Yesterday, Indiana University Southeast was privileged to have Chelsea Clinton come and speak about her mother’s policies. I will say that Chelsea Clinton is a good speaker, she responded well to question, and she was informative. But now I have a long list of complaints about Hillary Clinton…

Just Joking! My political viewpoints are not necessary, but I would like to tell you that having a politician visit your university is very beneficial, even if you are not a supporter.

Indiana University Southeast is a fairly small university. Without a large sports team to rally around. It is sometimes difficult to get everyone together. Chelsea Clinton was able to get the largest turn out than any other campus event I have been to.

Student Organizations

If you are a part of a student organization, you should attempt to get external influential people to your campus. Not only should you attempt to get interesting people to your campus, you should also go to events that were put together by other student organizations, because promoting all campus organizations promotes your university and in return promotes your organization.

There are Many Interesting People

There are many interesting and famous people that you can get to visit your university; however, not everyone on campus is going to know them. If you get a physics professor from another university to come speak, you need to properly promote the event.

Sending out fliers is a great way to get the information out. On the flier the persons name may be the least important thing to put on the page. Putting the persons credentials may be more important. Having a mystery speaker may be an excellent way to create suspense and get a large crowd to show up.

How to Find People

How do you find people to speak? There are two places where you can easily find someone that can speak on the desired topic: the internet and your professors. If you begin your search on the internet you will probably find someone that can speak on the given topic. However, they probably live on the other side of the country or the other side of the ocean.

If you are going to search the internet and actually find someone that is willing to come and speak you must use the right search terms. The most important search term will be a city location. Use the largest city nearby, which may or may not be the city of your school.

Also realize that you may have to lower your standards. Doing a Google search and clicking on the first link on the list will probably get you a high quality speaker that has high expectations of money. You may need to go to the second and third pages of the search results. It’s ok if you don’t get the so called “best.”

Another good source to find a speaker is your professors. Your professors did go to grad school, and they probably have resources. Just ask. Professors aren’t as scary as you may think.

Using Your Professors

If all fails, then ask one of your professors to speak. Having a professor from your university speak may not be the best way to create hype, but they are qualified and it will still be an interesting presentation.

I know you probably clicked on this to read about Chelsea Clinton, but my political viewpoints are not as important as campus growth and involvement.