So imagine a sword. Your favourite one. Glamdring, perhaps, or The Green Destiny, or whatever you called your favourite character’s +5 Holy Avenger back in those D&D days that you hope no-one knows about. Nice and useful tool, right? Now imagine that someone took off the handle of this sword, and sharpened up that newly exposed tongue of metal good and sharp like the other end. Still a useful tool, but it can bite back, because you’ve got to hold it by a sharp end too.
Ok, I need a nice phrase for what I just described so that I can invent a new metaphor for what it is like being the departmental colloquium organizer. This is because the phrase “double-edged sword” just does not cut it, if you follow my meaning.
What am I babbling about? Well, today is supposed to be a hide and get some research done day, and again the first half has been almost totally taken up so far with next week’s colloquium arrangements. The point of the metaphor is that in principle it is supposed to work like this: You’re given a budget, and you’re entrusted with an important role: Looking after the weekly general physics talks that the department offers to all its members. Working with your colleagues’ eager suggestions, you assemble a series of great speakers and topics, and you invite these people – they come – and everybody goes back to their labs and offices humming away having had some fun learning about what sort of physics is going on in the world.
Well actually, it does work a bit like this, which is why I agreed to do it. In my opinion it is one of the single most important tasks in any department because it is often the one regular event where the entire department comes out and sits together in the name of physics and does something together. Frankly, our departmental holiday parties and other ocassional social gatherings here largely suck. (I think this is because all but a few faculty hate staying on campus beyond about 6:30pm if it is not to do with actual work, and so attendance and motivation is rather poor for after hours events…that and the not having alcohol because of the youth element.) So if you have an event during the afternoon with the dual purpose of social lubrication and physics you have a better chance of encouraging conversation and social interaction between individuals and groups that are commonly found in very different buildings.
Furthermore, since colleagues mostly only give vague suggestions, you get the main say in shaping the programme yourself, bringing in really interesting and fun speakers, as opposed to having talk after talk about the details of vacuum pumps some particular, more narrowly focused area; details that are no doubt interesting to some, but not to most. Then, as a bonus treat, you undergo the hardship of having to treat the speakers as the department’s “thank you” (no fancy honorarium to be had here), by touring through your list of favourite gourmet restaurants around the city.
So all of the above it the usual sharp pointy end of the sword: choice, control, doing a valuable job, tasty food, wine and cocktails at the end of the day as a reward. But, remember the other sharp pointy end that bites back?
Well it starts with the fact that we don’t have the kind of budget that we should (Something I want to work on with a bit of fund-raising: I feel a Physics department in a major university should have a high profile series of campus events…bringing fundamental science to the rest of the university community on a regular basis). So away goes the weekly goodies at the end of the day. Admittedly, for some of the speakers I still do that, as it is important to thank them by giving them a good time, and furthermore sometimes the most interesting and valuable conversation that happens amongst the faculty, guest (and sometimes students) in such an event is at this end of the day meal. The problem is then that while I’d like to tour the whole city of restaurants that we have, most of my colleagues want to go to a restaurant that’s close to USC so that they can dash off home as quickly as possible after. Luckily, there are some good ones in the downtown area (close to campus), but this means I’ll have to continue to visit all those excellent ones in MidCity, West Hollywood, Venice and Santa Monica, etc., at my own expense.
The next aspect of the other pointy end of the sword is that it is just so time-consuming. It is essentially like organizing a miniconference every week. Some of this is my fault. (I can’t do things by halves, I have to do things in doubles, or I just don’t like doing it.) This is because you have to spend the days leading up to it making sure that the advertising is adequate for the type of speaker and topic that is coming. We have a regular posting in the usual places, and some posters up around the department. Not surprisingly, about 25-30 people show up if you’re lucky. That’s just wrong, and embarrassing. In several cases, the topic is of interest to some of our colleagues in engineering, or biology or chemistry. So in those weeks, one has to make sure that special extra advertising is put on. Then there’s meetings. The speaker comes for the day, or half a day if they’re local to the region, and we’re paying with actual folding money (and/or good food; see above) for them to come, and so we should make sure that they get a chance to have one-on-one meetings with everybody who wants to (as time permits). So you first email everybody you can think of about the event. Then you try to get from your colleagues some time windows when they can meet with the speaker. You can end up exchanging hundreds of emails this way in a short time, until you’ve built a schedule. It is particularly bad when it is one of the larger, more campus-wide events which in my wisdom I try to do, since this can involve several other departments. I might even make an extra more “fun” poster to bring in the odd random punter from the general campus community. (The “got nano?” one this week riffs on my earlier “got energy?” reply to the “got milk?” campain. See earlier post.)
