2363981
Date of publication: 1 December 2014

public transportation, from Providence, RI. He certainly wasn't going to produce 720 dollars for two more
hours of seminars. Our inquisitor asked us "If you don't
pay to attend, how will we cover the cost of this conference? As it is, we'll lose money."
There are two issues here. One is the excessive cost. I
can't imagine any graduate student attending this conference on her own money. Neither would a professor
who doesn't have an expense account. Provision should
be made for any interested individual who walks in off
the street to attend some sessions, gratis. I come from a
community of scholars and this is how we operate.
The other issue is related to the first: the location. I
recently attended gatherings to honor the work of Thomas
Kuhn and Leo Marx, giants in the fields of philosophy of
science and American studies. They were held at M.I.T.
Hundreds of people attended and the admission cost was
zero. The Wiener conference should have been held at a
university-there are plenty in the Boston area. The attendance I saw yesterday was light. The room for the plenary session was 2/3rds empty. The cost and the location
determined this. I was surprised that my friend and I were
driven away - we helped to populate the lecture room.
I'm writing this letter to create some discussion of
the issues I have raised.
Thanks.
-A. David Wunsch
Professor Emeritus, Electrical and
Computer Engineering
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Lowell, MA 01854
Email: david_wunsch@uml.edu.

Correction
In the June 2014 issue of the magazine, Mr. Alexander Hayes was incorrectly identified as an Associate
Editor of T&S. While he is not an AE, he is the man behind the recent facelift to the IEEE-SSIT web site
ieeessit.org. We thank Alex for his dedication to all things IEEE SSIT.

IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

WINTER 2014

http://www.ieeessit.org

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