From the Chair

John Stewart, West Virginia University

The March and April meetings have come and gone. The Forum on Education (FEd) presented a variety of sessions from those directed toward the Physics Education Research (PER) community in the Cutting Edge of Physics Education Research session, co-sponsored with GPER (the Topical Group on Physics Education Research) to a highly attended session directed to graduate students called How to Get a Job. Sessions also discussed teaching using 21st century physics and the skills required by 21st century physics students to be competitive in the job market.

One of my favorite sessions was the contributed session at the March meeting. This session featured a broad variety of educational projects including a model for a terminal masters program, teaching sustainability, and an experiment for the advanced lab course using a parametric oscillator. I would love to see more contributed talks at all meetings and remind everyone that you can contribute BOTH a scientific talk and a Forum on Education contributed talk to the same meeting. This is a great way to disseminate the broader impacts of funded research.

For the past two years, the FEd has sponsored sessions at the DAMOP meeting. These sessions were organized by Heather Lewandowski who has since rotated off the Executive Committee (ExComm). These sessions were extremely popular. If any FEd member would be willing to continue these sessions, please contact me.

FEd membership has been falling slowly for the last few years as new forums are created. Other forums have also implemented innovative ways to increase membership. It is my hope that a dedicated committee on membership will change this trend and increase membership. While the number of members does not affect the financial resources of a forum, the structure of the APS makes it difficult for a forum to communicate with non-members; therefore, the size of the forum restricts the number of APS members who receive information about education from the FEd. Increasing membership increases the FEd’s voice.

During each April meeting the APS office of Education and Diversity, the Forum on Education, the Committee on Minorities (COM), and the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) host the Education and Diversity Reception. Education award winners and new FEd fellows are recognized at the reception. This event gives APS members working for improved education and diversity a chance to gather and celebrate the year’s successes. As a pilot project, this event will be extended at the March meeting next year. While the FEd’s budget is tight, we are always looking for events that bring together APS members dedicated to advancing education.

The APS has asked all units to revisit their bylaws to ensure they conform to the new governance structure. They also suggest that an executive committee member be dedicated to unit membership and that all units have a graduate student member. It has also been suggested that the roles of members-at-large be better defined so candidates have a better idea to what they are committing. Tim Seltzer (Past Chair) began the process at the ExComm meeting in January. I will begin the discussion of changes this summer with the following proposals. Any member who has opinions about these proposals should let me know. My proposed bylaw changes:

• Revise bylaws to conform to changes in APS governance structure.
• Change the beginning of officer terms to January 1st (approved).
• Add a graduate student ExComm member to serve a 2 year term. This member would have travel funded for the ExComm meeting like any other member.
• Create a membership committee with the Forum Chair as the chair of the committee. Currently the primary role of increasing membership falls to the program chair who also has the most challenging ExComm assignment. Reversing the declining membership trends will require the creative, extended efforts of more than one person.
• Formalize Member-at-Large roles. As a starting suggestion, have Members at Large take on a sequence of roles just like ExComm members in the Chair line, but in reverse order. Members at Large would be on the awards committees their first year, the program committee the second year, and the nominating committee the third year. All would serve on the new membership committee in their second and third years. It would be difficult for the new graduate student member to contribute to the awards or nominating committees, so I suggest they be dedicated members of the membership and program committee.

Once again, these are my beginning discussion points which I expect to be substantially modified before incorporation into the bylaws. I hope we can complete the discussions this summer for a vote on updated bylaws in the fall.

Hope all had a successful semester and that we see many FEd members at the AAPT meeting this summer.

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.