FEd August 1995 Newsletter - Sidebar: Get Involved! - How You Can Help
FORUM ON EDUCATION
August
1995
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Sidebar:
Get Involved! - How You Can Help
Here are some suggestions as to activities that industrial and academic
researchers could participate in to support the efforts of
the TYC21 program.
Industrial scientists:
Make contact with TYC physics faculty to discuss the establishment of
linkages between the TYC and your company. For example:
- Offer to provide a site for a regional TYC21 meeting. Encourage attendance
by interested industrial physicists and offer a tour of the facilities.
The TYC21 program will run the meeting, so this is not a time consuming
commitment.
- Investigate utilizing TYC know-how in technical courses offered to
employees. For example, David Hata, full time faculty member and Department
Head of Microelectronics Technology at Portland Community College (Portland,
OR) also has an office at the INTEL Corporation site where he provides
training in microelectronics to INTEL employees.
- Investigate the possibility of activity or employment of interested
TYC faculty during the summers as researchers.
- Offer to be a resource for career advisement for students interested
in employment in technical fields.
Academic researchers:
Many of the suggestions made above for industrial physicists are relevant.
In addition:
- Extend invitations to colloquia to TYC faculty. Welcome and introduce
attendees from the TYCs to your colleagues.
- Involve TYC faculty and students in activities of local and national
student organizations, such as the Society of Physics Students. If chapters
exist at both the TYC and the university, encourage joint activities
and support each other's initiatives.
- Colleges with undergraduate research institutional grants could extend
research opportunities to TYC students or recent graduates.
- Offer the resources of your upper-level laboratories to interested
students. As an example of one successful program, Jerry Duggan and Jim
Sybert of the University of North Texas presently have a curriculum grant
where students from smaller colleges and particularly TYCs are invited
for an afternoon, a whole day or a whole weekend, to conduct specially
prepared modern physics laboratories.
- Support the establishment of scholarships for students transferring
from TYCs. Universities frequently offer sizable scholarships to entering
freshmen but few are offered at the sophomore/junior level for TYC student
transfers. Just as with the relationship built between undergraduate
schools and graduate recruiting, a strong relationship with TYC faculty
will help identify promising students. The large proportion of women
and minorities that take their introductory physics courses at TYCs makes
this an excellent place to improve the recruitment and retention of underrepresented
persons in physics.
If you would like information on how to contact the regional coordinator
in your area, contact
- Mary Beth Monroe
- (Dept. of Physics, Southwest Texas Junior College, Uvalde, TX 7880,
phone (210) 278-4401, e-mail: mbm3@aip.org.)
- Karen Castle
- (TYC21 Project Manager, AAPT, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD
20740-3845; phone 301-209-3300, e-mail: kcastle@aapt.acp.org.)
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