INTRODUCTION TO PROPOSAL TITLED
Scientific Signature Programs
as Vehicles for
Departmental Improvement
Proposal submitted to W. M. Keck Foundation, Los Angeles, CA, September, 2001; awarded in January, 2002.
During the past fifteen years, signature programs in laser and computational physics have played an indispensible role in the development of the Department of Physics at Lawrence University. Signature programs have contributed to the expansion and strengthening of the Department's undertakings, to the growth of institutional and departmental pride in the Department's accomplishments, and to the Department's increasing stature among small physics departments nationally. These programs have also been important in the recruitment of strong physics students; they have helped us double the number of physics graduates from five per year prior to 1990 to ten per year after 1990. More than half of these graduates pursue advanced degrees in science or engineering.
In combination with a five-year departmental initiative focussing on faculty and student/faculty research, these programs have generated $1.5M in grant support designated specifically for physics. As a result, we have enhanced our curriculum, increased departmental esprit, and attracted national attention to our program. Faculty and student/faculty research has increased sharply, and articles in professional journals (often with student coauthors) and invited presentations at national meetings now occur with regularity. With the recent completion of a major renovation and expansion of the spaces devoted to physics, the Department is poised to take the next step towards attaining its goal of becoming one of the premier collegiate physics departments in the country.
While the Department has grown in size and stature in recent years, it believes that it has yet to tap the full potential of its signature programs; it has also come to believe that similar programs elsewhere could serve as valuable vehicles for the revitalization of physics departments. This proposal therefore seeks support for a four-year project to create a new signature program in surface physics at Lawrence, enhance and expand our existing signature programs in laser and computational physics, and promote the concept and potential of signature programs nationwide. The Department is experienced in conducting projects of the sort proposed. The total budget is $656,483 ($474,483 for equipment, $152,000 for staff support, $30,000 for dissemination; $499,483 requested from the W. M. Keck Foundation, $157,000 from Lawrence University).
Founded in 1847 and located in Appleton, Wisconsin, Lawrence University---a private, coeducational liberal arts college of 1300 students---provides an optimal setting for the proposed project. Lawrence's endowment totalled $176M as of 30 June 2001. A student-faculty ratio of 11:1 fosters personalized teaching and responsiveness to individual student needs. Small classes, specialized tutorials, and faculty-student collaboration in research characterize the Lawrence program. The Department of Physics has five faculty members; their work is supported by an electronics technician and a part-time machinist.
Lawrence University seeks support from the W. M. Keck Foundation to strengthen its physics program and to assist in the revitalization of undergraduate science instruction nationally. Signature programs---showcase teaching endeavors that lend distinctiveness to a department and provide powerful catalysts to strengthen science education---will serve as the primary vehicles for pursuing these purposes. In the past fifteen years, signature programs in physics at Lawrence have transformed a good physics program into an exceptional one. These advances have been supported by $1.5M of funding from the W. M. Keck Foundation, Research Corporation, the National Science Foundation, the Petroleum Research Fund, the Department of Energy, the Exxon Educational Foundation, and other donors.
Investments by Lawrence in the form of matching grants, startup funds, new and renovated facilities, and increased staffing have played an equally pivotal role in realizing improvements. In the past fifteen years, these investments on behalf of physics have exceeded $5M, a figure that includes approximately $1M of new physics facilities within Science Hall (an $18.1M building designed by Ellenzweig Associates and dedicated in October, 2000) and $2M of reconfigured and expanded physics spaces within Youngchild Hall (a $10M renovation completed in September, 2001). The resulting totality of improvements to the physics program, while too numerous to discuss here, are described in past reports to the W. M. Keck Foundation [``Integrating Scientific Computer Workstations into the Physics Curriculum,'' Grant #880969 (June, 1988); ``Preparing Physics Majors for a Capstone Experience,'' Grant #931348 (December, 1993).] and Research Corporation [``A Final Report to Research Corporation Regarding a Departmental Development Program in Physics at Lawrence University,'' (August 31, 1999)]. in Michael Doyle's book, Academic Excellence, and in presentations by Professors John R. Brandenberger and/or David M. Cook at various recent AIP/APS/AAPT/PKAL conferences. The sidebar, ``An Undergraduate Physics Success Story,'' which appears in the April, 2001, issue of Physics Today, informs the U.S. physics community of these developments.
