ACCOUArTS OF CHEXIC’AL RESEARCH” Registered in U S . Potent and Trodernark Office; Copyright 1986 by the Arnericon Chernicol Society
VOLUME 19
NUMBER 3
MARCH, 1986
EDITOR JOSEPH F. BUNNETT
ASSOCIATE EDITORS Joel E. Keizer John E. McMurry
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Robert Abeles Richard Bernstein R. Stephen Berry Michel Boudart Maurice M. Bursey Charles R. Cantor Ernest R. Davidson Marshall Fixman Jenny P. Glusker Keith U. Ingold Maurice M. Kreevoy Theodore Kuwana Stephen J. Lippard James M. McBride Josef Michl Kenneth N. Raymond Jacob F. Schaefer Richard C. Schoonmaker
BOOKS AND JOURNALS DIVISION D. H. Michael Bowen, Directcr
Journals Department: Charles R. Bertsch, Head; Marianne C. Brogan, Associate Head; Mary E. Scanlan, Assistant Manager Production Department: Elmer M. Pusey, Jr., Head Research and Development Department: Lorrin R. Garson, Head
The American Chemical Society and its editors assume no responsibility for the statements and opinions advanced by contributors. Views expressed in the editorials are those of the writers and do not necessarily represent the official position of the American Chemical Society. Registered names and trademarks, etc., used in this publication, even without specific indication thereof, are not to be considered unprotected by law.
Plenary Lecturer Roulette Perhaps you have participated in the organization of an international scientific conference, as a conference officer or on an organizing committee. If not, that experience may well come your way some day. When it does, one of your main responsibilities is choice of the persons, maybe 10 or 12, who are to be invited to present plenary lectures. The responsibility is important, for the choices made may determine the success of the conference. The task seems easy enough: all one has to do to organize a roster of, say, 11 lecturers is to choose 15 distinguished scientists in the field of the conference, and to issue invitations to the most favored 11, holding the remaining four as alternates in case one or more of the top 11 cannot accept. The job is complicated a little by an obligation to achieve some breadth of geographic representation. Apart from considerations of fairness, the selection of 11 Frenchmen, even if they were the 11 best, would no doubt cause some grumbling and might cause scientists from some countries to decide to attend another conference instead. A duty to achieve some balance between research subfields is another constraint on the choices that can be made. One recipe for a conference of intellectual vitality is to choose plenary lecturers who have not often appeared in that role but who are known to the conference organizers to have done work of exceptional interest in recent months. Such persons might be relatively young, or they might be persons of more seniority from a neighboring field who recently applied its methodology to important problems in the field of the conference to be organized. Such lecturers, if properly chosen, will perhaps stimulate so much novel thought as to make the conference an intellectual milestone. A peril, however, is that the names of those creative new figures may not be known to the usual clientele of the conference. They may hesitate to attend a meeting in which, as they perceive it, the major lectures are to be given by a bunch of nonentities. If no one comes to the party, it will be a flop. That peril can be avoided by assembling a plenary lecturer roster of Big Names, famous scientists well-known as good speakers. Such a roster gives an impression of excellence and serves to draw a good turnout. But this plan also entails potential problems. It may turn out that some of the Big Names had given plenary lectures at other conferences in the same season, and that the very same lectures had already been heard by some conference participants. Fred Basolo’ has commented on the problem of what we may call “circuit” lecturers. Furthermore, although their big names are usually well justified, some of those famous people may not have much new to say on a particular occasion, or may report only the excellent extension of a familiar research theme. The best policy is to have some of each: enough Big Names to draw participants, and enough bright new faces to ensure that new ideas will receive considerable attention. The officers of conferences being organized should urge the members of organizing or advisory committees to consider these factors in contributing or evaluating plenary lecturer suggestions. And committee members should insist that they be enabled to play an active role in this crucial aspect of conference planning. Joseph F. Bunnett (1) Basolo, F.Acc. Chem. Res. 1983, 16, 33.
