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    Reimbursement Issues for Junior People

    I would like to call attention to a problem that may not be salient to university administrators or senior philosophers: Junior philosophers tend to be rather poor and in debt. They may have been paying for tuition and living expenses for five years or more (sometimes they have also been paying for kids in addition to that). Why should that concern you? Because (to mention just one issue) every so often you invite a junior philosopher to give a talk at a department colloquium or a conference. That's really great. Keep doing that. However, you may want to reconsider the whole reimbursement business. When I am asked to give an invited talk, and you promise to reimburse me, that's super-nice of you. If the reimbursement doesn't arrive right away (or occasionally never arrives), my kid won't starve. But I am not a junior person.


    Junior people are just starting out. Even if they recently started receiving a decent salary, they don't usually have a huge savings account or a credit card with a huge credit limit and low interest. Furthermore, they may have no or very meager research accounts. For these reasons, the reimbursement policy at most universities can be a huge issue for junior people. They cannot afford to pay up front for the plane ticket that you kindly offer to reimburse. Or if they can, they cannot afford to wait several months for the reimbursement. So, please keep that in mind next time you invite a junior person to present at a conference or to give a department talk that is non-local. Offer to pay for their plane ticket up front. Or if that's not possible because of university policies, reimburse them quickly. If you wait five months to reimburse them, you ought to reimburse the interest that the expense has accumulated on their credit card as well.

    And now that we are talking about the financial issues of junior people, remember that there are junior people with kids. Sometimes they have to bring their kids to your conference or colloquium. That's an extra expense. Use the money you have to reimburse the extra cost. If you think you don't have enough money to cover this, ask senior people to use their research funds to cover their travel expenses. It's somewhat ironic that we offer senior people huge reimbursements and very often ask junior people to pay out of pocket for their trips. Please reconsider how you are distributing your conference and colloquium grants and allowances in the future.

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    20 responses to “Reimbursement Issues for Junior People”

    1. Catarina Dutilh Novaes Avatar
      Catarina Dutilh Novaes

      Great post! I’ve been trying to pay upfront for flights and costs in general when I invite people with less favorable financial situations, even if this includes paying for it myself and submitting a reimbursement claim afterwards. (But I only started doing it fairly recently…)
      The only caveat I want to add is that this should apply not only to junior people. There are lots of not-so-junior people out there who are also struggling financially, so this should apply to anyone in a less favorable financial situation. When inviting someone and you are not sure if that’s the case or not, you can simply add a standard formula like ‘we’d be happy to make travel arrangements for you if necessary’.

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    2. Berit Brogaard Avatar
      Berit Brogaard

      That’s a really good point. I think it’s fairly common to provide research money (which includes travel money) for senior people in America. But this may not be very common in other places. So, yes, it’s not good to make the assumption up front that people can afford paying up front. I think this may also prevent some women from going to conferences, not least women with kids (or men). Providing baby-sitting or daycare options for parents is really great but paying for it would be even better (and paying for the travel cost of the kids would be even (even) better).

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    3. Helen De Cruz Avatar
      Helen De Cruz

      I agree Brit! I (still junior, I suppose!) have been invited to give several plenary lectures to various conferences, for instance, one in Texas soon. In your post you seem to suggest that the normal state of affairs is that one gets reimbursed for travel, accommodation and other expenses if one is invited. However, I have found great variability in this. A plenary talk does not guarantee all expenses paid, which may be a problem for junior faculty. For instance, the plenary in Texas only pays a small stipend, not enough to cover even the hotel, let alone the flight. For other conferences, I’ve been offered a hotel room but had to pay my own train/plane etc. Fortunately, I have money from the British Academy to cover expenses, but what if I did not? It puts junior faculty, or indeed faculty without high budgets for expenses in a very difficult position.
      And my position is not unique. In fem philosophers it was revealed that women declined invitations to speak mainly because of lack of funding to attend http://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/results-what-if-anything-prevents-women-from-accepting-conference-invitations/

