2020 Faculty Committee Responsibilities

Each seminar has two faculty hosts: a member of the seminar committee (co-host) as well as the person who originally proposed that the speaker be invited (host).

Identify and Invite Speakers (prior semester, mid-semester)

• Request from administrative organizer a list of available dates for the coming semester

• Collect input from faculty colleagues and GMC. Select a balance of disciplines. Consider representing MRSECs and DMSE alums in schedule. Try to balance potential travel costs by inviting local speakers (Harvard, BU, Northeastern). Check MIT, DMSE, and local calendars before offering dates.

• The committee together identifies a list of suggested speakers (with alternates), to be approved by the heads of DMSE and MRL. Ultimately, the series should balance research areas, but also reflect a variety of ages, stages in career, geographic representation, etc.

• Invitation letter

• Once speaker has accepted invitation with a set date, be sure to CC administrative organizer with confirmation response to speaker
  
  

Provide for administrative organizer(s):

• Departments that would be relevant to speaker

• A short list of faculty whom you feel might be interested in meeting with speaker

• Name(s) of grad student(s) who will be willing to meet faculty in the lobby of the hotel to escort speaker from hotel to his/her first meeting
  
  

Assist admin to recruit faculty and to fill schedule as needed 

If speaker's schedule is not filled close to the time of the talk, it becomes the faculty host's responsibility to help to fill the remaining availability by:

• Encouraging relevant faculty to meet with speaker

• Meeting with speaker during one of the unfilled time slots

• Recommending postdocs/grad students so that admin may arrange a student group to meet with the speaker. Such groups are usually students of the host or a PI..

Introduce speaker prior to talk  

The speaker’s bio will be sent to faculty the morning of the talk. You can also find a copy of the bio in the speaker’s folder in this GoogleDocs folder in the folder “Current Speakers”

Host faculty dinner (for on-campus visits only)

• Please assume that this will be scheduled for 6 PM after the talk. 
  Sometimes it will be scheduled the evening before if the speaker plans to depart after the talk. Refer to the administrative organizer who will inform you if the speaker needs to make alternative decisions.

• Share with admin your restaurant preferences. Catalyst is a default for most guests. Evoo is the default restaurant for vegetarian guests. Ideally choose a location close to campus.

• Specify the number of people in your dinner party. By default, reservations will be made for four. Inform admin if you plan to have a dinner party of a different number of attendees.

Escorting the speaker to campus (only as a last resort, unlikely):

 If the administrative organizer cannot find a grad student or staff member to escort the speaker to campus and he/she is not able to escort the speaker his/herself, it is the host’s responsibility to find a student or to personally escort the speaker from the hotel to to the speaker’s first meeting on campus

Whenever the host is not on the seminar committee:

It is the co-host's duty to speak directly to the host to a) get clear confirmation from him/her that he/she is hosting and b) inform him/her of the duties of a host.