2017 Lecture Tour

The 2017 CAP Lecture Tour will feature presentations that span a wide range of current topics in physics. Lectures will take place between January and April 2017 at participating physics departments in Canada.

Organization

A call for speaker nominations is issued in September for submission to the CAP Office by early October. Then, a list of potential speakers is being developed. Once the speakers are confirmed, the lecture dates are finalized and posted on the website. 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 set of slides introducing the CAP and the Lecture Tour sponsors is provided to each speaker for presentation during the introduction to the lecture. Host universities, who must be CAP departmental members to participate in the tour, 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. CAP departmental members seeking to host a CAP lecture in 2017 should contact their Regional Coordinator to make arrangements. Ideally, speakers will visit two or three 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 five.

The planning milestones for the 2017 CAP Lecture Tour are as follows:

2016

  • September 6: Call to CAP members for speaker nominations (full name, affiliation, e-mail, short bio, presentation title and abstract required)
  • October 3: Deadline for speaker nominations
  • October 12: List of speakers and abstracts available on the Web. Invitation to CAP member departments to view the speaker list and submit the students’ top 3 choices to Regional Coordinators
  • November 11: Deadline for CAP member departments to submit the students’ top 3 choices with available dates and times to Regional Coordinators
  • November 21: Regional Coordinators submit tour schedules and budget plans to the National Coordinator and the CAP Office.
  • November 28: National Coordinator confirms accepted speaker schedules and regional budgets.
  • November 29-30: Regional Coordinators send invitations to speakers
  • December 5: Deadline for speakers to confirm their participation
  • December 18: Lecture dates are posted on the website when finalized

2017

  • January – April: The CAP Lecture Tour takes place at participating departments?
  • May 31: Deadline for speakers to submit 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 budget is based on an average cost of approximately $300 per speaker per institution visited. The costs to bring a speaker from his / her home institution to the city where the talk is located, as well as meals for the speaker while in transit, 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.

With prior approval from the regional coordinator, the maximum travel reimbursement from CAP to any speaker will be $500 per institution visited. Any travel exceeding that limit must be pre-approved by the CAP office. 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 five. A Lecture Tour Expense Claim form with full details of eligible expenses for reimbursement will be provided to the speakers before the beginning of the Tour