You\u2019ve been invited to chair the plenary session at an academic conference. It is scheduled to take place at the top of the conference agenda, and will be a discussion of general issues, featuring prominent leaders in their respective fields of study (although they can also be scheduled at the end to announce specific topics). Plenary sessions are designed to offer a different format than the traditional \u201csingle or dual presenter with PowerPoint\u201d model, and have some specific requirements for the chairperson:<\/p>\n
With the larger audience of a general session, success comes in the form of judicious management of the panelists, the audience, and the time available. Your panelists may well be leaders in their respective fields, and audience members will be eager to hear their thoughts on the current state and future directions of those fields. As such, your job will be to ensure that questions are answered fully but briefly, and that off-topic deviations are kept to a minimum:<\/p>\n