Some universities require faculty sponsors for clubs. But even if yours doesn’t, getting a faculty advisor can be a really great opportunity for starting and strengthening your relationships with academics within your group. This is a pretty quick & effective way for your club to gain legitimacy within the administrative system — having faculty at your back can make quite a few things easier.

Who should you reach out to?

If you or your co-organizers already have a good relationship with an academic, you can ask them first. Otherwise, try professors of related topics — statistics, political science, business, economics, philosophy, and finance are usually good bets.

How should you reach out to them?

Email works great! Here are some extra tips on emailing effectively: How to: do email effectively

For this email, you can state that you’d like to start a forecasting club (with a brief description of what forecasting is), and ask for an in-person meeting. At the meeting, make it clear what you want them to do: it might just be to sign some documents, or you might like them to be an advisor. Regardless, know what your “ask” is, and make sure it’s clear. Have a concise explanation of forecasting & prediction markets prepared and be ready to explain what your club will do. (You can also do the last few sentences over email, but it can be nice to begin a relationship with a professor by having an in-person conversation.)

If possible, have an organizer who is studying the academic’s subject reach out. Note that academics tend to look unfavorably at people misunderstanding or misusing concepts from their field.

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Note: if you encounter a professor who is particularly excited about learning more about forecasting, proactively sharing forecasting resources in their class (e.g. mentioning Metaculus in their class, or recommending forecasting books or content), etc — Reach out ! Give us a bit of background info, like a brief description of the professor, what they teach, etc. Thank you!

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