PLANNING GUIDELINES

While we don’t require formal proposals and requests for co-sponsorship, below are questions that often come up when discussing partnerships. We encourage potential partners to bring projects to us in the advanced stages of organization as well as new ideas that you would like to develop in collaboration with us.

Topic and Format

Can you provide a short paragraph describing the topic and activities you anticipate the program involving?

Date and Time

What date or dates are you proposing?

Participants and Collaborators

Do you have or are you seeking other partners at Duke or elsewhere? How do you envision everyone working together? Do other partnerships present any particular constraints or requirements? What is each partner contributing in terms of resources and participants?

Fit for Duke and the Forum

If you are proposing a visitor, how does the visitor’s work connect to scholarly projects at Duke? Are they comfortable engaging with a range of non-specialist scholars, professionals, and community members as part of their activities here? Are they comfortable speaking/writing in English? If not, what plans do you have for translation? (We have done several events involving translation, so this may be possible, but it needs to be discussed in advance.)

Possible Reach

How does the project connect to a non-specialist community and what are your thoughts about how to communicate with that community?

Potential Cost

What is the anticipated budget for the program?

Out-of-Box Thinking

Are you excited about the possibilities of unconventional formats and willing to engage in creative thinking about how to put your program together? We thrive on partnerships and brainstorming with colleagues about ways to do public scholarship in interesting and effective ways.