So this is what I was doing this morning. Our speaker is Michael Roukes from Caltech, and he’s talking about Nanoscience and Nanotechnology in systems Biology and possible applications to medicine. (Abstract here.) You can imagine how many different types of physicist, chemist, biologist, biomedical engineer, clinical researcher, etc, might be interested in this topic. I want them to come. And that’s before I get to all the different flavours of Dean and other senior administrator that might be interested too, as a result of our new Provost Max Nikias, anouncing that Nano-Bio is one of our focus areas for research (and hence funding and new faculty positions) in the coming years.
Last week I was in the same position. I invited Nathan Lewis from Caltech to come and tell us about The Scientific Challenges for Sustainable Energy Policy. Again, hugely interdisciplinary and of great interest at the highest levels too, given how it ties together so many departments and schools on campus. I upgraded the whole thing to a campus event which meant extra emails, extra food (raided Trader Joes for excellent good value cookies, to save our budget), and extra stress. I spoke about the organisational aspects of that in an earlier post, and I’ll talk about the content of his talk in a short while, as it was excellent, and everyone was buzzed! Which sort of makes this all worth it. That and getting to try out Cafe Pinot afterwards, chatting with some Department heads from Chemical, and Material Science Engineering, and our Dean of Research, Michael Quick (about whom I’ve blogged not so long ago), and trying out an excellent dish of duck, with interesting conversation and an affordable wine… a combination which was quite agreeable.
-cvj
October 14th, 2005 at 7:50 pm
Isn’t this the reason god made grad students?
October 14th, 2005 at 8:12 pm
You rely on the average graduate student to do key stuff they’re not paid for, or not graded for, and you get a substandard product. Not on my watch. Some students did help with out with a ton of other valuable things I did not mention, like some last minute replacement posters, carrying tables to put refreshments on (but not the preparation of refreshments because they’ll eat them; responsible people who are paid did that – Thanks lisa, marybeth, eric !), carrying freshements out from the prep room (closely watched – Thanks rose!), etc.
-cvj
October 14th, 2005 at 8:36 pm
I’m a graduate geology student in a fairly small department, and in our world this enterprise is called Geology Club. It is completely student-run with some faculty advice. We elect officers each year, who line up weekly speakers (alas, they must be local because we don’t have a travel budget). Still, we get some very good speakers working on the cutting-edge stuff, especially in hazards and tectonics. Graduate students are required to dry-run their thesis defense presentations to the club, too, so everyone in the department keeps up-to-date on the research going on locally.
We run on a REALLY tight budget. Students (mostly undergrads) plan and shop for meeting refreshments (usually sandwich fixings and sodas from Costco), arrange for the speaker’s parking permit, organize taking him/her out to lunch with whatever faculty and students want to come along, manage the budget, hold rock and bake sales, hold a t-shirt design contest and sell t-shirts,
Students do all this (and do it quite well) because it’s our own enterprise.
October 14th, 2005 at 8:45 pm
Karen: That is great! We have excellent student-run club-type events like that all over campus too! This is not what I’m talking about, however. Note also (both you and Devil’s Advocate) that most of the organisational issues I’m discussing are not to do with refreshments and posters and the like. As I said, I get some background help for the routine aspects of that….. Note also that I said “the average graduate student”. I was not condeming all graduate students, who in fact often are the lifeblood of several good university campuses.
Cheers,
-cvj
October 14th, 2005 at 9:15 pm
Since I did similar things myself, a few things that come to mind immediately:
Most of the arrangements can be dealt with by good and effiecient secretarial staff, it does not really need a faculty member.
It is very good to have more than one organizer, to avoid those painful “friends of the organizer” seminar series (one you experience this once, you will not forget it…), though I am sure in your case there are some non-string theory talks.
Here at UBC we have qualifying (oral) exam for graduate students, and one source of questions is colloquia. When I was a student colloquium was a course you can register to. This is one way to boost attendance and make sure the colloquia are kept on good level.
I have to say that organizing seminars in LA sounds like heaven: you are surrounded by dozens (hundreds?) of good speakers within driving distance, what could be easier?
October 14th, 2005 at 10:19 pm
Moshe: Thanks.
(1) We require all first year graduate students to come actually. It is a required course.
(2) None of the talks are on string theory. Frankly, I’m really enjoying learning about what’s going on in the rest of physics. We’ll have maybe on such talk next year.
