As reported in January, the American Philosophical Association (APA) recently began—and halted—an experiment with making one of its three divisional meetings each year a wholly-online conference.

The experiment with online meetings was prompted largely by a campaign by Philosophers for Sustainability. The Central Division conference in 2025 was held online. This year, the Pacific Division meeting was held online.

However, the decision to end the experiment was made prior to this year’s Pacific Division meeting.

Colin Marshall was the Program Chair for this online version of the Pacific Division’s meeting. In the following guest post, he shares his reflections on the conference and on it having “been declared a failure before it even started.”

14 Takeaways from the Virtual Pacific APA
by Colin Marshall

I had the honor of serving as Program Chair for this year’s Pacific APA conference, which was held online. The experience was rewarding. It was also eye-opening—especially in light of the APA’s decision to cancel the virtual, ‘2+1’, experiment early.

Over the past few months, the virtual APA has been a topic of some intense discussions. I learned a lot from conversations with APA staff, volunteers, participants in the conference, and non-participants. It seems to me that we are at a choice point in our discipline, so I wanted to share a few thoughts.

To start, here’s some background about how the 2+1 experiment came about. The late Helen De Cruz proposed the 2+1 model back in 2021. Her idea was to have one of the APA’s three divisional meetings online, rotating between different divisions from year to year. Philosophers for Sustainability then launched a petition in favor of the model, which gathered about 700 signatures. After an APA-led survey of membership in September of 2021 and divisional votes in favor of the model (at conference business meetings), the APA announced that it would conduct a three-year experiment, starting in 2025. Those of us involved in the 2+1 campaign were impressed by the APA’s responsiveness to their membership. News about the decision spread to other organizations and groups, such as the interdisciplinary ‘FlyingLess’ initiative.

At that point, the APA convened a task force around the virtual conferences. At least one member of that task force, who I was in touch with, soon became concerned. The task force met infrequently, lacked representation from grad students and other key constituencies, and was not provided with important budget information that some members requested. Many suggestions from the task force received no uptake, or couldn’t be implemented because of inadequate support. In retrospect, this was a sign that while some members of APA leadership were willing to give the 2+1 model a real try, others were not.

The first virtual APA launched in 2025 for the Central Division, with Helen De Cruz serving as Program Chair. Unfortunately, Helen had to step down for health reasons, and several members of the Program Committee effectively stopped contributing. Much of that work was then taken up by the Central Division’s then Secretary-Treasurer, Chloe Armstrong. Chloe and the more dedicated Program Committee members managed to pull things together with a heroic amount of work, and other APA staff put in many hours to make the conference function. But the negative effects were felt: the schedule was released very late, which almost certainly impacted participation and registration.

The second virtual APA was planned for the Pacific Division, and I agreed to serve as chair. Like almost everyone, I was already spread thin with other commitments, but nobody with more bandwidth was willing to take it on (even with an excellent Program Committee mostly in place). I quickly found that Alex Sager, the Pacific’s Secretary-Treasurer, was great: organized, patient, and really invested in making a good conference. Alex was slightly dismayed when the number of submissions to the conference came in lower than average, but he also pointed out that this made more room for invited sessions. Things seemed to be on track.

Then I learned that, based on a narrow vote at the Eastern Executive Committee meeting, the 2+1 experiment was being cancelled early—with our lower submission numbers being cited as a key justification. The Central and Pacific Executive Committees then voted similarly. For me and many others, this was both surprising and deflating. The APA had gone back on its stated plan without any broad discussion among members. On a more personal level, it felt like our conference had been declared a failure before it even started. Even so, Alex, the Program Committee, and I pressed on. And, if I may say so, we put on a pretty damn good conference.

The below takeaways emerged as I grappled with all this. Many of these thoughts came out of conversations with other people, though nobody but me is to blame for any mistakes.

