Panel discussions are among the most exciting things one can look up to at a university event. Whether you are one of the panelists, the moderator or even part of the audience, there is something that speaks to everyone in a panel discussion. What makes these kinds of discussions much more interesting and alluring than ordinary ones has a lot to do with the speakers you have on your panel.
Your panel moderator also plays a very important role. A panel moderator who does not quite catch the rhythm of an ongoing discussion can pull down the energy of the room. On the other hand, when you have a moderator who knows what they are doing, someone who intuitively knows when to either stop or sustain a conversation, is a value addition to the expert panel.
If you have ever organized or sat through a university panel, you already know which of the two does a better job in engaging the audience. And the difference between the two in a university panel discussion almost never comes down to the topic. It comes down to the decisions that you make, sometimes even before the expert panel even begins. If you are putting together a university panel discussion and wondering where to start, or more likely what not to do, you are in the right place.
Picking Your People For The Panel Discussion
Let us start with the most common mistake that event organizers make when hosting a university panel discussion. They resort to assembling a conference panel that is almost entirely based on who is available at the given point in time, or who has the most impressive title of them all.
But the issue herein is that a professor with a distinguished publication record who doesn’t have assertive qualities is simply going to kill the very purpose of a panel discussion. You will see the energy draining out of the room in only a few minutes because the conference panel just sounds like an ordinary conversation. It sounds like a rehearsed oratory. There is no spontaneity and zero rebuttals to look forward to for the audience.
While we value the designations and track records held by distinguished professionals and industry experts, prestige is not the same as perspective. A conference panel where everyone simply agrees on everything is really just a very expensive lecture with extra chairs.
The goal to have when building your speaker lineup is to find people who truly see the topic differently and not just people who come from different departments or institutions. Ask yourself honestly whether any two of your panelists would push back on each other if given the chance. If the answer is no, your conference panel needs a revamping.
A Good Orator vs An Alluring Panelist
One more thing that tends to get overlooked is that being a brilliant thinker and being a good panel speaker are entirely different skills. Some of the most intellectually formidable people
in any field trail off mid-sentence, speak exclusively in 20-minute monologues and look at interruption as a personal insult. Inviting someone to share a stage is different from inviting them to deliver a speech and it is worth being honest about that distinction before you extend the invitation.
Your Panel Moderator Is Not Merely a Timekeeper
They are the whole show.
This is something that university panel discussions consistently get wrong and keep getting wrong year after year. The panel moderator is not a neutral referee whose job is to give everyone equal time and stay out of the way. A good moderator is an active decision maker who does a phenomenal job at engaging the audience. They:
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- Direct the conversation in real time
- Cut off a speaker who is circling the same point for the third time
- Redirect a question that is going nowhere
- Know when to lean into a disagreement rather than smooth it over
This kind of moderation does not come about naturally and purely out of spontaneity. Rather, it comes about when someone has done the homework. It means your moderator has spent time and effort into preparation, sometimes long, tiring hours, despite being an expert in the field.
A moderator that is worth having will put aside their qualifications and will have read what the panelists have written. They will identify where their real disagreements sit and then build a set of questions that is open-ended. It cannot be answered with a simple yes or a no. The best follow-up questions are rarely scripted because they come from actually listening attentively. But having solid questions in reserve means your moderator is never scrambling when a thread runs dry.
Stop Treating the Panel Audience Like Mere Spectators
University panels have a long and slightly embarrassing tradition of treating audience questions like an afterthought. You know the format. 90 minutes of speakers talking in the room, followed by a breathless 10-minute window at the end where three or four audience members get to ask something before the event runs over time. What this tells the audience, whether you mean it to or not, is that they are there to observe and applaud rather than for it to actually be an interactive panel.
The better approach is to involve the audience in the conversation from the start rather than asking them at the end. Some of the most interesting questions come from students who heard something in the first half an hour that they wanted to push back on, but whose interest fades by the time the floor opens.
Opening the question process in stages or even using tools like live polling and anonymous digital submissions gives far more people a genuine way into the conversation and produces a much wider range of questions than the standard hand-raising format ever does. It also helps to spend one sentence at the top of the event telling people what a good question actually looks like.
Prompting them to make their questions specific and grounded in their own experience, rather than broad and philosophical, produces noticeably better results. A small nudge at the right moment goes a long way and the quality of an interactive panel’s Q&A can change entirely because of it. Get the people’s side of the equation right.
The Panel Ends but The Work Does Not
Closing remarks and a round of applause are not the end of a university panel discussion. They are simply the end of the event and these are two very different things. If the panel discussion was worth having in the room, it is also worth extending beyond it. This demands a little intentional effort.
Following up with your panelists is also equally worth the time. Asking what they wished they had been asked, what they would have said differently or where they see the conversation going next truly helps. It allows youto build relationships that make future events easier to put together. Universities that treat each panel as a one-off thing generally have to start from scratch each time over. But when you treat it as an ongoing relationship, your university panel discussion builds networks that sustain themselves.
Try Dryfta For Your Next Panel Event
To get all of this right, from the speaker selection to the follow-up email, takes time, effort and coordination. A hell lot of that. This is the kind of coordination that most university departments expect until they find themselves in the thick of it and wish they had more resources, time or manpower. But this becomes considerably less stressful when the right tools have your back. This is where Dryfta comes in.
Dryfta is an event management platform built specifically for academic and professional events. Our purpose-built software is capable of handling everything that overwhelms you, be it speaker management, attendee registration and even the live Q&A sessions. If you are planning a panel discussion, a seminar series or even a full-fledged academic conference this year, visit our website to see how it can support your next event. You can also opt for a demonstration of Dryfta’s features every week, completely free of cost.