Article19’s correspondent Meenakshi Viswanathan interviews the incumbent Conference Secretary, Upasana Bhattacharjee, on her manifesto, her plans for the ninth edition of this Conference, and the progress of her team in their preparations for the Conference.
Prior to last year, the position of Department Conference Secretary did not exist and the Annual Department Conference was headed by the two Department Secretaries. This year’s Conference Secretary Upasana Bhattacharjee has as her vision for the conference “to foster a space for constructive scholarly discussion in addition to charting out a path for accessible forms of communicating new ideas that come up in the conference.” Her application starts out by listing down the drawbacks of the previous editions of the Conference and spaces for improvement. One such drawback mentioned was the delay in the selection of the organizing team which disrupted the timeline of work. Upon interviewing the Secretary, she clarified that this year the organizing team was selected before the summer break of 2018, save for a Facilities and Requirements coordinator, who was selected few weeks into the beginning of the academic year 2018-2019. The process of theme selection for the Conference was made more transparent and democratic with a form circulated among the Department Student Body (DSB), who voted on the themes selected by the Concept Note Team. As proposed in her application, a form was circulated among the final year MA students and the PhD scholars to record their preferences and areas of interest. This was taken into consideration by the Concept Note team before a set of 6 possible themes were voted upon by the DSB. While Upasana had mentioned that she would charge a fee of Rs. 2500 to non-presenting out-station participants of the Conference, she stated that there have been no such requests as of now, thus having no bearing on the financial status of the Conference.
New Initiatives
Upasana listed down six new initiatives in her application. We enquired about the status of each of those initiatives in our interview with her. She had proposed adding an open round table at the end of each day, as a space for informal discussion on anything pertaining to the panels of the day. Further, she had also proposed an open house networking session either before or after the conference, to facilitate engagement among the presenters, academicians, activists and the non-presenting participants. On enquiring the status of this initiative, the Secretary stated that the schedule is too tight to squeeze in an informal round table discussion at the end of each day. As the panels slotted for each day are too diverse to lead to any cohesive discussion at the end of the day, that initiative remains cancelled. The team is trying to accommodate a networking session at the end of each day and frame a suitable format for the same. However, the schedule remains really tight and the implementation of such a networking session does not seem feasible.
As part of the pre-conference events, Upasana proposed to hold film screenings or plays related to the theme. Apart from a lecture and panel discussion, no other pre-conference event was held last semester. The Secretary stated that due to budget constraints, they were unable to hold any pre-conference events as proposed in the application. They were in talks with a band to perform but it unfortunately did not pan out. She further responded that the band performance will be part of the inaugural function of the conference, if adequate sponsors are found for the same. Upasana also stated that she would collaborate with iVil (IIT For Villages) to organize their annual Ignited Minds Conference (IgMiCo) as a pre-conference event, with a similar theme. The Secretary stated that she is in talks with the IgMiCo coordinator and that there will be a pre-conference event in collaboration with iVil. The status of this initiative remains pending.
Upasana mentioned that one of the drawbacks of the past editions of the Conference was that the organizing team was underworked and proposed a change in the team structure to make the work more cohesive. However, her proposed team structure comprised a similar number of coordinators. In response to this, she stated that she had changed the team structure from the proposed structure. The present team structure comprises 16 coordinators, as opposed to last year’s team of 35 coordinators. When asked about any steps taken to make the Conference more accessible to the first years, the Secretary mentioned that they had opened voting on the theme specifically to involve the first years in the process. She also argued that the pre-conference event was made accessible to the first years to familiarize them with the Conference and help them understand the different roles in organizing the event before they sign up as volunteers for the same. On being asked about the challenges she faced during her tenure so far as the Conference Secretary, she mentioned two aspects: sponsorship and publicity. While our social media presence is effective, Upasana believes that more traditional routes of publicity through established newspapers like ‘The Hindu’ need to be explored. She also stated that more permanent partnerships with companies for sponsorship needs to be established.
In the final analysis, the Secretary has rectified most of the drawbacks mentioned in the application. The new initiatives that were proposed are either pending execution or have been cancelled. For those initiatives that have not been implemented, the explanations provided by the Secretary point towards budgetary constraints or time constraints, caused by a tightly packed schedule for the event. Apart from those mentioned in the application, no new initiatives have been implemented. The structure of the Conference has not been changed upon from the previous editions, while there have been changes made to the structure of the organizing team. So far, the timeline proposed by the Secretary in her application has been followed, with a sizable chunk of the work pending in the upcoming months. We wish the Conference Secretary and the whole organizing team good luck for the successful organization of the Conference.
The DoHSS Annual Graduate Conference 2019 is scheduled for January 31 to February 2, 2019.
This article is part of an ongoing series of manifesto reviews of the elected and nominated members of the Department Council.
Article by Meenakshi Viswanathan
Poster by Sanjana Acharya
Article 19 