Sigma Xi Organized ‘Faculty-to-Faculty Chalk Talks’ (FFCTs)
A Novel Idea for Getting Scientists and Engineers Talking to Each Other

Goals
o Enable scientists and engineers to get to know each other
 (Will use ‘scientists’ below to signify both scientists and engineers)
o Meet new faculty
o Reacquaint with seasoned scientists that have new ideas/directions
o Enable scientists to:
 Communicate what they are doing at the conceptual level, without
the data and the details getting in the way
 New, exciting ideas, beyond the published
 Look for help in areas outside their expertise that are needed for
solving their problem, attacking their question at a different level
 Build teams of scientists to attack problems that require a multidisciplinary approach

Format
o Meet at lunchtime for 45 min
o Weekly, biweekly, or monthly
o Bring your own lunch (Everyone’s got to eat)
o Completely informal
o No slides, just concepts, drawings and jestures
o Talk for 30 min or less
o Questions, comments, suggestions any time
o Never meet for more than 50 min

Suggested points to cover
o What’s the problem you want to solve?
o Why is it important?
o How are you approaching it?
o What have you found that advances the field?
o What aspect of your work has the most potential?
o What collaborators have you found and how have they helped?
o What novel techniques/systems do you use?
o What questions are beyond your expertise but that you want to answer?
o What type of collaborators could help you?
o What kind of person/facility are we missing that would really help with your
project (others?)

Publicity
o The OSU Sigma Xi organizer will:
 Email an invitation listing all OSU science and engineering faculty
each week with the
 Scientist’s name, title of his/her talk, location, time
o Every faculty scientist and engineer on campus will be invited by email
 If you see a person or topic that interests you, go
o Scientists/engineers from one group can invite a scientist/engineer from
another group to talk at their FFCT

Organization
o The OSU Sigma Xi organizer will identify highly interactive scientists within
different units and ask them to:
 Poll their faculty to identify:
 Those interested in speaking
 Suggestions for who they would like to hear
o From their own division
o From elsewhere on campus
 New faculty who are not yet well-known
 Receive offers from scientists outside his/her unit to speak
 Offers will be routed through the OSU Sigma Xi organizer
 ‘I need help in biochemistry, so I want to talk to the biochem
group’
 Provide the OSU Sigma Xi organizer with
 Scientist/engineer’s name, title of his/her talk, location, time
 For distribution to all science and engineering faculty
 Book a conference room with a white board for drawing
 Introduce the speaker briefly, and the FFCT concept

The list of speakers and the titles of their talks will be maintained on the
OSU Sigma Xi website for:
o Future reference to identify potential collaborators
o Future invitations to your FFCT