From the Chair

Laurie McNeil, Univ. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

It is my pleasure to address members of the Forum on Education (FEd) for the first time in my role as Chair. I do so a bit earlier than did my predecessors as a result of the change in the Forum’s bylaws that shifts the beginning of the terms of office for officers and members of the Executive Committee from April to January. That means that Larry Cain’s term as Chair lasted only eight months, but I am deeply grateful to him for his contributions to the Forum. I look forward to benefitting from his wise counsel during his (12-month!) term as Past Chair. Both of us would like to thank John Stewart (stepping down from the post of Past Chair) for his service during his four years as a FEd officer, in particular for his careful management of the revisions to the Forum’s bylaws.

The new year brings additional arrivals, changes, and departures among the FEd leadership. Jerry Feldman, formerly Vice Chair, has now become Chair-Elect for 2019. He will also serve as Program Chair for the FEd sessions at the 2020 March and April meetings, so please send him ideas for session themes and speakers relevant to education. In his place we welcome our new Vice-Chair for 2019, Catherine Crouch (Swarthmore College). Leaving the Executive Committee with our hearty thanks for their contributions are Luz Martinez-Miranda and Toni Sauncy. They will be replaced by Adrienne Traxler (Wright State Univ.) and Benjamin Dreyfus (George Mason Univ.), who will serve three-year terms as Member-at-Large and APS/AAPT Member-at-Large (respectively). For the first time we also welcome a Graduate Student Member-at-Large, Julian Gifford (Univ. of Colorado), whose term will be for two years. I appreciate the willingness to serve displayed by all of these colleagues and anticipate that the discussions at Executive Committee meetings in coming years will be lively and productive.

I would also like to thank Richard Steinberg for his three years as Editor of this newsletter. Our Forum's newsletter is the envy of other Forums and Richard leaves it in exemplary condition. Throughout his tenure he has carried out his tasks with professionalism, flexibility, attention to detail and good humor. We anticipate that our new Editor, Jennifer Doktor (Univ. of Wisconsin - La Crosse), will follow in Richard's footsteps and keep the newsletter at its current high standard. We welcome Jennifer and look forward to future newsletters bearing her imprint.

I am looking forward to the ceremonies at the March and April meetings at which the winners of APS Awards related to education will be honored. The 2019 Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory Instruction will be presented at the March meeting in Boston to Heather J. Lewandowski "for systematic and scholarly transformation of advanced laboratories in physics, for building leading assessment tools of laboratories, and for national service advancing our advanced laboratory educational community." (See below for an additional honor for Dr. Lewandowski.) She will speak about her work on Tuesday afternoon in an invited session entitled “Incorporating State-of-the-Art Research into Advanced Labs.” Also speaking in that session will be Benjamin Zwickl, Chad Hoyt, Sara Callori, and Joseph Kozminski. At the April meeting in Denver APS will honor the winners of the 2019 Excellence in Physics Education Award: Steven Pollock, Steven Iona, Laurie S. Langdon, Valerie K. Otero, and Richard McCray, "for the development of the Learning Assistant (LA) model and the associated LA Alliance, which has enhanced physics teacher education and recruitment, supported undergraduate course transformation, and physics instructor professional development." All the recipients except Dr. McCray will participate in two talks at an invited session on Tuesday afternoon entitled “The Learning Assistant Alliance.” They will be joined by Mel Sabella, who will present a third talk on Learning Assistants.

At both the March and April meetings there will be an Education and Diversity Reception at which we will honor the new APS Fellows nominated by the Forum: Diola Bagayoko (Southern University and A&M College), Amy L. R. Graves (Swarthmore College) and Heather Lewandowski (University of Colorado, Boulder). We hope to see you there!

As always, if you have any thoughts about what the Forum is doing (or should be doing) on behalf of physics education, please feel free to contact me or any of the members of the Executive Committee. And consider nominating a deserving colleague for one of the Awards mentioned above, or for APS Fellowship. We all know that recognition for excellence is a precious thing, and contributions to education are too often overlooked. Get in touch with me if you have a candidate in mind but are not sure how to navigate the APS nomination process.

I wish you a happy, healthy, and productive 2019!

Disclaimer – The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on Education Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.