Department of Physics

University of WI-Whitewater

Meeting Minutes for November 5th meeting

 

I.          Attending:        R. Benjamin,  J. Constantinescu, G. Chulick, S. DasGupta,  L. Fohtung,

            P. Rybski, S. Sahyun

 

            Meeting called to order at 2:38 p.m.

 

II.        Benjamin/Constantinescu move to approve Minutes of October 15th meeting.  Approved as corrected.  Motion is passed on a voice vote.

 

III.       Announcements

 

            A.        Chair’s Announcements

 

                        1.         Staffing requests -- Dr. Abdelkrim Boukahil has officially been transferred to the Physics Dept., so no search will be done because our open position has been filled. 

                       

                        2.         SPS member Luma Fohtung will be attending our meetings as the Students Physics Society student representative.

                       

                        3.         Advising comments- Jessica Cole in the Registrar’s office needs to be contacted when we have something missing in the AR.  Many things were lost on the AR’s in the summer when Peoplesoft made changes on the system. Please make certain your students are taking as many Physics courses each semester as they are able to keep enrollment numbers up.

                       

                        4.         Writing Across the Curriculum meeting with faculty-George Savage and committee will be visiting later this month.

                       

                        5.         Science Alliance meeting- this meeting, held on the evening of October 28th and all day on October 29th was a great success.  Departmental thanks are extended to Benjamin and students H. Gneiser, L. Fohtung, J. Polak for their respective presentations on Oct. 28th and 29th. Departmental thanks are also extended to H. Ross and K. Loftus for organizing the event and to the alumni/attendees who participated without university compensation. The Alliance’s purpose is to raise funds for the equipment needs of the renovated Upham Hall as well as to provide input to improve our programs and information on current trends in industry to help us better prepare our students for the changing job market.

 

                        6.         Student teaching evaluation committee work ­ The College of Letters and Sciences wants to develop a uniform student teaching evaluation form for all departments to use. We currently use our own form developed in the mid-1990’s and modified subsequently to reflect best practice physics pedagogy.

 

                        7.         Administrative council meeting for November 3rd    Academy of the Future: To remain on the cutting edge in educational delivery, we need to plan proactively and across disciplines to keep up with trends in letters and science employment.  An example of such planning currently in progress is the planning for the Forensics Minor. Other examples might include programs in nanotechnology and in GIS/Space Science.  Rybski heads an ad hoc college committee on the Academy of the Future and has requested representatives for college departments.

 

            B.        Committee Reports

 

                        1.         Curriculum ­ This week’s meeting was cancelled.  However, there was an extensive discussion of problems and policies related to approval of courses by this committee, using the recent Forensics course as an example.

 

                        2.         Graduate Council - This committee met Thursday, Nov. 4th, with Benjamin attended. The Council’s actions this week was not relevant to Physics.

 

                        3.         SPS meeting ­ This week’s meeting was cancelled due to Dr. Howard’s

                                    visit.

 

                        4.         Disability Concerns Committee met today.  Sahyun reported on various

                                    issues presented.

 

Announcements from the Floor

 

                        1.         Dr. Ayanna Howard visited Whitewater on Monday, Nov. 1st, and gave an evening public presentation on the current Mars missions using robotic explorers, an afternoon physics colloquium on contemporary robotics and spoke to the Physics 170/410 and Math 471 classes about employment in physics and at NASA.  Overall attendance at the colloquium and public talks was satisfactory but could be improved.

 

                        2.         Physics alumnus and astrophysicist Dr. Pat Slane (Harvard/Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) presents a colloquium on Thursday, October 28th, on the physics of neutron stars.

 

                        3          Sahyun attended Radiation Safety Training workshop in Madison, Oct. 25th-29th, 2004.

 

                        4.         Sahyun attended the Poetry and Petri event sponsored by the College of Letters and Sciences on Saturday, Oct. 30th, 2004.

                                   

IV.       Old Business

 

            A.        Summer school planning for S2005 ­ Constantinescu will teach Astronomy 114  during the six-week session beginning June 13th, 2005.

 

            B.        Course rotation realignment ­ Sahyun distributed a proposal for future course rotation schedule. Extensive discussion ensued, and revisions were nearly completed (see attached schedule for the revised plan).  The course rotation presented here assumes some but not all of the curricular changes that have been discussed in these meetings since last fall.  These changes will require curricular changes to all physics major emphases.

 

            C.        Phase 2B space planning ­ In preparation for teaching our courses for Fall 2005 during the Phase 2B renovation, discussion ensued concerning space requirements as well as what equipment we will need to have available to teach the labs this coming fall.

 

            D.        Colloquium/Outreach Lecture schedule ­ Dr. Craig Heinke may give a physics colloquium in December.  Video presentations of Madison Physics Colloquia will also be scheduled for this semester.

 

            E.         The Self-Study Process ­ The university is carefully planning for the Higher Learning Commission’s accreditation review of UW-Whitewater in Spring 2006. All university departments have been asked to participate in a self-study, in part driven by the last Audit and Review report and also by progress since that report’s submission. This topic will be discussed at next meeting.

 

            F.         Benjamin reported he is working on a proposal to NSF, whose deadline is December 2nd, 2004, to fund the Department of Physics Curriculum Self-Study proposed last spring and begun this fall. 

           

V.        New Business

 

            A.        Rybski asked Benjamin to work with our curriculum committee representative

Sahyun and with Assistant Dean Larry Schuetz on curricular change in order to require our majors to complete an exit interview before being able to graduate.

 

VI.       Sahyun/Chulick moved to adjourn.  Motion passed and meeting adjourned at 4:25 p.m

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

Lynn Miller, Program Assistant

 

Xc:                   Chancellor Miller

                        Provost Telfer

                        Dean Ross

                        Dean Lee

                        University Archivist

 

Enclosure:       Course rotation schedule