Selecting Colloquium Speakers

Note: Everything on this page is out of date, because the selection process

keeps changing.

This document is intended to provide a suggestion as to how divisions can go

about selecting colloquium speakers. The method described below has worked

very well in the past.

  1. Set up a meeting for all the people in your area (include grad

     students, faculty, and post-docs in that area); be sure to tell

     everyone ahead of time to have people in mind whom they want to

     nominate as speakers

  2. At the meeting, explain the system of selecting speakers

  3. Write all nominations on the board

  4. Begin to eliminate potential nominees until left with 8-10 speakers

     (let the people in the audience determine who should be eliminated

     right away--could be a variety of reasons, such as the speaker is known

     to be a bad speaker, hasn't done interesting research lately, etc.)

  5. Discuss the merits and specific research interests of the remaining

     8-10 speakers (at least the person who nominated the speaker should

     defend their nominee)

  6. Vote (can be done any number of ways: I suggest having each person

     verbally vote for their top two picks, mark the votes on the board, and

     then simply count up the votes)

  7. After determining the top three vote-getters (be sure to rank-order

     them for me!), make sure you get volunteers from the faculty to host

     each speaker (you can also get 1 or 2 alternate speakers)

  8. You will also need to select one "general interest" speaker. This will

     probably have to be done as a separate voting process. (All areas will

     be selecting one general interest speaker, and then the whole

     department will vote for which two of the four speakers will get

     invited.) These general interest speakers can be former grad students

     or people who cross over different research areas.

  9. After the meeting, find out the addresses, email addresses, and phone

     numbers of all of your selected speakers (plus alternates), and then

     give this information to me! Also, write up a little blurb on your

     general interest speaker for me (their affiliation and research

     interests).