Submitting a Symposium Proposal and Instructions & Guidelines for Organizing a Symposium

Program Co-Chairs: Mark Freilich, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, 213 J.M. Smith Hall-Chemistry, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152-3050, Phone: (901) 678- 4445, Fax: (901) 678-3447 mfreilch@memphis.edu

Bill Harwood, Associate Professor of Science Education, Education 3010, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, Phone: (812) 856-8164, Fax: (812) 856-8116 wharwood@indiana.edu, http://php.indiana.edu/~wharwood

We accepted proposals for symposia and workshops from March 1, 2003 until November 17, 2003. If you wanted your symposium to be included in the "Call for Papers", you needed to submit a proposal by July 1, 2003. You can organize a symposium where the presenters are "by invitation only", or you can organize an open symposium and consider abstracts submitted by any participant. The 18th BCCE program committee is dedicated to serving the needs of the participants of the 18th BCCE. If you have an idea for a symposium, but you do not want to organize it, then you may submit the idea and discuss the situation with the 18th BCCE program co-chairs. Here is the basic information we need in a symposium proposal.

********The deadline has passed Symposium Proposal Form DO NOT SUBMIT a Symposium Proposal Form unless you have received permission from Mark Freilich or Bill Harwood..*******

Title of the symposium:

Brief description of the purpose of the symposium:

Audience: College, High School, Middle School, General Audience, or any combination

Time allowed for each presentation (20 or 25 minutes):

Organizer: Name, Institution, Address, phone number, e-mail address

If you have three or more organizers, please e-mail the name, institutional affilation, full address, phone number, e-mail address, FAX of your other organizers to mfreilch@memphis.edu, wharwood@indiana.edu and BCCE@iastate.edu. [We are in the process of programming this on-line system enhancement.]

Presider: Name, Institutionn, Address, phone number, e-mail address

Presenters: Name, Institution, Address, phone number, e-mail address of at least one individual who has agreed to participate in your symposium (other than the organizer or presider).

Potential restrictions (if any): number of presenters, day, type of room, lecture demonstration facilities, multimedia needs, etc.

Potential problems (if any):

The deadline has passed for submtting a symposium proposal. DO NOT submit a form unless you have received permission from Mark Freilich or Bill Harwood. Symposium Proposal Form.

 

Your proposal will be automatically forwarded to wharwood@indiana.edu: Prof. William Harwood, Associate Professor of Science Education, Education 3010, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, and Mark Freilich, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, 213 J.M. Smith Hall-Chemistry, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN 38152-3050 mfreilch@memphis.edu. The program co-chairs will review your proposal and make a decision as to whether to accept, reject, or amend it. If you submit a proposal for a symposium either you or someone you contact will need to serve as the "presider" of the symposium. A symposium that has 6-8 presenters will be scheduled as a half-day session. If you have 12-14 presenters, the symposium will be scheduled as a whole day symposium. If your proposal is accepted, then you are expected to attend the 18th BCCE and contribute to the presiding and organization of the symposium. As the organizer of a symposium, you can assume the duties of the presider, you can convince someone else to be the presider, or you can split the duties of the presider with someone else if you have both a morning and an afternoon session. If you cannot convince somone to be the presider, then the 18th BCCE program co-chairs will locate a suitable presider.

Duties and Responsibilities of an Organizer of a Symposium

As the organizer of a symposium, you are responsible for contacting at least 4-6 individuals who are planning to attend the 18th BCCE and who are willing to be a presenter at your symposium. If you are running a "by invitation only" symposium, you need to contact as many individuals as needed in order to have enough speakers for your symposium. After the "Call for Papers" is published and mailed to members of the Division of Chemical Education and the participants begin to register and submit abstracts on-line, you will have access (electronically) to the abstracts submitted to your symposium. You will need to send reminders to all of the speakers who agreed to present to be certain their abstracts are submitted by the deadline. You can identify individuals who have expertise in the area of your symposium topic through a number of venues:

1. Review who has published papers on your topic in the Journal of Chemical Education, Journal of College Science Teaching, Journal of Research in Science Teaching, etc.

2. Review the abstracts of individuals who have presented papers on your topic at regional or national meetings of the American Chemical Society. Attend a regional or national ACS meeting and see who is presenting papers on your topic.

3. Ask someone in the ACS Division of Chemical Education for recommendations as to who is doing high quality work in the area of your symposium.

As the organizer of a symposium, you need to inform your speakers that the 18th BCCE commitee will NOT pay their registration fee, travel, lodging, etc. Symposium organizers, presiders, and speakers do not receive any discounts or free rides at any BCCE. What you do get is our thanks and the satisfaction of knowing you have contributed to advancing the state-of-the art of chemical education. You must also inform the potential presenters of the restrictions on the number of papers they can personally present at a BCCE. The rules are posted on the 18th BCCE web site. Essentially, an individual may personally present a maximum total of three papers and or poster (Rule of Three). An individual can present 3 papers, or 3 posters, or any combination of papers and posters not exceding the number three. An individual may be listed as the co-author on an un-limited number of papers or posters.

After the abstract deadline, you will know who has submitted abstracts to your symposium, you need to decide on the order of the presentations. You should review each presenter's request for equipment and materials and check with the program committee to see if we are capable of meeting these requests. You serve as a middle person and negotiator. Next, you need to check your line-up with the 18th BCCE program co-chairs and receive permission to officially inform the presenters that their abstracts have been accepted. You will be informed of the day and time of the presentation sometime in April, 2004. As the 18th BCCE approaches, you should encourage your presenters to register for the meeting and for housing before the deadlines. Last, about a week before the 18th BCCE, e-mail your presenters and say you look forward to meeting them at the BCCE in Ames, Iowa. For being the organizer of a symposia, you have your name published in the 18th BCCE program book and you receive a thank you from us. You will receive thank yous from the presenters and some of the participants.

Duties of the Presider of a Symposium

As the presider of a symposium, you are responsible for picking up your presider packet of information when you do your check-in registration on campus. You should visit the room the symposium is scheduled to be in ahead of time and check it out to see that it has all of the equipment you requested for the symposium. You need to arrive early at this room on the day of the symposium and check all of the presentation equipment. Greet the presenters as they arrive. Introduce yourself and introduce the presenters to each other (if they do not already know each other). You are responsible for starting and ending the symposium on time. Usually, the organizer or the presider presents a brief introduction and closing. As a presider you are responsible for keeping the speakers within their time limit, for having the speakers start their talk on time as published in the 18th BCCE program book, and for announcing any speakers who have cancelled at the last minute. You may not change the order of the presentation of speakers. At the end of each presentation, you moderate a short 2-4 minute discussion session (if there are 2-4 minutes until the next person talks). This involves, selecting individuals who wish to ask the speaker questions. As a presider, you may not start a paper early if the previous speaker finishes early or if the previous speaker has cancelled. Usually, there is a short 10 minute break scheduled every two hours or so.

The presider is responsible for counting the number of people who are attending the symposium. We do this head count two or three times during the morning and two or three times during the afternoon. If anything goes wrong that needs to be fixed, you can contact one of the 18th BCCE workers or technicians. If anything goes wrong that is not going to be fixed or if an immediate decision needs to be made - for example the power goes out, there is a tornado warning, there is a stampede, etc. you need to make a wise decision about what to do.

This page was up-dated on March 14, 2004 by Tom Greenbowe, Department of Chemistry, Iowa State University. Ames, IA 50011 (bcce@iastate.edu).