Colloquia Scheduling
UNL faculty and graduate students are encouraged to suggest
colloquium speakers. When you consider inviting someone as a possible
colloquium speaker, please consider whether that person is likely to give a
good talk to a general mathematical audience. It is not good when a
speaker gives a specialized seminar that only a very few in the
colloquium audience can follow. Here are some guidelines which
speakers should follow (you should let the speakers you host know
these): - Colloquia are to be 50 minutes long.
- The
audience for a colloquium expects a lecture geared to
non-specialists. Give motivation for the work to be discussed and target the lecture for a very general mathematical
audience—a first or second year graduate student should understand
most of the talk. It is usually a good idea to remind the audience of
definitions.
- Speakers are advised to consult with
UNL's Friendly Advice for Colloquium Speakers . Speakers might also wish to consult John McCarthy's
excellent article, ``How to give a good colloquium''
The remainder of this page is intended to help with colloquium
scheduling.
To schedule a colloquium, please do the following.
- Consult the
list
of open dates.
-
Send an email to Jack Jeffries (jack.jeffries@unl.edu) with
the following information:
- Information on Visitor: The following information is
needed
as soon as possible for scheduling and
advertising the
talk.
- Visitor name,
- Colloquium Date Requested
- Organizational affiliation,
- Professional Title
- Colloquium Title and Abstract. Titles and abstracts should
be in plain text (ASCII), preferably without TeX or
LATeX.
Note: Because colloquia are often scheduled
well in advance, the title and abstract do not need to be
provided when you schedule the colloquium, but
please provide them at least 2 weeks before the talk.
- Acknowledgments needed in advertising (e.g. Research Council or
NSF support, etc.)
- Any special needs for the talk
- Funding: The department has funds available to help
defray costs of speakers. To obtain these funds, contact Petronela Radu. Use of other funding sources
(e.g. grants, Research
Council, etc) before requesting departmental support
is strongly encouraged.
Rules of Thumb regarding reserving a colloquium slot:
The rules of thumb below are meant to help scheduling of
colloquia go smoothly. Let me know if you see changes
or additions that would promote this goal.
- First come first served; let me know as soon as possible if you
would like to reserve a slot.
- There is a general feeling that local speakers should
defer to visitors; if you reserve a spot for yourself
to talk on a date that someone else, whom we shall call X, would
like to have a visitor speak, it is appropriate for X to
talk to you about giving up your slot. Whether you do or not
is between you and X.