The Department of Physics at Lawrence now wishes to take its program to a higher level and to promote signature programs nationally as generators of departmental vitality and improvement. Signature programs are innovative, high-visibility teaching efforts that focus on contemporary topics taught in well-equipped signature laboratories specifically designed and equipped for these programs. Because of their pedagogic dimensions, they are not identical to faculty research, but the two are strongly coupled. Signature programs affect the total departmental program in various ways: they generate specialty courses that lend distinctiveness to a department; they intensify student/faculty interaction and increase the drawing power of a department; they foster departmental pride; they support student projects at several levels; they increase departmental holdings of up-to-date equipment; and---perhaps most important for the long-range future of a department and of physics programs nationally---they can serve as staging areas for the active recruitment of science students.
Physics at Lawrence has benefitted immensely from two such programs in recent years, but we believe that we have yet to tap their full potential. For this reason, we wish both to create a new signature program in surface physics and to expand our existing programs in laser and computational physics. Then, believing that signature programs can produce salutary effects in any department and that signature programs can contribute nationally to a revitalization of undergraduate science instruction, we wish to promote this approach to science educators nationwide.
Fifteen years ago, Professors Brandenberger and Cook launched signature programs in laser and computational physics. With help from the W. M. Keck Foundation and other sources, we built a Laser Physics Laboratory (LPL) and a Computational Physics Laboratory (CPL), two showcase facilities equipped with $500K of research-grade hardware. Professors Brandenberger and Cook promoted the inclusion of these topics in undergraduate physics nationwide by developing instructional materials, holding on-campus workshops and conferences for interested faculty members from other institutions, and distributing reports to all departments offering undergraduate degrees in physics. They also began using signature programs to recruit strong high school seniors interested in physics. The ten or so physics recruits who, as a result, matriculate each year at Lawrence have become NSF, Rhodes, Wriston, Hertz, Goldwater, NRC, and Luce scholars, assistant professors at various institutions, and admittees to graduate programs at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Cal Tech, MIT, Oxford, UC-Berkeley, Cornell, UT-Austin, UW-Madison, and the University of Chicago (among others). During the past decade, more than half of our ten physics graduates per year have pursued doctoral work in physics. [The Rhodes scholar is a member of the class of 1992 and was attracted to Lawrence by our recruitment program. In that same class of about 270 graduates, three of the four individuals who graduated summa cum laude were physics majors, two of them directly recruited by the Department of Physics. Yet another member of the class of '92, who graduated with a self-designed major in history of science (with substantial amounts of physics) received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, as have physics graduates in the classes of 1998, 2000, and 2001. The number of physics students elected to Phi Beta Kappa in the past few years has constituted a near majority of the electees.]
In short, we believe that we have discovered an approach to science education that can revitalize departments and provide students with skills and greater access to contemporary physics. We now want to take another step: Professor Jeffrey A. Collett will develop a signature program that focusses on surface physics while Professors Cook and Brandenberger will expand their programs in laser and computational physics. To increase the impact of these programs, we propose to revise our curriculum so that virtually all physics students at Lawrence encounter signature programs early and often in their college careers. Three signature areas will raise physics at Lawrence to a new level, move the Department closer to its goal of becoming a premier small physics department, and strengthen its efforts to export the concept of signature programs to other undergraduate institutions.
Lawrence University respectfully requests the directors of the W. M. Keck Foundation to provide a grant of $499,483 to support this initiative to develop and enhance the three model signature programs in physics at Lawrence and to export the benefits of these programs to the wider educational community for the enhancement of undergraduate science education.