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    4. Berit Brogaard Avatar
      Berit Brogaard

      Yeah, I think that’s a major problem. As I have become more senior, I am also offered reimbursement (or everything paid up front) much more often. Of course, that ultimately allows me to go to more conferences, as I don’t have an unlimited reimbursement policy at my own uni. But I think it’s wrong that we tend to reimburse senior people (all of their expenses) and not junior people. It’s ironic, and it’s just plainly wrong. Even if senior people don’t have huge research accounts (or have none at all), many have big enough salaries to pay for some conferences and talks. So, some changes are needed here. I am not saying that we should NEVER reimburse senior people. Of course, they cannot afford to go to a billion conferences out of pocket. But it may be good to keep in mind that junior people are much worse off than senior people (financially, etc).

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    5. Mark Lance Avatar
      Mark Lance

      A couple points: the way the payment happens is usually set at the university level, not the department. Most universities will not allow reimbursements without receipts, and so after the fact. We can all lobby to change that, but it is not something most departments can change on their own.
      Many conferences do not pay anyone – if you want to go, you have to have your own funds. I dont know what to do about that. If you havent money, is it better not to have the meeting at all?
      Finally, the one of these we could all switch most easily is the tendency to prioritize funding to the rich. I have raised a fuss about this at quite a few conferences. There is no justification for using funds on the highly paid senior person with their own research fund, and not on the junior – or senior at a less well funded school, let us remember- say offering honoraria and expenses to the fancy invited folks and nothing to those who submit. Presumably organizers assume that they have to do this to get the fancy famous folks, and think having them will make the conference better, or at it will attract more people, or that it will look better to others in power. im not so sure of any of that, but at the very least we should start pushing forcultural changes such that we take it to be an important virtue not to take money you don’t need. Yeah, I knowthat sounds all communitarian and socialist and quaint, but its the best Ive got this morning.

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    6. Berit Brogaard Avatar
      Berit Brogaard

      Those are some really good points (and issues). I think we sometimes assume that senior people won’t come if they are not reimbursed. I don’t think that is always true (of course, a senior person can’t afford to go to 15 conferences without some reimbursement — in most cases anyway). But when you look at how many senior people are willingly attending conferences like Towards a Science of Consciousness or APA meetings, you realize that senior people are perfectly willing to go to conferences without getting paid. The Towards a Science of Consciousness conference even makes people pay a 400 something registration fee (I might have the number slightly wrong but it’s close). And people are very eager to attend. The same goes for the APA meetings. Most people happily accept invitations to comment or talk at a symposium at an APA meeting even though they have to pay for everything. So, I don’t think people wouldn’t come, if they had to contribute financially. However, I think it’s important to help junior people and less privileged senior people.

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    7. Mark Lance Avatar
      Mark Lance

      At one conference a couple years ago that was all invite and about half senior and famous and half junior or not, after some urging the organizers sent out a request to all teh senior people to contribute with their own research funds to expenses so that junior folks could be covered. (Initially seniors were reimbursed and juniors had to pay.) People mostly took responsibility and did the right thing and I think in the end everyone was reimbursed. Often people will do better than we anticipate if we just raise the issue and make them think about it.

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    8. James Dreier Avatar
      James Dreier

      It’s true that reimbursement and reimbursement policy is generally university-level. Still, we manage to pay for visitors’ hotel rooms ourselves — we don’t ask them to pay and then reimburse them. I bet more of us could do the same with flights. That wouldn’t involve asking the bursar to shell out money before they get receipts, either. Most of the time I give a colloquium talk or speak at a university-sponsored conference, I do pay for my flight and then get reimbursed, but sometimes the host will offer to buy the plane ticket for me instead. Maybe we should all investigate and see if we can offer that option.

