Guidelines for Guest Lecturer Series

 

Project: Center for Policy and Human Development Program: Capacity Building
Program: Capacity Building
   

The Guest Lecturer Series of CPHD will present respected and renowned national and international experts, academics and practitioners to speak about a specific topic related to their field of expertise. CPHD will invite or accept the requests from these speakers to share their knowledge and working experience with the audience.

To assure the quality of Guest Lecturer Series is represented at a respectable academic level and to ensure the relevance of Guest Lecture’s contents to the Afghan context; CPHD would like to present the following guest lecture series guidelines. These guidelines have been developed to facilitate the smooth and timely delivery of lectures from both the administrative and facilitation points of views.

Purpose of Guest Lectures: The purpose of CPHD’s guest lecture series is to invite Afghan and international experts to speak about a specific topic of their expertise; mostly related to Human Development or at least have an association with Human Development concept. The concept of Human Development is to cover a wide range of social, economic, political, and cultural and health related aspects of lives, therefore the speakers are encouraged to provide a conceptual and practical linkage between their field of expertise and human development. In addition, speaking about their own research and practical experiences, the guest lecturers are strongly recommended to conclude the lectures with policy recommendations based on their academic and practical experiences. CPHD structured the outline of its guest lecture series as an approach for strengthening and promoting the culture of constructive discussions and dialogues in an academic environment.

Objectives of Guest Lecturer Series:

   1. To promote Human Development awareness and concepts in the academic institutions of Afghanistan.

   2. To enhance the knowledge of the audience of their relevant professional fields.

   3. To promote the awareness and thus the culture of constructive dialogues and discussions within the academic institutions of Afghanistan.

   4. Providing opportunity for the international experts to enhance their familiarity and understanding about Afghanistan’s ground realities especially in their fields of expertise.

   5. To provide Kabul University students with opportunities to listen and to participate in high level discussions that could potentially influence their future.

Speakers:

1. International experts to deliver lectures in particular areas of their expertise. 2. External experts on visits to Afghanistan may be invited.

Participants/ Audience of Guest Lectures: In addition to Kabul University lecturers and students, CPHD is committed to welcoming people from various governmental and non-governmental agencies, public and private academic institutions, national and international research institutes, and private sector agencies to the lectures. For the identification of and to ensure that the guest lecturers’ primary stakeholders are primary audience of each event, CPHD would request each guest lecturer to provide their assistance in this regard by submitting timely written lists of desirable invitees.

Guest Lecture Content

Guest Lecture Format:

The following sessions are included in the guest lecture outline;

Opening Speech: Since CPHD is stationed inside Kabul University campus, therefore, a representative of Kabul University administrative team will open each lecture with a five minutes opening speech.

Brief description of the guest lecturer: A ten minutes brief introduction of the guest lecturer and his academic and practical endeavors will be presented to the audience by the moderator of the program. Research activities of the lecturer; if any, will also be presented briefly to the audience.

Lecture: The speaker will present his/her lecture within the time span of 45-60 minutes. CPHD will provide audio and visual equipment; needed for the lecture, such as laptop, projector, and sound system to facilitate the event.

Question and Answer Session: The lecture will be followed by 40-45 minutes of “Q and A” session. The audience will have three minutes for both questions and discussion. The role of the program facilitator is to take track of time and fulfill the duty of a moderator.

Conclusion: The facilitator of the program will conclude the event with a brief expression of gratitude to both speaker and audience for attending.

Informal Discussion Session: As a response to audience interest, in-depth discussion with the speaker; with the consent of the speaker, could continue after the conclusion of the event.

Schedule of Guest Lecturers: In each quarter three to four guest lectures will be arranged and conducted by CPHD. The guest lectures are planned to be held on Wednesdays afternoons from 14:00- 16:00.

Procedure: The guest lecturer must submit a brief description of the lecture’s contents along with his/her biography to the Research and Capacity Building Officer of the CPHD, who will review the contents and set the date of the lecture. Following that, the activities listed below would be conducted by CPHD:

    §   Confirmation of the time and date of the lecture by the speaker;

    §   Announcement and call for registration;

    §   Informing Kabul University of the date and contents of the lecture;

    §   Flyer produced and distributed identifying the speaker and the theme of the lecture;

    §   Prior to the lecture, the lecturer need to provide a two or three pages of concept paper about the lecture to CPHD;