Colloquium Guidelines for Student and Faculty Hosts

Student Host: Duties Checklist

1 Month Before Colloquium
  • Send reminder to speaker. (Ask the colloquium committee for a template.)
  • Send reminder to the faculty host. (Ask the colloquium committee for a template.)
1 Week Before Colloquium
  • Send e-mail to department (LINGDEPT) advertising colloquium with the abstract.
  • Put up flyers for colloquium around department.
Day of Colloquium
  • Be the “go to” person if anyone has questions. You should introduce yourself to the speaker at some point, too.
  • Make 45 copies of handouts (if needed) in advance.
  • Bring the handouts, a bottle of water (from the kitchen or ask the office staff if the water is not in the fridge), well-functioning whiteboard markers (if we are in a room with whiteboards) and special equipment (if needed) to the colloquium room. Help the speaker set up the projector etc. for their talk.

Faculty Host: Duties Checklist 

1 Month Before Colloquium
  • Get in touch with the speaker regarding transportation to/from the airport and lodging.
1 Week Before Colloquium
  • Set up office hours for the speaker (find out when s/he/they will be available in advance). Create an online sign-up sheet for one-on-one meetings, and for the Friday dinner with the speaker. Send an email with the URLs for these to lingdept@lists… The appointment sheet should say what room the speaker will be holding meetings in (usually the office of a faculty on leave or the chair”s office).
  • Make sure that the speaker knows how to get to/from the airport/train station, which could be by faculty or student ride if someone wants to do it, otherwise by bus/shuttle/taxi/Uber/Lyft, which the department will pay for.
  • For bus/shuttle/taxi information, go to the UCLA linguistics department’s directions on traveling from LAX to UCLA
  • If the speaker is driving to campus, contact the department coordinator to reserve a parking permit for the speaker. The department coordinator can then provide the speaker with information about picking up the parking permit etc. The department will reimburse gas, but the speaker must provide receipts for reimbursement.
Day of Colloquium
  • Show the speaker around the department (e.g. the office they will be using for office hours).
  • Introduce the speaker at the colloquium.  Curate the colloquium question period after the talk, following the colloquium question period guidelines outlined below.
  • Take the speaker out to dinner after the colloquium. Pay for the dinner following the Colloquium Dinner Policy downward on this page.
  • Retrieve the key to whatever office the speaker has been using at the end of the day, so they don’t fly home with it.

Colloquium question period guidelines for faculty hosts: 

The faculty have approved the following guidelines for the question period following colloquiua.

  • The faculty host calls on question-askers, not the speaker.
  • In initial post-talk questions, when multiple people raise their hands at the end of the talk, students’ questions are asked first, followed by faculty members’ questions.
  • In subsequent questions, students are given priority all else being equal, i.e. when a student and a faculty member have their hands up at the same time.

Colloquium Dinner Policy Guidelines: 

  • For external speakers who need to arrive on Thursday, the department will reimburse a host up to $100 for dinner (usually 1-2 people plus speaker).
  • Reimbursement for post-colloquium dinners will be for both external speakers in the official series (invited by the Colloquium Committee) and our own Linguistics graduate student speakers.
  • There is some sentiment for limiting group size to 7 so that everyone gets to talk to the speaker, but reimbursement is not contingent on following this guideline.
  • The department will reimburse up to $300 (including for liquor, tax, tip), if the university-required documentation is provided. Reimbursement and the payment of any overages follows the policy outlined below.

Colloquium Dinner Reimbursement Policy:

  • The department reimburses up to $300, including liquor, without regard for who ordered what.
  • This max amount can be increased by the chair and colloquium committee in later years as appropriate.
  • Hosts need to follow the “Bureaucratic requirements for reimbursement” given below.
  • If the total exceeds $300 by $X, the procedure is:
        1. Individual faculty each pay for their own liquor, only as needed to get to a total of $X.
        2. If there is still some amount unpaid ($Y), then individual students each pay for their own liquor, up to $10 each, and only as needed to get to a total of $Y.
        3.  If there is still some amount unpaid ($Z), the faculty divide among themselves however they decide.
  • [EXAMPLE: the bill for a dinner attended by 2 faculty and 2 students (plus the speaker) is $350, so X = 50. In step 1, Faculty 1 did not drink liquor so she pays nothing, while Faculty 2 had a $20 glass of wine which she pays for. $20 is less than $X and leaves Y = 30 still to be paid. In step 2, Student 1 did not drink liquor and so pays nothing, while Student 2 had a $15 glass of wine, of which she pays $10. $10 is less than $Y and leaves Z = 20 still to be paid. In step 3, Faculty 1 and Faculty 2 divide this remaining $20.]

Bureaucratic requirements for reimbursement are:

  • A numbered list of attendees including their names, affiliation, role/relationship to UCLA (faculty, student, staff, donor, etc).
  • Type of expense (lunch, dinner, light refreshments).
  • Type of event along with a business justification.
  • Date and location of event.
  • Original itemized receipt(s); if it does not show proof of payment, then a copy of the payer’s credit card statement of other proof of payment is required, with the credit card number and other non-pertinent information blacked out or redacted.
  • Separate justification for any spouses present.

Frequently Asked Questions 

Q: Who should I be eager to host?

A: Speakers who you recommended and speakers who you voted for. Students of every year should feel on the hook for student hosting! this is easy and even a bit fun, and you don’t need an MA to do it. (In particular– it would be nice to see some first year students step forward… apparently at some schools, first year students are required to organize social hours.)

Q: What if I want to host, but can’t do all parts of my duties?

A: It is of course possible to divide duties among several people so if you would like to host someone, but there’s one obstacle (like, say, you can’t make it to the dinner).

Q: How often do I need to host?

A: There are 30 weeks in an academic year, and many of them do not have colloquia. In theory, we have more faculty and students than social hours, meaning we would be covered if everyone did it once a year. Unfortunately, in practice it seems that some people end up doing it many times in a year, while others have never done it. It has happened that there have been exceptionally large numbers of speakers in smaller subfields some years (but this tends to happen because of job searches, not colloquia) but no one should feel guilty for not volunteering more than once in a year!