Skip to Main Content

Colloquium Lecture Selection Committee

General Description

Principal Activities

The Committee selects Colloquium Lecturers for the Annual Meeting. The invitation is issued in the name of the Committee by the Secretary.

The Committee presents their suggestions to the EC for review. The suggested names must be accepted by the EC before invitations are issued.

Statement on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
(as adopted by the April 2019 Council)

The American Mathematical Society is committed to promoting and facilitating equity, diversity and inclusion throughout the mathematical sciences. For its own long-term prosperity as well as that of the public at large, our discipline must connect with and appropriately incorporate all sectors of society. We reaffirm the pledge in the AMS Mission Statement to "advance the status of the profession of mathematics, encouraging and facilitating full participation of all individuals," and urge all members to conduct their professional activities with this goal in mind.

Other Activities

Members are appointed by the President.

Miscellaneous Information

The Committee conducts its business by email and videoconference.

On 18 May 1984 (as reported in the November 1984 ECBT Minutes), the Executive Committee approved the following report of a subcommittee (P.R. Halmos and M. Hochster) of the EC.

COLLOQUIUM LECTURERS, GIBBS LECTURERS, PRIZE WINNERS

A report of a subcommittee of the EC

Certain of the Council's decisions (the selection of the Colloquium and Gibbs lectures and the selection of the recipients of the Society's prizes) have traditionally been delegated to special committees and then routinely approved by the EC. The procedure has not been totally satisfactory. (In most cases the EC gave rubber stamp approval, sometimes recommending committee didn't even produce its nominee's CV.)

As a compromise between, in effect, doing the work of the special committees (undesirable interference) and merely being informed of their decisions (insufficient supervision), the subcommittee recommends that the EC in the future use a system of combined input and pre approval, as follows:

The special committees should submit to the EC their semifinal short list of choices (ordinarily two or three names for each slot), together with a one page summary of the documentation justifying each name on the list, and to do so before receiving preliminary acceptance from the suggested nominees. The system should not be inflexible: if, for instance, the special committee feels strongly that there is a single obvious choice, it will suffice that that fact be communicated to the EC. For the Gibbs Lecturers, it would be desirable for the selection committee to provide some insight into the mathematical component of the proposed lecturers' work, not merely his credentials within his own area.

The EC may comment on each name (“acceptable”, “unacceptable”, “excellent”), and possibly even suggest another name or two for the special committee's consideration. The final choice is to be left to the special committee. The EC is to be informed of it, but need no longer approve it.

Note to the Chair

For the purpose of archiving the committee activities, the Secretary maintains a central file system for archiving committee records. Committee Chairs are asked to submit committee records on yearly basis. Chairs can submit material at their discretion, and some materials that they may wish to provide are meeting minutes, agenda, and emails. Confidential material should be noted, so that it can be handled in a confidential manner.

Authorization

Past Members

A list of current and past committee members is available here:
http://www.ams.org/about-us/governance/committees/colloqlect-past.html

Past Lectures

http://www.ams.org/meetings/lectures/meet-colloquium-lect