_______________________________________________________________ AMS Special Sessions By Curtis Bennett and Frank Sottile Dept of Math Dept. of Math. Bowling Green State U University of Wisconsin Bowling Green, OH Madison, WIS 57306 cbennet@bgnet.bgsu.edu sottiile@math.wisc.edu Originally appeared as Item # 4 in *Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 3, Issue 35 Nov. 15, 1995 Last spring there was some discussion amongst the YMN Board concerning AMS special sessions and how speakers are chosen. The purpose of this article is to summarize this discussion and address the questions raised. The main views expressed are those of the authors and should not be assigned to the whole administrative board. Much of the information included below is in the Manual for Organizing Special Sessions sent out by the AMS to organizers of special sessions. Sessions at AMS Meetings The scientific program at AMS meetings has several components, typically invited addresses, special sessions, and contributed paper sessions. There is a real distinction between special sessions and contributed paper sessions. Every AMS member has the right to present a report of their research at AMS meetings, with obvious controls (no proofs that the Earth is flat). The contributed paper sessions provide such a forum. In a contributed paper session consisting of ten-minute talks (humorously referred to as speedmath sessions), such presentations are grouped together under the title of some subdiscipline of mathematics, e.g., Functional Analysis or Graph Theory and Combinatorics. We contrast these sessions with the special sessions, which are often organized around the invited addresses, the speakers are invited or at least their talks are refereed, and usually have a rather tight focus. How are special session topics and organizers chosen? Special sessions are essentially small research conferences that are piggybacked onto the AMS meetings. Sessions are usually organized around a single topic, often related to one of the invited addresses. Anyone can propose to organize a special session at an AMS meeting. Deadlines and other such details are published in the Notices. Theoretically the selection of the organizers (or chairpersons) and the topics of special sessions is the responsibility of the Committee to Select Hour Speakers (of the AMS) for the meeting in question. In practice, however, the job is done by the associate secretary in charge of the meeting. If volunteers come forward, usually the secretary is quite happy to draft them. According to one associate secretary, special sessions at section meetings are pretty much guaranteed to be accepted unless there is a conflict with an existing session. Furthermore it is not necessary to stick to oneUs own geographical section either. The January meetings, on the other hand, are a little more selective about special sessions. This is in part because there are far more proposals for special sessions and in part because of practical concerns about the number of sessions the meetings can accommodate. Organizing a session can be a valuable experience and a pain in the neck. In many respects it is easier than organizing a one-day or weekend conference; many details such as room availability, advertising, and the special needs of participants are done by the AMS staff. Also, since the AMS schedule calls for early organization, there are often few(er) last minute details which demand your attention. This means that the organizer can manage to attend most talks, often an impossibility at other conferences. Also, while there is no travel money to offer speakers, most mathematicians are aware of this and even though the meeting may be off of the beaten track, many will try and attend anyway. Some of the headaches of organizing a session concern making sure the speakers turn in their abstracts on time. Since the AMS requires abstracts about two and a half months in advance of the meeting and many speakers can only guess what results they may have to talk about that far ahead, many speakers will wait until the last moment to submit an abstract. As organizer, the job falls to you to remind speakers about the due dates for their abstracts. Another duty that falls to the organizer is choosing speakers and answering requests to be included in the conference. The positive side is that you can be sure that the people you really want to have speak get invited. On the other hand, you may find that there are more people that you want to invite (or who want to speak) than there are time slots. This can be kind of uncomfortable, although almost everybody is extremely understanding about this. How are special session speakers selected? The AMS Manual for Organizers lists five basic ways in which papers are selected. 1) The speaker is invited by the organizer 2) The speaker volunteers by submitting an abstract three weeks earlier than the final abstract deadline and requesting that it be considered by the organizer for inclusion in the session 3) The speaker volunteers by writing directly to the organizer 4) The organizer asks to see all abstracts with a given two-digit classification number and selects certain ones for the special session 5) After receiving all the abstracts, the associate secretary suggests by phone to the organizer that he or she might wish to include one or two particularly appropriate papers in his or her session. According to the AMS Manual, about 80% of the papers selected at all special sessions are chosen by method (1). About 5% of the papers are selected by each of the other methods. In fact it is not unusual for special session organizers to know exactly who they want before the session is even announced. Some of the editors of Concerns have found (3) to be a useful route to getting invited, when used in moderation. It is perfectly reasonable for the organizer to tell a volunteer that there is no room for them. It is also possible for the organizer to find themselves in a place where they will happily consider volunteers once they have heard back from several of the invitees. Often an organizer will invite people with the expectation that some will say no. Then, after a first wave, they may have more people to invite or they may wait to see who sees the announcement and wants to attend. If you are still a graduate student or if you only recently received your degree, you may wish to ask your advisor to approach the organizers. In general we would always recommend getting in touch with the organizers if you are interested in talking. Unfortunately organizers will also have to say no occasionally because your talk wonUt really fit the session or because of time constraints. Ideally the speakers at a session will span several mathematical generations, and even if you are unable to speak, there is a great deal to be gained by attending a special session in a field you are interested in. After all, the point of the meeting and the session is to bring people together to discuss mathematics. Some caveats about special sessions: For some reason (perhaps cultural) some fields of mathematics rarely have special sessions at AMS meetings. Other fields utilize this vehicle for many of their meetings. For this reason, the information in this article might not be as useful for some. The AMS is frequently looking for organizers of special sessions. So if you want to see a special session in your area, you should consider organizing one.