grad student vanity

A few month's back, I was contact by a fellow scholar, inviting me join a panel on a topic at least moderately related to my research at the annual meetings of my scholarly association. What the hell? I was flattered and, as a very wise friend pointed out, it would force me to write something. So I whipped up an abstract and got it to her a month before the deadline for the general call for papers so that our panel could apply for 'invited status'

What, you may well ask, is 'invited status'? Hell if I know. It has something to do with being sponsored by a sub-group of the association. According to the organiser,

'In theory this makes our panel more “prestigious” in the program.'

Well, OK.

She continued,

' And on the more practical side, it means our panel and each individual paper is officially accepted as part of the [association] conference.'

Huh?

'Your abstracts are not being reviewed by the [association], they are accepted.'

Who can argue with that? I guess that being 'invited' by the sub-group means our papers slide through the door before general ones. I really don't know how this machinery is working around me, but I'm not going to begin to argue. Graduate students are not generally bathed in an abundance of confidence and affirmation. I'll take the 'invited status' for whatever it's worth.