Networked Narratives 2025 Conference Reflection

Planning a conference is not easy. 

I joined Networked Narratives during the 2023-2024 academic year and helped with planning the 2024 conference, but since I was a newly joined first year, I didn't have many responsibilities. At the start of the 2024-2025 academic year, we only had three original members left and I was promoted to President. While it was flattering to know my peers trusted me enough to lead our organization, the role came with a lot of work I didn't know I was signing up for. 

Thankfully as we recruited more members to our team I could delegate more tasks, but there were still some responsibilities that only I could take care of as President. And even with delegating, there were times when I had to remind members to actually complete the tasks they'd been assigned. This was something which was difficult as all of the members were my friends and I didn't enjoy being in that position where I had urge them to participate when they were not focused. Heavy is the head that wears the Networked Narratives crown. 

That being said, I enjoyed being President and I think the experience taught me a lot. Not to toot my own horn but, I came up with our conference theme idea, I was able to secure us almost triple the amount of funding than the previous year, I got us free staffing to help with the event, and I got our Conference approved to be part of the One SDSU Community Initiative. We were also able to get better catering and merch this year, we had a raffle, and we had a keynote speaker! This of course was not all done by me alone and I couldn't have done a lot of it without the support of my team, but I do like to think I had a part in our success. 

I'm hoping the 2025-2026 organization members can have an easier time planning the conference and the organization can grow bigger and better! Thanks to the help of one of our members, Jesse Jewell, we've begun creating online guides for following members to refer to to help them understand all the logistics of planning the conference. A lot of the tasks we had to get done for this years conference we had to figure out on our own, so I hope to make the transition for the current first years easier so that we can ensure Networked Narratives stays alive. 

Overall, despite how stressful all the work leading up to the conference was, I think we planned an amazing event and provided space for some amazing research to be shared that otherwise might have just stayed in the depths of Canvas submissions. I have a couple favorite presentations but I'll keep those a secret! 

The conference itself of course wasn't without issues. We had multiple snafu's with food deliveries (who knew finding the Library Dome was so diffcult?) Some people didn't submit materials until the day before, some of the presentations were not what we expected based on the submission, I had trouble operating the MacBook we had set up with all the presentations and my notes on (I'm a loyal Windows girlie), and my feet hurt from standing all day! 

But it was all worth it to see the Digital Humanities center abuzz with attendees listening to presentations, asking questions, and talking, networking if you will, with each other. I felt especially proud that our keynote speaker was a Latina woman and spoke on the unique experiences of Latina women in media. Being a Latina woman myself, it was amazing to see someone like me in this position of scholarly authority and being celebrated for her research. Finally seeing everything my team and I had worked so hard for come to fruition was extremely rewarding and I would do it all again if I had to. 

I hope the organization continues to thrive and I hope I've made my mark on Networked Narratives history!