Get the Hook!

They say you should always be suspicious of someone who places a watch in front of him as he starts speaking.

This may be true. This was a dark moment in the annals of a Southeastern Michigan regional meeting scholarly conference.

I had been handed the chairmanship of one of the sub-groups, and I thought it would be interesting to combine some scholarly presentations with some creative-writer presentations. That in itself was not a mistake and would have turned out well—there were well-known creative writers from several Michigan colleges.

The mistake was in my choice of the scholar. A U. of M English Department professor, the year before, had given an excellent, concise, well-focused paper that was very well received. He applied again this year. The difference was that he offered only a proposed topic, not a finished paper. On the strength of his presentation the year before, and the possibilities of the topic, I accepted the proposal.

This time, however, the paper itself was never completed. When the professor sat down at the table in front of the room to give his 15-20 minute presentation, setting his wristwatch carefully in front of him, we could not know that he would launch a nearly 1 1/2 hour rambling, diffuse blather, which he was obviously making up as he went along, and which, to a large extent, consisted of a plot summary of The Tempest. The other participants were champing at the bit, and I—green as I was—didn’t have the nerve to simply interrupt him, or signal him that he had five minutes left. He was rude to his colleagues, and my mistake was a) to have accepted a proposal rather than a finished paper; and b) not to cut him off, even midsentence, so the other presenters could have their shot.

2. A similar thing happened at another academic conference, this time at a Society for Photographic Education meeting in Dallas, Texas. Again, I was the moderator. I believe the topic was language and photography, which was hot at the time. The section was to consist of two speakers, one from Cranbrook Art Academy, the other from the University of Washington; he was a well-known scholar/critic on theoretical issues in visual interpretation. The first, from Cranbrook, was to be a discussion based on visuals. The second, a more theoretical approach.

I had asked both of them to cover those areas, thinking that the combination would be very effective.

And it would have been. I should have seen danger ahead, however, when I noticed the Cranbrook speaker loading more than 100 slides into a tray. There is no way anyone can get 100 slides into a 15-20 minute presentation.

But that’s what he seemed determined to do. The Cranbrook speaker launched into a presentation that, in spite of repeated cut-off signals, took at least an hour and effectively crowded out the other speaker, who was left with time only for a brief summary of his point(s), which he did concisely, and the distribution of a well-selected bibliography related to the issue at hand.

Lessons: never accept a proposal when a completed paper is the basis of acceptance. Once the proposal is accepted, the speaker has no incentive to complete it. This U of M professor may also have felt that there was so little at stake in this regional conference that he needn’t worry about his presentation. Even if it stunk, which it did, it would appear on his bio as a “Paper Presented,” and he would get tenure/promotion credit. Crass opportunism.

The other lesson, related to both speakers, is: as a moderator, don’t hesitate to enforce the 20-minute rule. You have the authority, and the other presenters are looking to you. Get the hook, if you have to, and forcibly drag rude, inconsiderate colleagues offstage. You are entitled to punch them if necessary.

I suppose there will be other such manifestations of blind ego as these speakers, and the whole affair is history, but neither event blessed me with a sense of joy in the scholarly community, and both events still anger me on the very few occasions when I remember them. Maybe this blog will be cathartic.