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    9. Lisa S Avatar
      Lisa S

      My university used to have a travel agent that directly billed the flights booked through them (the same way in which hotels directly bill). But the travel agent severed that relationship (because at the time accounting was taking several months to pay their bills — even though reimbursements have become efficient, the travel agent has not returned). Currently, and I believe because of a recent audit, the policy at my university is this: even if the department had a credit card, we could not put flights on the credit card. We looked into this for covering job candidates flights, and were disappointed with what we discovered.
      One option that junior faculty may have is to request a travel advance from their home finance department, if they cannot carry the costs. They can then repay the advance with the reimbursements.

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    10. Mark Avatar
      Mark

      All of this holds a fortiori for job candidates being brought to campus. Every effort should be made so that as little of this is as out-of-pocket for the candidate as possible.

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    11. Alan White Avatar
      Alan White

      Brit, thanks so much for this. My institution, part of the University of Wisconsin, requires faculty to obtain a personal corporate card in their own names to charge for professional development costs. This thus can affect their individual credit scores, and so they have to stay on top of payments and the like. Furthermore, the impression given to faculty is that they have to pay charges in full when billed, which for some conferences can amount to thousands. (I have challenged this impression by looking at the fine print on the bills but the administration insists we must pay in full.) Since reimbursement typically only is paid out after the event, sometimes junior faculty are out bunches of money they can ill afford to lose for at least a month and frequently much longer. Now these are often colleagues who are recently tenured but still have family obligations and yet make less than 50K! Talk about multifaceted intrusions of the business-model into higher education. . .
      Again, thanks for calling attention to this increasing unjust burden on younger faculty.

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    12. Ian Avatar
      Ian

      Leaving aside fairness and junior/senior questions, isn’t it kind of ridiculous that it isn’t regarded as customary for reimbursements to be paid with interest? Haven’t I, if I’m owed a reimbursement, as good as given a loan of that money to the institution? I’ve fronted my own money for something the institution is doing and intends to pay for.
      Even landlords (supposedly) have to return security deposits with interest.

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    13. Mark Lance Avatar
      Mark Lance

      How does that not involve shelling out money before getting receipts?
      Also, we now have this insane principle that one has to produce not just the receipt but the boarding pass – as some sort of proof that the flight was taken.
      Anway, yeah, I agree that we should be pushing back against all this on the grounds that Berit is raising.

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    14. Berit Brogaard Avatar
      Berit Brogaard

      Of course, I also realize that some people (senior and junior) had (most of) their travel money withdrawn for a couple of years because of the financial crisis. That did happen to us a couple of years. But it looks like we are back on track.

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    15. Berit Brogaard Avatar
      Berit Brogaard

      Yeah, it can hurt credit scores, and not everyone can get a credit card. People might have bad credit scores or no credit score yet, if they just immigrated, in which case it may be difficult for them to get a credit card to put their expenses on.

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    16. Berit Brogaard Avatar
      Berit Brogaard

      I didn’t know that about landlords! But yes, people really ought to reimburse with interest.

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    17. Jamie Dreier Avatar
      Jamie Dreier

      Well, because the university gets the receipt when they pay. It’s like paying for the hotel directly.
      I’ve run into the boarding pass thing a few times. It really doesn’t make any sense. I guess it’s another reason to check-in online…

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    18. Berit Brogaard Avatar
      Berit Brogaard

      BTW, it’s tax season. Don’t forget that you can deduct unpaid travel expenses (among many other work expenses).

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    19. Alan White Avatar
      Alan White

      One small clarification to my earlier post: UW System contracts with the card company to issue the cards, which are only to be used for professional development purposes, though the cards then are in our names and thus the credit score and payment issues. If a faculty member forgets this and puts air fare (e.g.) on another personal card, then there is no reimbursement. I add that this system was instituted top-down with no trace of shared governance input.

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    20. Berit Brogaard Avatar
      Berit Brogaard

      That’s a huge problem. Then a poor faculty member cannot even borrow money from her parents (or others) to avoid the interest (I am not saying that that’s what people do — just an example). And it kind of enforces a bad credit score on people (unless your reimbursements are exceptionally quick).

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