University Lectures Policies & Procedures

1. ELIGIBLE TO REQUEST

Units eligible to request funding are:

• Academic departments;
• Officially recognized interdepartmental programs, centers, and institutes that have an identifiable student constituency or there is evidence to indicate substantial student interest in the proposed lecture; or
• Registered student organizations with an application endorsed by an academic department.

Subdivisions of a department are typically not eligible to apply for support.

The Lectures Committee will allow any eligible unit, as defined above, to submit a maximum of two lecture requests per year, with the provision that the proposed lectures cannot take place during the same semester.

1. SPECIFIC EXCLUSIONS

• The request must be for a specially organized lecture that is not part of a regularly scheduled class. The committee will not support a “guest” or substitute lecturer for a university course under any circumstances.
• The committee will not support a lecture presented as part of a program that requires registration and/or charges an attendance fee unless that lecture is free and open to the public.
• The committee does not provide funds for lecturers, however distinguished, who lecture under contract for commercial agencies or who earn their living as professional lecturers.

1. CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION

The committee evaluates application based on the following criteria: 1) the level of interdisciplinary support, including financial support; 2) the audience size realistically anticipated; and 3) the stature of the speaker.

1. Submitting Requests

The committee accepts applications on an ongoing basis. The committee reviews applications monthly during the academic year considering all applications received by the 15^th of the month (or next business day in case of holidays or weekends). Results will be communicated shortly after the 1^st of the following month. Applicants should submit requests as soon as possible and well in advance of the date of the proposed lecture. Applications for lectures in September should be submitted by the September 15^th deadline.

In recent years, the committee has provided an average of around $1,000 per lecture, including honorarium, travel, and hotel/meal expenses.

The application for University Lectures funds is found here: https://apps.ohr.wisc.edu/staffdev/User/Default.aspx.

Information needed to complete the applications includes:

• The applicant’s contact information, details of applicant’s department, letters from co-sponsors uploaded as PDFs;
• Lecturer details including an upload (PDF) of a CV or equivalent, topic and event details for proposed lecture;
• Brief descriptions of the topic of this lecture, how the lecture will contribute to the general intellectual and cultural life of the university community, how students will be involved in the speaker’s visit, and additional services (if any) the speaker will provide during the visit;
• Budget details including an attachment of appropriate travel estimate (if applicable), and all requested expenses for honorarium, per diem meal/lodging, captioning services, and other items.

At the end of the application, the last step is sending the application to the applicant’s department chair – the committee will not receive the application until the chair has approved it, so please be sure to communicate with them about the process. If the applicant is the department chair, please select “Gideon Elliott” (gideon.elliott@wisc.edu) from the list.

The committee will make its decisions by the 1^st of each month for the previous month’s applications. Award letters will be sent out shortly thereafter. If approved, applicants will receive a letter with further information, including details on the amount awarded, the logo of the University Lectures Committee to use in publicity, and an attendance report form. Applicants are responsible for publicity of the lecture, and are asked to use the Lectures logo when acknowledging the committee’s contribution.

After the lecture has taken place, applicants must fill out and return the attendance report form in order to receive funds from the committee. Only after a completed attendance report has been submitted can a funding string be given. It’s the applicant’s responsibility to then submit a non-salary cost transfer for approved expenses. Please note: the cost transfer must be submitted before the end of the fiscal year (06/30). The committee cannot guarantee that transfers submitted after this time will be approved, as awards are generally not carried over. Requests for extension can be sent to admin@secfac.wisc.edu.

1. FUNDING

In order to leverage its funding, The Lectures Committee expects that applicants will seek funding from other sources before requesting committee support. The committee generally expects applicants to provide half of the total funding amount for the event, and, if this is not achievable, to provide an explanation in the application for why they need a greater amount of funding from University Lectures. Applications coming from units who are not able to raise half of the cost are still encouraged to apply with an explanation!

The committee may agree to partially fund applications. Award letters will contain the exact amount offered.

1. HONORARIUM

An applicant may request an honorarium of up to $1,000. Requests for honorarium over $1000 will require additional justification and should be for lecturers with exceptional qualification. Sponsoring/co-sponsoring units may use other funds to supplement the honorarium.

1. TRAVEL EXPENSES

All expenses must follow UW-Madison and UW System policies including choice of vendor.

