Dear friends:

We are planning to hold departmental colloquia on Fridays this year. I would like to invite you to make suggestions of good speakers to invite for our colloquia.

Here are the possible dates for out-of-town speakers with one already claimed. Friday Sept. 23: open Friday Sept. 30: Paul Dawkins, Texas State University Friday  Oct. 14: open Friday  Oct. 28: open Friday  Nov.  4: open Friday  Nov. 18: open Friday  Dec.  2: open

There will also be special Math Education Seminars on Sat. Oct. 1. The Colloquium by Paul Dawkins is part of that activity.

For each of the above dates, the department has reserved lodging at a local hotel for Thursday and Friday nights. The usual schedule is that a speaker comes in Thursday and departs on Saturday. However, that schedule is somewhat flexible. The department pays out-of-town speakers travel expenses, lodging, a per diem for expenses, and a small honorarium.

In addition, the 7th Annual Meeting of SIAM Central States Section is being held at OSU on Saturday Oct. 1 to Sunday Oct. 2. That will be a busy math weekend in Stillwater. Please contact the co-chairs Xu Zhang and Xukai Yan for more info on those activities or go to the link    https://siamcss2022.okstate.edu/

In addition there are invitations being processed now, and so if you would like to invite someone, please check the schedule at https://www.mathdept.okstate.edu/announce/ and please send me an email about your proposed speaker and dates.

There is also a Physics Department Colloquium by a mathematician with expertise in Quantum Computing: Harry Buhrman, University of Amsterdam, Thursday August 25, in PS 110. That will count for our colloquium activity in the first week of term.

The other Fridays conflict with football game weekends, which make it nearly impossible to arrange lodging, and there are other inconveniences as well. However, we invite new faculty and postdoctoral faculty to consider offering general colloquia to introduce themselves and their subjects to the general department.

Please email me if you think you would like to give a colloquium. The possible dates are Friday Sept. 2 Friday Sept. 9 Friday Sept. 16 Friday Oct. 7 Friday Nov. 11 Friday Dec. 9

If a crusty old senior faculty member has a good idea for a colloquium, please consider volunteering as well.

Ideally, a colloquium talk should have value for every department member including undergraduate math majors, graduate students, and mathematicians in any field.  It is fair for a speaker to assume for half the talk that the audience knows basic abstract algebra, analysis, topology, differential equations, and other subjects of the level of first-year graduate mathematics. Anything specialized beyond that should be carefully introduced by the speaker. Usually the final 10 to 15 minutes offer a chance for the speaker to get to the meat of their subject and then they may make more demands of their audience. The normal time limit for our colloquium talk is 50 minutes, with 10 minutes after that for questions. A reception with refreshments will be held afterwards in the department lounge.  A colloquium visit can also include time for a seminar talk, in which the speaker can discuss deeper research matters. For that, it may be necessary to book an extra day of lodging.

Of course, we will have to be aware of how the pandemic is progressing, and there may be guidance about wearing masks, etc., as we move through the fall term.

Please think of someone to invite or invite yourself and send me an email. Best wishes, David Wright david.wright@okstate.edu