Our recruitment effort, which owes its existence to signature programs, has had major impact on the vitality of our overall program. Annually since 1987, we have invited 30--40 exceptional high school seniors from all over the country to attend weekend-long workshops. Attracting these potential physics majors with our unique signature facilities, we challenge their scientific interests. Thirty percent of the participants in these workshops matriculate at Lawrence each year, and the average number of physics graduates per year has increased sharply from about five before 1990 to an average of ten in the years since 1990. Because the quality of these recruits is very high, we have been able to increase the rigor and professionalism of our program, which in turn has prompted increasing numbers ofgraduates---six or seven per year during the past decade---to pursue the doctorate.
Signature programs have also strengthened our curriculum and expanded the opportunities for students to undertake projects and/or collaborate with faculty members in research. Two major pilot programs involving laser and computational physics have brought new dimensions to our program, raised the sophistication of our students, enriched holdings of equipment in the Department, and incubated curricular elements adopted elsewhere. In addition, we have incorporated new apparatus and intuition building into our introductory curriculum. In support of these activities, the Department received four NSF ILI equipment grants, major grants from the W. M. Keck Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the General Electric Foundation, and support from various corporations. Our efforts to promote laser and computational physics produced NSF grants to underwrite workshops for visiting faculty, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grants for national conferences, and an NSF grant to support Professor Cook's writing of a major new book on using computers in the undergraduate physics curriculum.
The Department has also increased the scholarly output of its faculty and increased student research. Since 1989, seven papers (four with student coauthors) have appeared in the Physical Review, six in Computers in Physics, two in Annals of Science, one in Optics Communications (the lead author in this case was a student), and one in Historica Mathematica. During the same period, the Department produced over thirty-five abstracts (seventeen with student co-authors) for talks delivered or posters presented at professional meetings, six student presentations at NCUR events, nine student presentations at Argonne undergraduate research symposia, and eight student presentations at Pew Foundation undergraduate symposia. Four faculty papers have been formally published in conference proceedings, one book has appeared and a second book is currently under contract with the intended publisher. Members of the Department have given invited talks at national AAAS, APS, AAPT, PKAL, and Sigma Xi meetings, at history of science meetings, at the International Conference on Computer Science--2001, and at several colleges and universities around the country. Research within the Department has enjoyed support from the Department of Energy, Research Corporation, the Petroleum Research Fund, and the Exxon Educational Foundation.
Several factors suggest that the present is an opportune time for us to undertake a new initiative. First, we are presently moving into newly renovated and expanded quarters, which include a 700 square foot laboratory for each faculty member's signature program. Second, with the support of President Richard Warch, our Dean of the Faculty Brian Rosenberg is increasing the institutional commitment to curricular innovation and undergraduate research. Third, and more particular to the Department of Physics, new faculty members are bringing new research and teaching interests to our program.
Perhaps even more important, we feel that we have discovered a way to reverse the downward trend of physics enrollments nationwide, and we are eager to alert others to the vehicle that has contributed so much to the popularity and improvement of physics at Lawrence. Thus, beyond strengthening our own program, we feel the time is ripe for us to disseminate our approach more broadly to other institutions around the country.
The Department's response to the opportunity now before us focusses exclusively upon signature programs. This proposal seeks support from the W. M. Keck Foundation to address the following objectives:
The proposed project will have major impact on our entire departmental program. It will provide our students with better preparation for whatever they do after graduation, encourage more students to study physics at Lawrence, and improve the retention of physics majors from matriculation to graduation.
Finally, the potential impact of this project nationwide may be its most important outcome. In consequence of the national attention that previous projects have attracted, faculty members at other institutions occasionally emulate what happens at Lawrence. For this reason, we will report extensively on this project at national meetings and in appropriate publications, and we will continue to welcome to Lawrence interested visitors from the faculties of other institutions. In short, we propose to implement an aggressive effort to acquaint science educators nationwide with the highly constructive role that signature programs can play.