The 2012 CAP-Undergraduate Lecture Tour will feature excellent presentations that span a wide range of current topics in physics.  Lectures will take place between January and April, 2012 at participating physics departments in Canada. The CAP is encouraging joint sponsorship of the 2012 lecture tour with Canadian industrial and government partners to enable this celebration to reach as many undergraduate physics students as possible.

The list of potential speakers for the 2012 tour has been developed and detailed planning has begun.  Once the speakers are confirmed, the lecture dates will be finalized and posted on an online schedule.

Organization and Deadlines

A call for speaker nominations was issued in September, 2011, with a deadline of Oct. 21 for submission to the cap [at] uottawa [dot] ca (CAP Office). To meet the tour's objective of enhancing the visibility of the CAP and of promoting student memberships, it is essential that all speakers be willing to act as ambassadors for the association. A brief brief set of slides introducing the CAP and the Lecture Tour sponsors will be provided to each speaker for presentation during the introduction to the lecture. Host universities are requested to promote the lecture as a joint CAP-university sponsored special event.

All tour plans and associated budgets will be developed and managed by the Regional Coordinators. Departments seeking to host a CAP Lecture in 2012 should contact their Regional Coordinator to make arrangements, and must be departmental members of the CAP in order to participate. Ideally, speakers will visit 2-3 institutions in one trip to keep overall costs at a reasonable level. To ensure that a broad range of speakers can participate in the tour, the maximum number of talks that will be supported for any individual speaker is 5.

The planning milestones for the 2012 CAP Lecture Tour are as follows:

• November 7, 2011-- Detailed planning begins for the 2012 CAP Lecture tour. Announcements are sent by the CAP office inviting CAP member departments to view the speaker list for the 2012 Lecture tour. Regional Coordinators follow up to determine the students' preferred speaker choices (top 3) at each institution and available times for the lecture to take place. This information must be communicated to the Regional Coordinators no later than November 21; plans will be finalized no later than November 30.

• November 30, 2011-- Regional Coordinators submit final tour schedules and budget plans to the National Coordinator and the CAP Office.
• December 9, 2011 – National Coordinator will notify CAP and Coordinators of accepted speaker schedules and regional budgets.

• December 12, 2011 –Regional Coordinators sends the invitation to each invited speaker (RSVP no later than December 15, 2011) 
• December 19, 2011-- The CAP Office contacts each of the lecturers, confirms their lecture schedule, and provides them with a set of powerpoint slides about the CAP to be shown at the introduction of their talk. Speakers will be invited to publish their talks as articles for a future issue of Physics in Canada, and will receive a copy of the Instructions to Authors, established by the PiC Editorial Board.
 Post on Website.
• January 4 - April 30, 2012-- The CAP Lecture Tour takes place at participating departments.

• May 31, 2012-- Deadline for submitting all expense claims to the CAP office.

Finances and Expense Claims

All tour plans and expenses must be pre-approved and managed by the lecture tour Regional Coordinators. The costs to bring a speaker from his / her home institution to the location of the talk will be eligible for reimbursement by CAP, against receipts; the host department must cover all local expenses. The CAP will support one speaker at each participating institution, according to these guidelines.

The maximum travel reimbursement from CAP to any speaker will be $500 per institution visited, while the total cost within a region must be consistent with the region's assigned budget. As noted above, ideally speakers will visit 2-3 institutions in one trip to keep overall costs at a reasonable level. To ensure that a broad range of speakers can participate in the tour, the maximum number of talks that will be supported for any individual speaker is 5.

Eligible Expenses

Expenses to be covered by CAP are for return travel from the lecturer's home to the various lecture tour locations via the most economical option, including airfare, car rental (not to include CDW unless this is not covered by the speaker's credit card), and use of personal automobile (at $0.30 per km). Meals in transit which are not provided from other sources can be claimed up to a daily maximum of $45, or for individual meals: Breakfast $10, Lunch $10, Dinner $25. Original transportation receipts must be submitted with the travel claim. As noted above, the host department must cover all local expenses. CAP travel claims must be approved by the appropriate Regional Coordinator before submission to the CAP office.

CAP Lecture Tour Expense Claim Form