The only thing I’ll say about having a separate chair and commenter is that if/when one of them drops out, then the other one can play both roles. (And as the conference date drew nearer, that’s what happened to a number of our sessions.) If a panel is submitted with one person as chair and commenter, there’s no backup plan.

Perhaps program committees from now on should have a list of people who plan to attend anyway and/or locals who may be coaxed onto the program, and just fill out the chairs and commenters themselves.

Oh, and Boston is a terrible AHA site, although as Katherine says, there’s a good slice of locals there who might pitch in to help fill out panels. *I* like it better than Chicago because I have family nearby and research there to do, but it’s always spread from hell to breakfast between 2 or 3 hotels, so you’re always schlepping a giant coat around and marching around in the cold. Again, I say: Southwest or Bust!

Random Additional Advice on forming panels:

1) I always say, ‘if you are unable to do it, it would be great if you can recommend someone who might be interested.’

2) How I sometimes handle the No Response: to avoid getting stuck in a holding pattern waiting to hear back from person A, you can send a follow up email a week later saying, I am sure you are very busy, so wanted to check whether you got my previous email (forwarded below). I hope you would consider our request. If we don’t hear from you in X time, we’ll assume that you won’t be able to participate. Thanks for considering it, blah blah blah.

Personally, I do occasionally lose an email, or put it aside to think about and forget to go back to it. I never mind a follow up reminder. And some people, I’m afraid, just delete emails they aren’t interested in — this gets you out from being at their mercy.

3) You can always submit a request to an H-Net listserv and see if anyone bites that way.

4) Don’t take rejections personally — besides the Boston in winter issue, with current budget conditions, many people aren’t conferencing as much, and at my public institution, you can’t use University funding unless you are giving a paper on your own research; NOT commenting on/chairing someone elses.

First, it is not at all unreasonable or annoying to ask, and you don’t have to apologize for it. The key–with requests from people of any rank ranging from middle school students on up to Distinguished Named Chairs–is that they know what they’re talking about. I won’t respond positively to to “hi ruth i need to intervew about medevil queens how powerful were they?” but I will to “Dear Professor, I am a student at George Washington Middle School researching medieval queens. I have read that Margaret of Anjou led an army into battle but I am having trouble finding more information. Do you have any suggestions as to where I can look? Would you be willing to talk to me about it, as an interview is a requirement for this paper?” Similarly, if your e-mail to a senior scholar sounds like you are just looking for a big name so the panel will be accepted, ze is not likely to be interested, but if you explain to hir why the topic fits in with hir work and why ze is an appropriate commentator, ze is more likely to want to do it.

Which leads me to the second point. Unless the person is already planning to attend the conference (for example, if ze is on an AHA committee), it will be more attractive to hir if ze thinks ze is likely to get something out of it. Present it in such a way that ze’ll think “Wow, this sounds like a fascinating session, I would love to respond to those papers,” rather than “Hmm, is it worth cutting my vacation short to do these people a favor?”

Third, if you do have connections, use them. Flattering me will not make me more likely to do it, but telling me that my name was suggested by Prof. Goodcolleague, or that you noted I was in the audience when you gave a paper on [topic] at [Conference] might. That’s not to say that if you don’t have a connection, you shouldn’t ask. Many (most?) of us feel an obligation to the profession generally to help out junior people in the way we were helped , or would like to have been helped. But it’s even better if we have a person (not necessarily a face, but a body of work) to associate with the request.