1. APA staff and volunteers work really I got to see the incredible work by all the APA staff, including Alex Sager, Jenna Donohue, Mike Morris, Erin Shepherd, and Amy Ferrer. Getting the conference together takes months of work, but there is also hyper-intensive work during the conference—where we had almost instantaneous responses to technical problems. The conference’s registration fees help support (modest) salaries for Alex and others, but they are all clearly committed to doing their jobs well. On the volunteer side, the Program Committee put in many, many hours of refereeing, emailing, and other forms of organizing, and various other people stepped up at key points to organize Watch Parties, cover empty conference slots, and help in other ways. I put in a fair number of hours myself, but other people worked much harder.
2. An online APA can get a decent turnout. After the APA declared the end of 2+1, I was worried that the Pacific’s registration numbers would suffer—who’d register for a conference after its host organization stated it was a failure? Even so, about 800 people registered for the Pacific, and there were 16 official Watch Parties (plus some unofficial ones run by people on the program). No doubt, there are real questions to be asked about financial viability, since the last in-person Pacific brought in more than 1100 people, and the online 2025 Central had about 900 people. But still, even after the APA’s vote of no confidence, our conference wasn’t a flop.
3. The best-attended sessions were often the least traditional ones. The standard colloquium (i.e., refereed submission) sessions I attended typically brought in around 6 people, while standard invited sessions often brought in a dozen or two. However, the sessions with non-traditional formats and topics were easily the best attended. More than 70 Zoom participants joined for the “Being Trans in Philosophy” session—though the number of people watching was higher, since at least 5 parties tuned in for that. Similarly, the memorial session for Helen De Cruz had over 50 Zoom participants (plus Watch Parties). These sessions weren’t just non-traditional, they also spoke to the concerns of many people who face extra challenges at joining in-person conferences. One of the speakers at the “Being Trans in Philosophy” session noted that the virtual APAs had been a “lifeline” for philosophers who cannot safely travel at our current sociopolitical moment. In many of those sessions, I also noted that much of the discussion happened through the chat function on Zoom, with people sharing resources and discussing the issues without trying to claim the floor.
4. A novel format invites creativity. The virtual format also inspired non-traditional elements outside of colloquia and symposia. Kelly Weirich designed some terrific conference swag. Roy Chamorro designed a genuinely fun reception on the Gathertown platform. Joe Stratman and I organized some online office hours with senior Kant scholars, in collaboration with the North American Kant Society. Alex Sager and Mike Nelson put together some lightning and less formal workshops that added further dimensions to the conference.
5. A good virtual conference is a rush. When you’re committed to really being there for most of the day, a virtual conference is a rush: a chance to learn about cutting-edge work in various topics, opportunities to connect with people you may or may not know, and (via Watch Parties) a chance to enjoy sessions together with others on your side of the screen.
6. We’re overdue for better, discipline-wide norms around engaging presentations. The online format really drives home how inaccessible most talks are for many people. Unless a talk is squarely in an area you specialize in, it’s hard to follow someone reading their paper at you. Many presenters did amazing work with slides, short presentations, and other tricks. But our discipline really could set better norms. I suspect we haven’t made enough progress on that because, at in person conferences, people put up with the sessions for the sake of other things (like getting a drink with old friends). Even so, we academic philosophers could use more opportunities to develop our presentational skills. This came out with the Watch Party I organized for my department: some Watch Party sessions were noticeably more accessible than others for our undergrads (Pat Churchland’s Dewey lecture was highly accessible, and spawned a great discussion afterwards). So I stand by the 2026 Pacific being a success, but it’s also clear to me that things could be made even better.
7. A different fee structure probably would have helped the APA’s bottom line. Money is a sticking point. The registration fees for the APA were more than 10% higher this year than last. There were some limited fee waivers and assistance funds. But a faculty member who did not notice, did not qualify, or did not apply in time had to pay $225 (if they were an APA member) or $350 (if they were not). In the three weeks before the conference, I received a barrage of emails asking about this, and many people simply dropped out of the program in protest. Often those protests came from philosophers outside North America, or those with limited resources—the very people who had been excited about getting to participate in an APA. The APA does offer income-sensitive tiers for membership dues, but an online APA might draw in most of its participants from people who aren’t members.
