Graduate Education in Physics: Which way forward?

American Physical Society, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports a two-day conference to focus national attention on current issues in graduate education in physics. The conference is organized jointly by the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers. The conference will take place at the American Center for Physics in College Park, MD in Summer 2007, and will bring together about 100 participants including those in a position to implement changes and those in a position to provide informed recommendations for change. The conference is motivated partly by the recent report of the APS-AAPT Task Force on Graduate Education in Physics [1], which indicates that present programs and curricula are largely static and that best practices are not readily shared. Student awareness and preparation for non-academic positions, and in particular industrial positions, must be improved. Other issues looming large for physics graduate programs that wish to remain healthy and competitive internationally include attention to their graduates' communication skills and ethics education, and to the promotion of diversity in order to attract the necessary talent to physics. The conference will serve to focus the attention of the physics community on graduate education, so that graduate preparation in physics can continue to remain competitive world-wide. The conference will also provide an opportunity to find ways that best practices can be identified, adapted, and implemented in a department within its local constraints. New ideas and directions are expected to emerge, and action plans will be developed within the community to pursue these initiatives. This award is supported by the Physics Division, the Division of Materials Research, and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate, as well as the Division of Graduate Education in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources.