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.