The first thing your site needs is an Executive Committee and a Student Chair (for a student-run event). Ideally your Student Chair will be a graduate student, but your institution may choose to appoint an undergraduate chair in addition. In mid-October or Early November, the Site Chair may advertise throughout campus to fill the Student Chair position or select a graduate student who is known to be highly active in science outreach, or is enthusiastic about the SR event. The Site Chair should require a full resume and cover letter from each Student Chair applicant and conduct in-depth interviews with each candidate.
From here the Student Chair and Site Chair work together to recruit an executive committee of undergraduate and graduate students (additional faculty may also be involved if they are interested, see section 3 for faculty oversight and a brief synopsis of the faculty-run event option) – this committee should be comprised of highly effective individuals, and not just the friends and family of the Chairs.
It is a good idea to use your institutions’ career and student involvement centres and websites to seek out the most driven and motivated students at your site. It is also important for the Site Chair and Student Chair to interview each candidate separately and discuss their individual evaluations afterward. In addition, each executive committee member should submit a resume and cover letter when applying for a position and the Site Chair, in consultation with the Student Chair will carefully select the executive committee from the applicant pool.
Each committee (see Section 10) should have a Student Committee Chair. Students that are not selected for the executive committee should be encouraged to serve on one of the nine sub-committees.
The chair of each committee should have some experience in their committee’s specific area. It is especially beneficial to have someone with connections and networking experience in the Internal/Departmental and Fundraising positions.
It is the responsibility of the Student Chair to schedule regular meetings with the Executive Committee and be aware of the actions of all sub-committees during the planning and implementation stages. It is also important for the Student Chair to attend sub-committee meetings on a semi-regular basis. The Student Chair should have a solid understanding of all aspects of their committees from the first meeting to wrap-up after the event. They are also responsible for keeping track of all records and keeping detailed plans and reports of the actions of the Executive and all sub-committees (these records should be transferred to the new Student Chair at the beginning of every academic year).
It may be necessary to set up an internal website or document sharing website (such as Google Docs/Google Sites/Drop Box, etc.) where your Executive Committee can keep all their documents, communicate with one another, and keep track of what the other committees are doing. Document and information sharing makes it much easier to transition between committee members at the end of each season/event, and provides continuity between years through the centralization of all records and past initiatives/event plans.
Once your Executive Committee is set, they need to select their committee members. The number of volunteers for each committee will depend on the size of your event site and the number of expected attendees. A good general rule is for each committee to have at least 3 members (including the committee’s student chair) to ensure proper task delegation, and to limit scheduling conflicts or volunteer burn-out.
The selection of sub-committee members should be done by the Committee Chairs and may involve the Student Chair (if necessary). Sub-committee members should have some prior experience in the area of their committee’s responsibility, and should apply with a cover letter and resume addressed to the Committee Chair. Sub-committee members should be thoroughly interviewed and assessed by more than one person (enter the Student and/or Site Chair), selection should not be exclusively based on personal relationships with the Committee Chair.
The Executive Committee, led by the Student Chair and overseen by the Site Chair, will be responsible for organizing their institution’s contribution to the SR event. The specific responsibilities of each sub-committee are outlined below, but essentially the Executive Committee will recruit the involvement of science and technology departments at their site and help coordinate the efforts of each department in showcasing their research. The Student and Site Chair will be responsible for managing their site’s budget, and steering the efforts of the executive committee.
