Laurie McNeil, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Past Chair of FEd

Having stepped down as Chair of the Forum on Education, I now serve as Past Chair and therefore as the Chair of the FEd Fellowship Committee. I want to encourage you to nominate APS members who have made exceptional contributions to physics education for selection as Fellows of the APS under the aegis of the Forum on Education. Fellowship is a distinct honor signifying recognition by one's professional peers. Each year, no more than one half of one percent of the Society’s membership (excluding student members) is recognized by their peers for elevation to this status. Nomination instructions can be found at the APS Honors website: https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/index.cfm. The deadline for Fellowship nominations is 1 June 2020. Please consider a diverse set of people to nominate, including women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and people at smaller institutions.

The FEd Fellowship Committee typically receives only a small number of nominations, so please consider taking the time to prepare one. Nominations typically include a suggested citation, a nomination letter, two to four letters of support, a CV, and copies of the candidate’s most important publications and reprints. The time spent to prepare a nomination is very worthwhile to those nominated, to the Forum and to APS. You can find a listing of all Fellows selected by the Forum at https://www.aps.org/units/fed/fellowship/index.cfm?year. You may be surprised to see that some persons whom you would expect to see on this list are not there—that is probably because nobody took the time to nominate them!

In addition to APS Fellowship, I also want to encourage you to think about submitting nominations for the APS education-related awards that are under FEd’s care, and which also receive only a small number of nominations. Specifically, please consider preparing a nomination for the Excellence in Physics Education Award, which honors a team or group of individuals (such as a collaboration) or, exceptionally, a single individual, who have exhibited a sustained commitment to excellence in physics education. You can find more information at https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/education.cfm. The second award for which FEd has responsibility is the Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert Award for Excellence in Advanced Laboratory Instruction. This award honors outstanding achievement in teaching, sustaining, and enhancing an advanced undergraduate laboratory course or courses. Its nomination procedure and past winners can be found at https://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/education.cfm. For both awards the nomination deadline is 1 June 2020, the same as the Fellowship deadline.

The final education award for which I encourage you to submit a nomination is the Committee on Education Award for Improving Undergraduate Physics Education. APS’s Committee on Education (COE), upon which three of the FEd’s officers sit, seeks to recognize excellence in undergraduate physics education and support best practices in education at the undergraduate level. The Committee accepts applications (i.e. self-nominations) from physics departments and/or undergraduate-serving programs in physics that have a significant impact on undergraduate physics students. This award offers the opportunity for a department or program to receive national recognition for its efforts on behalf of undergraduate education, which can be valuable both internally and externally. (My own department was so recognized in 2019.) More information can be found at https://www.aps.org/programs/education/undergrad/faculty/award.cfm and the deadline is 15 June 2020.

Surely you know of colleagues or professional contacts whose efforts on behalf of physics education deserve recognition in the form of APS Fellowship or one of these awards. They won’t be honored unless they are nominated, so please consider submitting a nomination. It will benefit the recipient, the Forum, the Society, and physics education at large. It is worth the effort!

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.