8. The APA should explore subsidizing virtual conferences. In a recent essay, Miroslav Imbrisevic pointed out that the APA could have opened a discussion about subsidizing virtual APAs with fees from the in-person ones and membership fees. On reflection, I think this is right. Consider other mechanisms for making institutions more inclusive. Making a building ADA-compliant can be expensive, and we don’t expect the beneficiaries to shoulder those costs. How best to do this is an open question, but it is within the APA’s power.
9. Some philosophers evaluated the virtual APAs using the wrong comparison. Economics aside, I’ve been part of many discussions about whether the pros of online conferences outweigh the cons. But I realized that there are two pro/con comparisons to make, and many people seem to focus on the less important one. The less important comparison is whether virtual APAs are better for people who can attend both in-person and virtual (people in that category have a range of reactions). The more important comparison, though, is whether virtual APAs are better for people who can’t attend in-person ones. Why is the latter more important? Mainly because those groups are often the ones who are excluded from other dimensions of society, or who face other challenges and constraints (including caregiving obligations). After all, the US is currently a dangerous place to travel to and within for many people.
10. Small-scale online events are no substitute for divisional meetings. I’ve heard that the APA is planning to develop small online events that are alternatives to the APA. This is important, and I know that it comes from a real commitment to inclusiveness among APA leadership. Still, the fact stands that the divisional meetings are the real core of the APA. People who attend those are marked as really belonging, and presenters get a line on their CV that almost any hiring committee will value. Smaller-scale events can only offer a feeling of peripheral membership and a less valuable CV line—again, to people who are often marginalized in other ways.
11. The APA’s default is to serve (comparatively) privileged US professors. It’s clear to me now (partly based on #6 and #9 above) that our divisional conference format and the structure of divisional leadership were developed by and intended for relatively privileged philosophers within the US (for whom travel isn’t a big deal). It’s also largely sustained by that group, since tenured professors with lower teaching loads (like me) can make time to serve in APA leadership. Many people within the APA have done great work trying to bring in other groups—this is clear from the list of the APA’s official committees. But the decision by the executive committees to end the 2+1 experiment drives home where the real power is within the organization.
12. The APA is in a difficult position. I don’t envy anyone in APA leadership. The organization is trying to serve many different groups of philosophers, some of whom have incompatible preferences. Many people within the APA are genuinely trying to do what’s right, even when it’s not financially optimal. But any decision the APA makes about virtual conferencing will make hundreds of philosophers upset, and we philosophers can be pretty self-righteous and nasty. That being said…
13. Cancelling the 2+1 experiment early sent a troubling message. By canceling the online APAs earlier than planned, without any further surveys, invitations for discussion, or consideration of other fee structures, the APA unintentionally sent a specific message to philosophers for whom in-person APAs aren’t an option. That message was: “You’re not worth it. We’ve only started exploring the options for virtual conferences, but it wasn’t immediately a financial success, so we’re giving up on trying to include you.” (To be clear: I don’t believe any individual within the APA intended to send that message. But that’s the message that emerged.)
14. I think I’m done with the APA (for now). My current 3-year membership package ends in November, and I’m not planning on renewing it. There are four reasons for this. First, I still feel stung by the preemptive declaration that the conference I was working on was a failure (I know this is immature, but I can’t shake the feeling). Second, APA membership is expensive, even for a tenured professor at an R1 university. Third, my family obligations make it hard for me to travel often, so I rarely attend in-person APA meetings—without those, my membership is just a charitable donation (to be evaluated against other charities). Fourth and finally, I’ve realized that the APA’s overall commitments to inclusiveness, sustainability, and democratic processes are uneven. None of this is set in stone, and I know that some people within the APA are personally committed to all those things. So I hope that the APA changes course again, as (I know) many of its members would like it to.