Getting a guest to speak at my college

Jinnigan

I am on a quest!

I am on a quest to have Tim Wise, a man who cares about such things as white priviledge, anti-racism, and discrimination, to speak at Drexel University.

I have no idea how to go about this.

I've contacted him about this, and he says -

I'd love to speak at Drexel, though my spring schedule is pretty full...maybe sometime in the fall?

Let me know. My fee is flexible, but in the fall will generally be running about $5000 plus travel.

Okay, fair enough.

My first thoughts -

I'll probably need to establish that the Drexel student body is interested in this. I'm not entirely sure how to go about this - field surveys never seemed very accurate to me.

I'm going to get in touch with several professors of mine and ask them about it - I'm sure they'll know more specifics than I do.

Uhh

Any tips, thoughts, suggestions, etc are welcome - I've really never been involved in anything like this at all, so even obvious stuff will be appreciated.

Food?

Well one of the hardest parts seems to be done - you've reached him and he's expressed interest. Next, I assume, you'd have to contact the person in charge of scheduling events for your universities theater or wherever he'd speak. Find out some dates that are open, send them to Tim, and he'll get back to you with which ones he can attend. Then you gotta come up with the money.

Usually there's an organization at your university that handles all of this.

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot

Make sure he knows how to speak well, and to speak to the group you are aiming that! That seems a given from looking at his site, but it's always best to make sure that the students will be interested in someone of his speaking style.

Thanatos

I don't know about other schools, but my school had a committee of people who selected and hired speakers to come. Find out if your school has a group like that.