IB SEMINAR POLICY

Seminars are scheduled for Monday afternoons at 3pm. With this schedule, IB will have about 28 speakers a year including 1 slot reserved for the EEB graduate students and 1 slot reserved for PB graduate students (Competitions for these slots are administered through the graduate program.), and 1 slot reserved for the Jean Andrews speaker. During years of faculty recruitments some slots will be used for prospective hires.

Below is a synopsis of how to go about inviting a speaker and what the constraints are.

1) You do not need prior approval to submit a request to invite a speaker. However, you need to be aware that IB will not normally pay for international travel (see Point 5 below). Also, when inviting speakers, please be aware that visa holders are not allowed to work for a company other than their petitioning employer, even if the work is unpaid, they could lose their visa status. 

2) Go to the IB homepage https://integrativebio.utexas.edu/ and click on “Seminars”, then advance through the months to search for an open date and, if your speaker is agreeable to that date, under Resources choose “Request a Seminar Speaker” to submit your request. You will receive confirmation from an IB staff member confirming the date has been reserved into the calendar.   In the event there are multiple requests for the same date the default will be to the first submitted request.

3) Every faculty member is given one invitation. If all faculty members try to participate, this will work out to approximately one invitation per faculty member every two years. 

4) We will reimburse travel costs based on the following assumed standard schedule:

• The speaker arrives Sunday afternoon/evening. We will cover dinner and lodging for Sunday night.
• On Monday, the speaker has lunch with graduate students. The IB office will order lunch to be delivered to PAT 142 around noon. The graduate-student lunch is limited to 10 - 15 graduate students.
• The seminar is on Monday at 3pm in MBB 1.210.
• We will cover dinner Monday evening for three faculty plus speaker and a second night of lodging.
• The speaker leaves Tuesday afternoon. 

Note: Because lodging is reserved in advance requesting additional periods of stay during the visit is prohibited. 

5) Other logistics issues, expense limitations, etc.:

• An IB staff member will handle booking flights and lodging for all speakers.
• The faculty host is responsible for setting up the speaker’s schedule, zoom links/recording, and getting the speaker to and from the airport.
• The budget limit for each dinner is $200 total. Please note that according to UT regulations, dinner cannot cost more than $75 per person and alcohol cannot comprise more than 50% of the bill. Gratuity is calculated at 20% of the subtotal (not the total).
• We will typically only reimburse domestic flights up to ($500) to and from Austin, coach fare. Invitations need to be made well in advance (at the absolute minimum 3 weeks before the seminar), so that reasonable airfare can be found.  
• Should speakers have to rebook their travel schedule or stay an extra day due to unforeseen circumstances outside their control, such as inclement weather, IB will normally cover the additional expenses.
• The same reimbursement rules will apply to the IB and the PB seminars (except the Jean Andrews seminar, which has a separate budget).
• Any exceptions from the typical seminar schedule (e.g., international travel) require prior approval by the IB Chair.