2012 Assembly of Society Officers

Several states, notably Texas, Missouri, and Louisiana, are implementing plans to cancel undergraduate degree programs in departments that graduate small numbers of majors. The cutoff number is typically about 25 graduates over a five-year period. These cuts are publicly touted as ways of enhancing efficiency in higher education. In many cases, however, the cuts in STEM programs have many (presumably) unintended consequences: reducing the availability of STEM degrees for minority students and students in rural areas, eliminating opportunities for training high school STEM teachers with a major or minor in STEM fields, decreasing the quality of undergraduate STEM instruction in a department (including the education of other STEM majors), and reducing opportunities for undergraduate research. This session will examine some of the data for physics programs threatened by these cuts, the impact on STEM education if similar cuts are implemented by other states, and the role of scientific societies in working with threatened departments and their college and university administrators to enhance their undergraduate physics programs.

• Session chair: Robert Hilborn, Associate Executive Officer, American Assoc. of Physics Teachers
• Roman Czujko, Director, AIP Statistical Research Center
• Michael Marder, Associate Dean for Science and Mathematics, Education in the College of Natural Sciences, Professor of Physics, The University of Texas at Austin
• Lee Sawyer, Academic Director of Chemistry and Physics, Louisiana Tech University

Strategic planning is a creative process that requires participation of key stakeholders.  When done correctly, strategic planning helps an organization to define its challenges and set a course to pursue its goals and grow its mission. Long term goals are linked to daily operations and budget.  This organic process continues after the plan’s approval, with regular evaluation and adjustment according to the changing environment.  Society leadership will share best practices and discuss their societies’ recent strategic planning exercises.   

• Session Chair: Lou Lanzerotti, Chair, AIP Governing Board
• Kate Kirby, Executive Officer, American Physical Society
• Chris McEntee, Executive Director, American Geophysical Union

The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 requires the US federal agencies that fund scientific research to develop policies for access to and interoperability among databases, and archiving for data and publications that are derived from public funding.  Our panelists have been leading the efforts in policy development for this important topic for their respective agencies.  The President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has been leading an inter-agency panel in this area of policy development. The NSF and DOE provide annual funding for more than $10 billion of basic and applied research in the physical, biological and social sciences, and engineering. The STM publishing community is engaging with these two important research agencies to address this endeavor using our collective resources. This session will explore the implications for meeting the COMPETES Act requirements from the perspective of publishers, journal editors, the research community, professional societies and government agencies.

• Session chair: Fred Dylla, Executive Director & CEO, American Institute of Physics
• Ed Seidel, Assistant Director for Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Science Foundation
• Tom Statler, Program Director, National Science Foundation, and Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio University
• Walt Warnick, Director, US Dept. of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information