All air travel must be booked through Concur. Airfare may be quoted or booked online via Concur or you may contact Graig Brooks, UW-Madison Travel Manager – (608) 262-8691, graig.brooks@wisc.edu. Airfare reservations made through other services will not be reimbursed. Fares should be based on economy class, 30-day advance purchase. Airfare estimates that do not follow these guidelines may not be fully funded. A screen shot of the airfare cost must be included at the time of submission. Only one airfare quote is necessary.

The University Lectures Committee recognizes that some speakers may require travel accommodations. For example, a speaker with a chronic health condition may not be able to travel by air due to their physical limitations or an elder lecturer may need to a travel companion to safely arrive on campus. If your lecturer requires such accommodations, please include this information in the application form under “Travel”.

More information about booking a flight can be found here: https://businessservices.wisc.edu/travel-reimbursement/planning-a-trip/air-travel/

1. HOTEL/MEAL ALLOWANCE EXPENSES

You can find current per diem rates at: https://www.federalpay.org/perdiem/2023/wisconsin/madison. The committee’s policy is to grant funds to cover only one day of meal allowances and one night at a hotel for the day of the lecture. However, if the lecturer provides other services of a public (i.e. university-wide) nature on another day, the sponsor may request additional hotel/meal allowance expenses. In such cases, the applicant must detail and fully justify the request for additional amount. There is no guarantee that a second day will be approved.

1. OTHER LECTURE EXPENSES

Funds for live captioning and CART services (up to $220) are available to all lectures with anticipated audiences of 100 or more participants. Interested units must work directly with the McBurney Disability Resource Center to make arrangements. Funds for CART services may also be requested after the proposal is approved for lecture funds.

If the sponsoring unit wishes to record the lecture, they must receive written permission from the speaker. A variety of lecture recording resources exist across the UW campus; contact DoIT for assistance with recording and/or streaming.

All other lecture expenses (e.g., venue, receptions, dinners, etc) are the responsibility of the sponsoring unit. Some exceptions may exist for lectures that make use of Fitch Funds – see panel below.

The William Fitch Scholarship Fund is available “to bring to Madison prominent business people to give lectures on the American free-enterprise system.” The Lectures Committee administers these funds in the same fashion as regular lecture series funds. However,  whereas the committee normally supports at most one lecture per semester for any one unit (as detailed in section III.A.), if the lecture topic meets the Fitch Fund’s requisite criteria, the unit remains eligible to receive support for another lecture taking place during the same semester as the Fitch Fund lecture.

The committee wants to bring availability of support by this fund to the attention of all potential applicants. We believe that virtually any department, academic program or student organization could qualify for support through the Fitch Fund, so we encourage applicants to consider this avenue. For example, past recipients have included

These funds can also be used for some expenses that are not usually eligible for University Lectures support. This might include: cost of venue, catering, meals with students, etc. If a lecture qualifies and has additional expenses that could be considered for Fitch Funds, please be sure to list them on the application.

1. GENERAL INFORMATION

The Lectures Committee requires units that initiate lecture requests to secure the co-sponsorship of at least one other department, program, or student organization to assure wider publicity and to make the best use of limited resources. In cases of co-sponsorship, only the initiating unit will be “charged” for sponsorship. (The co-sponsoring unit may still apply for separate support from the Lectures Committee). Primary sponsors and co-sponsors (combined) are encouraged to support half of the total budget amount for the lecture. The chair (or equivalent) of each co-sponsoring unit must write a supporting letter that documents the nature of any monetary or in-kind support that the co-sponsoring unit will provide. Applicants must include the letters of co-sponsorship with the lecture request.

1. LECTURES SPONSORED BY REGISTERED STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS

Like departments and area programs, registered student organizations may request support from the Lectures Committee. However, student organizations must obtain financial co-sponsorship from an academic department. The committee encourages departments to give full consideration to proposals that student groups may bring to them for co-sponsorship.

The chair of a department acting as a co-sponsor with student organizations must write a letter endorsing the request from the student organization. That department will be responsible for handling the financial disbursements of the lecture expenses (i.e., honorarium, hotel/meal allowance, and travel). As in other cases of co-sponsorship, a department co-sponsoring a request by a student organization will not count towards the department’s “one per semester” lecture allotment.

1. IF CHANGES ARE NECESSARY

If the date of a lecture must be changed from what is submitted on the Support Request Form, a written notice of the change must be submitted to the Lectures Committee. If the date falls outside the academic year for which the lecture was approved, a request for an extension of the funds must be made. Prior authorization from the committee is required for extensions outside the initial academic year. If prior authorization is not obtained, the Lectures Committee may withdraw its support of the lecture, and the sponsoring units will bear the full financial responsibility for its costs.