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There’s a good short post up at the law blog The Volokh Conspiracy on the do’s and don’ts of bringing a speaker to campus. (It’s intended for Federalist Society clubs, but most of the advice is universal.)
Here’s the meat of it:
Debates seem to get more of a turnout than lectures.
If you can’t set up a head-to-head debate, set up a two-person panel, or a talk-plus-commentary.
Events that involve a local professor — a debate, a panel, or even the professor’s just introducing a guest speaker — will probably get more of a turnout.
Publicize, publicize, publicize, using all the tools at your disposal — e-mail, flyers in mailboxes, postings on bulletin boards, postings on class chalkboards, if your school allows that, and whatever else you can think of.
For topics, the usual sexy ones are good: affirmative action, gun control, abortion, church-state separation, campaign finance, and the like. Other topics can work as well, especially if you can find a well-known visitor. But generally speaking the old standards work well.
If you want to bring in a relatively prominent speaker from out of town, offer to coordinate with other chapters in your city, so that the speaker can give several talks on one trip.
Provide lunch — the better, the better.
June 4 update: Although it wasn’t the point of this post, I should probably mention that I’m available for campus speaking engagements myself.
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