Annual Report 2011: FY July 1, 2010-June 30, 2011
Distinguished Lecture
A key goal for the DL Committee over the past few years has been to expand the Distinguished Lecture and Distinguished Instructor Programs. We sent out a total of 12 for 2010–2011 with 8255 attendees at the lectures and are sending out a total of 10 Domestic DL’s for 2011–2012 and hope to send out at least - International DL’s once the selection process for them is completed. Our attempts to increase the number of DL’s and DI’s are still meeting with some challenges due to increased demands on the talented professionals that the DL Committee chooses through the selection process. These individuals are often in high demand and we are effectively competing against the other demands on their time; we sincerely appreciate the continued willingness of their employers to allow them to be available for tours.
The selection process and timing has been an area of focus for the committee in the past year. For the Domestic DL/DI Programs we are progressively moving much of the process to a web-based application on a secure area of the AAPG website and have changed the timing of the selection process during the last year. This timing will be used in future years and is outlined below:
- The list of candidates is now finalized by the end of June.
- Voting by each Domestic DL committee member is done using the web application and is completed by end July.
- The co-chairs review the voting results and will contact the successful individuals in September and October.
- All acceptances are copied to Karen Dotts as they are received.
- Abstracts are due from DL’s by the end of December.
- Karen Dotts forwards the slate of DL’s for the next tours to universities and societies starting in early January.
- The slate of DL’s for the coming year is announced at the Annual Convention.
This change was made to facilitate the communication of the slate of DL’s to affiliated societies and universities in a more timely fashion.
The International DL Selection Process is still in the process of being revised as outlined in last year’s report. The purpose of the changes is to provide more autonomy to the Regions but also more accountability for the DL/DI selection process. There are encouraging developments towards these goals in the Middle East and Asia/Pacific International Regions and efforts are continuing to encourage take-up of the proposals by the other regions. The proposed changes are outlined below:
- Each International Region DL subcommittee needs to be brought up to an effective state of numbers and representation. We suggest a minimum of six members that are geographically representative of the region. This needs to be in place by the end of 2011.
- The DL co-chairs in collaboration with Karen Dotts will provide a general list of speakers and topics derived from the domestic list to the International Region DL sub-committees and each of the Region DL sub-committees can add candidates to their list that are appropriate to their region. These names must be held confidential and must be approved by the DL co-chairs; committee members cannot be named. This should be achieved by the end of August.
- The voting process will be that the Regional DL subcommittee will use the AAPG’s web voting process for selecting its own DL’s by mid November.
- The Regional DL sub-committee chairs will then communicate the selections to the DL co-chairs for final approval and the DL co-chairs will issue the invitations to the candidate DL’s selected by the end of December.
- This proposal was presented to the International DL committee at the ACE in Houston in April 2011. The proposal was generally well received and the new leadership of the DL Committee is pursuing these goals vigorously.
Mark Cooper, Co-chair Lee Krystinik, Co-chair
Committee members:
Fowzia H. Abdullah, Steven L. Bachtel, Janok P. Bhattacharya, Harris Scott Cander, Ross Alan Clark, Mark Cooper (co-chair), Herman Darman, Terry Engelder, Guruh Ferdyanto, Katherine Anne Giles, Christian J. Heine, John Anthony Howell, Samuel M. Hudson, Lee Krystinik (co-chair), Julie Ann Kupecz, Ole Jacob Martinsen, Kitty Lou Milliken, Michael J. Peacock, Martin A. Perlmutter, Greg Schoenborn, Christopher A. Scholz,
J. Anthony Simo, Jayne Alexandra Sloan, Mark David Sonnenfeld, Carl Kristian Steffensen, Bruce David Trudgill, Marian Warren, and Paul Weimer