One pushback on your comments on the transportation being easy—there were 2-3 students from the University of Michigan who wanted to attend but could not get transportation to the event. The group did not have the budget to cover a vehicle rental, and it would have been about 3.5 hours each way (this is from memory when I attended, so it may be wrong). We are accounting for this in our budget for next year. I wasn’t involved in the planning this year, but from my perspective, you’ve overstated the accessibility of the location.
Hopefully next year we will able to have UMich represented as well!
I don’t want to have a public debate on the specifics of this case, but I think it’s useful for posterity to note the following:
1. The organizing team was willing to pay for rental car transportation if more than one person wanted to go. 2. We did not have reason to believe this was the case in the run-up to the retreat. 3. Communication with university groups was broadly not as good as it could have been, and this is something we will look to improve on for future retreats.
One pushback on your comments on the transportation being easy—there were 2-3 students from the University of Michigan who wanted to attend but could not get transportation to the event. The group did not have the budget to cover a vehicle rental, and it would have been about 3.5 hours each way (this is from memory when I attended, so it may be wrong). We are accounting for this in our budget for next year. I wasn’t involved in the planning this year, but from my perspective, you’ve overstated the accessibility of the location.
Hopefully next year we will able to have UMich represented as well!
I don’t want to have a public debate on the specifics of this case, but I think it’s useful for posterity to note the following:
1. The organizing team was willing to pay for rental car transportation if more than one person wanted to go.
2. We did not have reason to believe this was the case in the run-up to the retreat.
3. Communication with university groups was broadly not as good as it could have been, and this is something we will look to improve on for future retreats.