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Host Responsibilities

Duties for hosts of distinguished lecturer speakers. Refer to the detailed instructions below to assist you in completing the tasks on this checklist.

Checklist

If UNC-Chapel Hill is the host institute for your guest speaker:

  • Invite the speaker informally, and fix the dates. Here is a sample invitation letter that includes all the important logistics: Sample Invitation Letter
  • Notify the TCSDLS coordinator (currently, Jasleen Kaur) as soon as you get available dates from your guest. The final date is assigned by the coordinator (after considering invites going out from all 3 campuses).
  • Make sure SN 011 has been reserved for the lecture (check with ER)
  • Request the title of the presentation, an abstract, and a short biography from your guest (and make sure to share it with ER)
  • Make hotel arrangements for your guest
  • Make local travel arrangements for your guest (transportation to/from airport, hotel, transportation to meals, etc.)
  • Oversee your guest’s schedule. Make breakfast, lunch, and dinner arrangements for your guest. Invite Duke and NC State folks to sign up for meals/meetings.
  • Make sure that your guest signs the appropriate paperwork (see Fay Alexander) for getting his/her trip reimbursement.
  • Introduce your guest prior to his/her talk
  • Double-check with the appropriate people on such details as equipment needed for the talk, videotaping the talk, food prior to the talk, local advertising (news postings, fliers), etc. (see “Contact People” below)

If Duke/N.C. State is the host institute for your guest speaker:

  • Make sure SN 011 has been reserved for showing the lecture (check with ER)
  • Check on local advertising (news postings, fliers, e-mails, etc.)

Detailed Instructions

If UNC is the host institute for your guest speaker:

Make sure SN 011 has been reserved for the lecture as soon as the date has been confirmed (see ER).

Make hotel reservations several weeks in advance of the speaker’s visit.

Normally you don’t need to worry about arranging the speaker’s schedule until approximately a week before his/her talk. This will involve working up a one-day schedule here for Monday.

Arranging the speaker’s stay here involves arranging meals and getting people to sign up to meet with him or her. First offer those faculty in the speaker’s particular area of interest the first chance at signing up to meet with him or her. Then send e-mail to the fac-meeting mailing alias asking others to sign up for the remaining available slots, by looking at the speaker’s schedule on Google Calendars. You may also want to arrange a tour of the Graphics and Image Lab or other labs in the building, if appropriate. Finally, ensure that the speaker sees Accounting briefly (typically, before their talk) to sign some forms for getting reimbursed. Put this in the Google Calendars schedule, so you don’t forget. If the speaker does not have a chance to meet with Accounting, the reimbursement process becomes much more difficult.

The probable scenario for the visit is: someone (likely to be you, the host) meets the speaker at the airport on Sunday, eats dinner with him/her, and drives him/her to the hotel. Someone meets the speaker for breakfast on Monday morning, and then brings him/her to the Department. The speaker meets with people all morning, then a small group of people takes him/her to lunch. In the afternoon, the speaker meets again with people, until 30 minutes prior to the talk. Following the talk, a small group of people accompanies the speaker to dinner, then someone takes him/her back to the hotel. Also, make arrangements for the speaker to leave for the airport.

You can use any hotel you want, but the Carolina Inn is by far the most convenient. We can bill a stay at the Carolina Inn directly to the Department. Please check with Admin about the details. The speaker will have to buy his/her own airline tickets and get reimbursed later.

If Duke/N.C. State is the host institute for your guest speaker:

Make sure SN 011 has been reserved for showing the leacture as soon as the date has been confirmed (see RSAC). Advertise to faculty and ask if anyone wants to join the host school for meals or meetings.

Contact People

Reservation of SN 011

External Relations, er@cs.unc.edu

Promoting the Talk

External Relations, er@cs.unc.edu

Food Prior to Talk

Admin Team, adminstaff@cs.unc.edu

Equipment/Training

Computer Services, help@cs.unc.edu

Videotaping the Talk

Computer Services, help@cs.unc.edu

Reimbursement Forms (hotel, travel)

Admin Team, adminstaff@cs.unc.edu

Expenses (meals, honorarium)

Admin Team, adminstaff@cs.unc.edu

Sample Invitation Letter

SAMPLE PRELIMINARY INVITATION

Dear XXX,

I am delighted to invite you on behalf of the UNC Computer Science department to speak at the Triangle Computer Science Distinguished Lecture Series (TCSDLS). Since 1995, the computer science departments at UNC Chapel Hill, NCSU, and Duke have been jointly hosting influential speakers for the TCSDLS. We hope that you would be willing to visit us this year.

All visits are on Mondays, and a list of possible dates is enclosed below. We would ask that you arrive on a Sunday afternoon and stay until Tuesday morning if at all possible, so we can have a dinner in your honor on Monday night. If this is not feasible, we’ll have the dinner on Sunday night instead.

The talk takes place at 4pm and is simulcast to the other two departments. We’ll invite interested people from the other two sites to come to meet you in an office we make available for this purpose. We’ll also invite people from the other two sites to join us for dinner or lunch.

We’ll gladly make hotel arrangements for you, but ask you to make your own air travel arrangements. We offer a $1,500 honorarium for the visit, and we pay for all expenses.

If you accept, please give me at least three Mondays among the dates below. The three sites are making invitations in parallel to some extent, so we need some leeway to address scheduling conflicts. Once we have dates from enough speakers, the series coordinator (COORDINATOR NAME, cc-ed) will send you a formal invitation with the final date.

Please also let me know if you are able to stay two nights (Sunday and Monday), or you need to leave on Monday evening, so we can make dinner arrangements accordingly. I will also need a tentative title, which we can change or finalize as the date of your visit approaches.

I sincerely hope that you can find room in your schedule to visit us, and I look forward to hosting your visit.

Best regards,

XXX