American studies professor Jay Mechling says some of his best titles have come to him while he's swimming or taking a shower. Dan Cristol , a former UC Davis postdoctoral researcher who now teaches biology at William and Mary College in Virginia, says a good seminar name can live on well past the talk itself.
Dull titles are a complete loss.
Not for Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning, who has written entire newspaper columns lampooning particularly soporific names of campus seminars. The beer speaker, food science and technology professor Charles Bamforth, was entertaining, Dunning says. No free beer though, no beer you could even buy. We didn't even get to look at it. It was totally false advertising.