Annual Report 2012: FY July 1, 2011-June 30, 2012
Distinguished Lecture Committee
The purpose of this committee is to continually develop and maintain a portfolio of career-oriented services and programs that promote AAPG as every member's Career Partner for Life. The Distinguished Lecture Committee is to continually develop and maintain programs and services in the following core areas: (1) job posting service, (2) résumé posting service, (3) member registry of skills and experiences, (4) career counseling services, (5) employment statistics services, and (6) other programs/services for member career improvement. This committee's programs and services are to be designed to be user-friendly to current members, as well as attractive to potential members, and establish a strong commitment of mutual need between AAPG and its members.
The function of the AAPG Distinguished Lecturer Committee is to select outstanding speakers that will provide lecture tours to affiliated societies and academia on timely subjects relevant to the AAPG. The committee was co-chaired for the term covered by this report (May 2011- May 2012 by Katherine A. Giles and Ole J. Martinsen with administrative support provided by Karen Dotts. Julie Kupecz and Craig Shipp served as vice chairs. Julie Kupecz withdrew at the end of the term and is now replaced by Matt Jackson as vice chair. The Domestic and International Distinguished Lecturer committees both meet once annually during the AAPG Annual Convention.
A key goal for the DL Committee over the past few years has been to expand the Distinguished Lecture programs to have more presence worldwide. This has posed and still poses a challenge. It is demanding to have a fully coordinated selection process that is both acceptable and adhered to by the international regions.
Several new initiatives arose during the past year that required a reevaluation and slight reorganization of the DL program structure.
- Shell Oil DL sponsorship. Shell Oil donated funding to AAPG for a DL that would provide both a Domestic tour and an International tour to specific areas. Each year, the targeted international area and the DL will be determined by a subcommittee. The Shell Oil DL subcommittee consists of a Shell professional, the two vice chairs from the DL Committee and two International DL Committee members. The Shell DL is chosen by the subcommittee from the list of DL’s slated for the upcoming year. The Shell DL chosen for the 2012-13 tour is Art Saller and he will tour the Asia-Pacific and Canada regions in addition to serving as a Domestic DL.
- International Regions DL Program. The international regions suggested to the DL Committee that they would like to have more autonomy and would like to establish their own lecturer programs.
In order to incorporate these new initiatives into the DL program, the DL Committee chairs suggested reorganization of the DL Program structure into three separate components: (a) Continuation of the Domestic and International programs as before, (b) erection of a Shell-sponsored DL that operates within the Domestic program, but is determined by a separate sub-committee, and (c) International Regions Program whereby speakers are invited and hosted by the regions, but they do not carry the Distinguished Lecturer title as they have not participated in the rigorous selection process that Domestic and International DL candidates do. Activities in all three components are reported back to the DL program co-chairs during the year and summarized and reported in full to the entire DL program committee during the annual convention. The AAPG Executive Committee approved the proposed restructuring at the 2012 AAPG Annual Convention in Long Beach, Calif.
A total of 11 Distinguished Lecturers were sent out for 2011–2012 tour with 5,281 attendees at their lectures. The DL program is slated to send out a total of nine Domestic DL’s for the 2012-2013 tour. We hope to send out at least four International DL’s for the 2012-2013 tour. Our attempt to sustain the number of DL’s at the current level is increasingly difficult due to increased demands of time on professionals chosen by the DL Committee. In an attempt to ease the process we have tried to move up the timing of the selection process in order to give the selected speakers more time to negotiate their professional schedule with their AAPG DL tour schedule. The revised timing for the selection process 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.
- Abstracts are due from DL’s by the end of December.
- The AAPG DL Program coordinator 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 in order to increase participation in the program.
The International DL selection process is challenging 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 selection process. There are encouraging developments towards these goals in the European and Middle East and Asia/Pacific International regions and efforts are continuing to encourage take-up of the proposals by the other regions. A sub-committee is also under establishment in the African region. We are working with the guidelines from last year (cf. the 2011 report) but it is a continuous challenge to communicate the approved practices to the regions although we see increased consistency.
Katherine Giles, Co-chair
Ole J. Martinsen, Co-chair
Committee members: Fowzia H. Abdullah, Janok P. Bhattacharya, Harris Scott Cander, Ross Alan Clark, Mark Cooper, Stephen Paul Cumella, Herman Darman, Guruh Ferdyanto, Katherine Anne Giles (co-chair), Stuart D. Harker, Thomas Edward Hearon IV, Christian J. Heine, John Anthony Howell, Samuel M. Hudson, Matthew David Jackson, Lee Krystinik, Julie Ann Kupecz, Ole Jacob Martinsen (co-chair), Terence Gregory O'Hare, Martin A. Perlmutter, Michael Carl Pope, Greg Schoenborn, Christopher A. Scholz, R. Craig Shipp, J. Anthony Simo, Jayne Alexandra Sloan, Mark David Sonnenfeld, Carl Kristian Steffensen, Bruce David Trudgill, and Joann E. Welton