(2a) I agree it would be nice to have a situtation where each week a new person plays host. I personally think that this is the way it should be. But it is not, at least not here. So there it is. One option is just to let everything go to pot, another is for people who care about the life of their department to step up and help out. I’m not a saint; I think that there are colloquium organizers all over who do this sort of thing because they think it is worthwhile.
(3) I don’t know how efficient secretarial staff with no training in the subjects concerned (especially interdisciplinary ones) can arrange the kinds of meetings I’ve been talking about. How do they know which departments and faculty to call? By time you’ve told them, you can send the email yourself.
(4) Furthermore, do your efficient secretarial staff also take the speakers to lunch and dinner? Impressive.
(5) Lots of great local speakers is great. I’ll admit that. That is heaven.
Cheers,
-cvj
October 14th, 2005 at 11:10 pm
hope it wasn’t my last email that set you off…..
October 14th, 2005 at 11:15 pm
I can’t recall a single phrase that captures your dilemma. It’s so universal. All tools are worn by their use, and, in this case, you are the tool. The nail may do more damage to the hammer than you expected, but all nails damage all hammers.
October 14th, 2005 at 11:24 pm
[...] Sean « Those Other Things We Do [...]
October 14th, 2005 at 11:26 pm
Clifford,
Just some clarifications:
By more than one organizer I mean 2-4, spread over several sub-disciplines, more would start being inefficient.
Ideally, when I organized such seminar series my contact with the speaker is minimal between coordinating a date and the actual talk. Lots of arrangements in between (flight, accomodations, advertizing, finding where is that LCD projector…) don’t need a faculty member involved.
I agree that colloquia are more interesting if you know very little about the subject. The risk exists though that a single organizer does not know or care enough about other fields, resulting in extremely dull experience for everyone involved. Let’s just say that things like that have non-zero probability…
Dinner and such are usually taken care of by the local friends of the speaker. However, if I am forced to go to some fancy restaurant in Vancouver, I will eventually get over it. (incidentally, sometime we let graduate students take the speaker for lunch, good exposure and free food for them, and less work for us).
October 14th, 2005 at 11:43 pm
Hey, Clifford:
I was the colliquium organizor my first 3 years at SLAC, and I can corroborate that it takes alot of work and effort and thought. And I do mean alot of effort, at least if you care enough to want to do a good job (which Clifford clearly does!). It takes alot of time from research and I would go so far as to say that no untenured professor should ever be given the job. But there are rewards, in knowing that you brought a good series of lectures which enriched the knowledge of the people in your department.
October 14th, 2005 at 11:47 pm
Ok Moshe…. I get it. It’s not a perfect system here, I know. But it is the system we have, and first I want to achieve the kind of series that I think we ought to have as a good department in an excellent university. It’s worth it for the really good students that apply to us and that we bring here every year to raise the intellectual level of the series and it is worth it for the department and its faculty to try to build the kind of bridges within the department and across to other departments that this can do. Once I’ve shown what can be done, then I can get the support I need from my colleagues to do it differently. That’s my battle plan.
ljs: You misunderstand me. I’m not “set off”, I’m simply describing aspects of life in the academic world for those who might be interested. Just describing the glossy bits would be deceitful. Gotta show all the warts too. Well, some of them.
Cheers!
-cvj
October 14th, 2005 at 11:49 pm
JoAnne: Thanks. It’s good to hear that I’m not from a different planet, at least on this matter.
Thank you.
-cvj
October 15th, 2005 at 12:05 am
I missed the point I am afraid… of course, since I set through all these talks about vacuum pumps myself, more than once, I am definitely sympathetic to what you are doing, good luck!
October 15th, 2005 at 12:11 am
Moshe:- I could well be the one missing the point. I can be quite an idiot at times.
Cheers,
-cvj
October 15th, 2005 at 12:13 am
OK, let’s agree we both are missing the point, it is getting late…
October 15th, 2005 at 12:14 am
Yeah…I wanna hear instead about what you think about Energy. See other post.
-cvj
October 15th, 2005 at 12:18 am
Wow, you are right, there is another post!… well, tomorrow is another day.
October 15th, 2005 at 12:36 am
you know what i meant…
since my arrival, the frustations of your predecessors have been the same and obviously they still remain. i too had to arrange a couple of the schedules and it is not an easy nor pleasant task. i am not saying this is acceptable but just a fact.
i fully appreciate what you have already done within our department and what you continue to achieve. i can say there needs to be more of you! willing to commit to the students, the welfare of the department and our place in the academic world.
on a closing note: FIGHT ON, BEAT THE IRISH!!!
October 15th, 2005 at 12:39 am
Thanks ljs! -cvj