Guidelines for Symposia Organizers

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Plans are underway for the SICB Meeting in Seattle, January 2-6, 2010. Symposia are the heart of our meetings and our journal. Start thinking creatively about developing plans now. Organizing a symposium can be fun. You have the chance to ask speakers to talk about topics you find interesting, and it is a great way to make new friends and contacts. You will enjoy working with Harold Heatwole, the Editor of "Integrative and Comparative Biology" (formerly called American Zoologist), in getting your symposium papers published together as a peer-reviewed volume that can be used for reference and seminars.
The deadline for receipt of symposium proposals is August 17, 2008, so please start developing your ideas and talking with your colleagues and program officer of your division. But don't put it off; we encourage you to start planning now with your colleagues. Please note that at least one member of the symposium organizing committee must be a Full member of SICB.

We have revised the procedure for developing symposia, mainly to insure the involvement of the Divisions and to make the process easier and more straight-forward. If you have any questions contact Eduardo Rosa-Molinar, SICB Program Officer at ed@hpcf.upr.edu; or the Meetings Director, Sue Burk at sburk@burkinc.com. The symposia at Seattle will be broken into three groups: (1) divisional or co-sponsoring society symposia, (2) society-wide symposia, and (3) mini-symposia. Regardless of what type of symposium you are planning, please do not plan for more than 11 speakers or you may be in the awkward position of having to uninvite individuals.

DIVISIONAL/CO-SPONSORING SOCIETY SYMPOSIA

To develop a divisional or co-sponsoring society symposium for Seattle please follow the steps listed below:

1. Contact your primary Divisional or Co-sponsoring Society Program Officer to discuss your ideas. Find out what other symposia your division or co-sponsoring society might be sponsoring and their priorities. Inquire about funding. Ask about contacting other divisions or co-sponsoring societies for further support; there is no reason why several divisions and/or co-sponsoring societies can not jointly sponsor divisional symposia.

2. If your Program Officer gives you a go ahead, review the application form below (direct URL: http://sicb.org/meetings/2010/callsymp.php3#form).

3. Contact prospective speakers and invite them to join your symposium (the maximum number of speakers is 11). This can be an exhilarating experience as you share your ideas with others in your field. It would be good to get their commitment to attend regardless of funding, or at least find out how much funding they would need to attend. Don't promise them funding, but let them know that their registration fees will be reimbursed because you will be applying for outside funding (the abstract fee has been dropped for everyone).

4. Contact Harold Heatwole (harold_heatwole@ncsu.edu) regarding your plans for publication in "Integrative and Comparative Biology". You must contact him to discuss whether your symposium will be published in the journal. Remember that our journal has right of first refusal to publish SICB symposia.

5. Complete the Symposium Application Form on the SICB website and submit it by August 17, 2008. It will be forwarded to your Program Officer, Linda Walters, and Sue Burk. The Program Committee (composed of the Divisional Program Officers and the Program Officer) will choose symposia at the Program Planning meeting in September (2008). You will be notified regarding acceptance by the end of October (2008). You will then be sent general guidelines for the symposium and scheduling times.

SOCIETY-WIDE SYMPOSIA

You may instead want to develop a society-wide symposium. These are symposia that are deemed of interest to most of the divisions but not primarily of any one or several divisions. Your Divisional Program Officer may suggest a society-wide symposium for you after discussing your ideas with you. Or you may decide yourself that you want to develop such a symposium.
To develop a society-wide symposium, follow all the steps for divisional symposia as stated above, except after or instead of contacting your Program Officer contact Eduardo Rosa-Molinar to discuss your ideas and see how they fit with his plans for Seattle. We would like to have one or two society-wide symposia at Seattle.

Society-wide proposals will be reviewed at the same meeting in September (2008) as the rest of the symposium proposals, and organizers will be notified of the status of their symposium proposal by the end of October (2008).


GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

The time interval between successive symposia talks is 30 minutes (except for mini-symposium talks, which are 20 minutes). This means that a symposium talk could be about 25 minutes, with 5 minutes for questions and discussion. Talks may start as early as 8 am, but must end by 3 pm (when the poster sessions start). An hour for lunch and a half hour for a coffee break (mid-morning) will be scheduled. We strongly encourage one-day symposia (a maximum of 11 speakers), but half-day symposia will also be approved (a maximum of 7 speakers in a morning session and a maximum of 4 speakers in an afternoon session). Mini-symposia are typically just one morning or afternoon (and could have as many as 11 speakers in the morning or six in the afternoon). Due to scheduling problems and consideration for contributed papers and posters, one-and-a-half-day, or two-day symposia will be discouraged. Associated socials, or contributed paper or poster sessions may be scheduled as part of the symposium session sponsored by the symposium organizers. Indeed, we're open to any and all suggestions to bring exciting, innovative, synthetic symposia to our meetings.

We look forward to your ideas and our upcoming Seattle SICB meeting.

Eduardo Rosa-Molinar
Society Program Officer
ed@hpcf.upr.edu



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APPLICATION FOR A SYMPOSIUM FOR THE 2010 MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY - JANUARY 2-6, 2010, Seattle, WA
DEADLINE: August 17, 2008

Submit from this webpage by filling in the form below and hitting submit at the bottom of the form.
Upon submittal you will be sent an e-mail with the data entered and a unique URL that will allow future access to your application for updates and corrections up to the deadline of August 17, 2008.

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1. GENERAL INFORMATION

A. Symposium title:
Short title:
B. Primary Sponsor:
C. Other Sponsors:
D. Primary Organizer:
Name:
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:

E. Other Organizers: Give name and e-mail for all.

Symposium organizers are responsible for informing the Program Officer of any address changes!


F. Type of symposium (regular, society-wide, mini-symposium)



2. OVERVIEW OF SYMPOSIUM


A. Rationale for the symposium:


B. Timeliness of symposium:



C. Most recent symposium on similar subject: Give location and time.


D. References cited or pertinent: Not more than 8 recent references or reviews


E. Outline of program, indicating tentative sequence of speakers (no more than 11 speakers), and introduction and summary sessions if planned:



3. PUBLICATION PLANS
A. Outline your plans for publishing your symposium:
(Note: Integrative and Comparative Biology has first publication rights.)


B. Will you proceed with your symposium if it is not accepted for publication in Integrative and Comparative Biology?



4. FINANCIAL SUPPORT

A. List the Divisions that have committed funding to your symposium, and how much:

B. Outline your plans for obtaining outside financial support:
(Remember: reimbursement of your speakers' registration fees depends on your applying for outside funding, whether it is successful or not.)


C. Will you proceed with your symposium if no outside funding is available?


D. List speakers who have agreed to participate without funding:


E. List speakers who need financial support to attend, and give estimates of their needs:




5. ARE OTHER YEARS POSSIBLE? IF NOT, WHY NOW?




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When you hit submit below your entry will be sent to SICB. Make sure that you have filled in the form correctly! You will be e-mailed a copy of your entry.