Re: [Tccc] Cost of attendance from developing countries / in general

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Miroslav Skoric wrote:
> Ruay-Shiung Chang wrote:
>
>> Please see the following Letter-to-the-editor in the October issue of IEEE
>> Computer magazine.
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To rectify the situation, conferences should be returned to university
>> campuses where there are many classrooms that could be used as conference
>> rooms. The professors and students could help organize and provide services
>> for the conferences. Lodgings around universities typically are relatively
>> inexpensive. It would be possible to reduce the budget for holding
>> conferences and decrease the attendance fees.

A few points on this:

- - assuming this were viable, this would push all our conferences in the
June - mid-August timeframe

> In addition,
> when lunches and/or conference banquets are provided (either included in
> registration or offered for a small fee) within the campuses - the more
> chances to feel academic lifestyle and mingle with students in a foreign
> educational institution.

- - you can't mingle with students and stay in their rooms at the same
time. I.e., whenever the rooms are available, it's because the students
are gone

- - not only are the students gone, but many campus services shut down as
a result. at universities homed in small towns (Cornell being one I have
experience with), this shutdown spreads out to the surrounding town,
i.e, some restaurants are closed

The final point is that what universities contribute doesn't help the
bottom line that much. Food still costs money, and dominates the overall
fees. The only way to substantially reduce meeting costs is to:

- do not provide lunch ($35-40/day)
- do not provide breakfast ($25/day)
- do not provide coffee breaks ($25/day)
- do not provide a reception ($40-50)
- do not provide a banquet ($80-100)

Skip all these on a three day meeting and your overall costs will drop
by $400 or so. Even if university costs drop *all* of these by 25%
(which would be a lot, and would mean every event was at the
university), that only saves $100.

Joe
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