Paul Cottle, Florida State University

A champion who is passionate about undergraduate education can make an enormous impact in the quality of a bachelor’s degree program in physics. At Florida State University, the excellence of our undergraduate physics program — which was recently recognized as a case study in the Phys21 report — has been driven by our champion, Professor Susan Blessing.

In 2001, Dr. Blessing established a one credit hour course called Discovering Physics for first-semester physics majors so that they could become excited about the research taking place in the department. Prior to that (and in most physics departments) physics majors spent their first semester learning about topics like inclined planes and springs, which are a far cry from the topics like astrophysics, elementary particles and superconductivity that students find most attractive about our field. Discovering Physics put students in touch with the research and the researchers — and in doing so made it more likely that physics majors would persevere through the challenges ahead of them.

In recent years, Discovering Physics has also been used to acquaint students with careers that might be considered “non-traditional” for physics graduates like medical imaging, video game design, financial services and information technology. Speakers from outside fields are brought in either in person or via skype to talk with students.

Several years later, the Physics Department’s Undergraduate Affairs Committee took a hard look at the introductory-level courses that its majors took while preparing for the upper division physics major courses that begin in the spring of a student’s second year. Too many students who appeared to succeed in the three semester introductory lecture sequence – taken with students majoring in engineering and other physical sciences – were hitting a wall in their first upper-division classes. Part of the department’s response was to establish a SCALE-UP option for introductory courses, which provided an opportunity for faculty members to keep a personal eye on the development of the physics majors and make sure they were developing the foundational skills required to be successful at higher levels.

We recognized that there was a sizable gap between the level at which introductory courses are taught and the upper level mechanics and mathematical methods classes that physics majors faced in the spring semester of their second year. To bridge that gap, we established a course titled Physics Problem Solving that physics majors take in the fall of their second year. The course mostly focuses on improving the skills of applying calculus to physics problems and solving more difficult problems in which the steps are not given. A formal group problem-solving structure is built into Physics Problem Solving to both reinforce the message that students learn more deeply in groups and fortify the interpersonal relationships among physics majors that make persistence in the discipline more likely. Physics Problem Solving began as an elective course. Several years later, when it became clear that the course was useful, it was made a required course for physics majors. Once there were enough data to show a strong positive correlation between student grades in Physics Problem Solving and in the subsequent courses the new course was made a pre-requisite for the upper level classes.

We have also established a lounge and study area for physics majors. The furniture provides study spaces for individuals and groups of students, and a microwave and refrigerator are available as well. Once again, the goal was to provide an opportunity to strengthen the interpersonal relationships among the majors. Dr. Blessing, now Director of the Physics Department’s undergraduate program, visits the lounge regularly and uses those opportunities to get to know individual students better and to root out problems they face.

Research is an important component of a bachelor’s degree program in physics. However, it can be surprisingly difficult to get students involved, even in a department like FSU’s that has more than forty faculty members, nearly all of whom are active in research areas including condensed matter, high energy, nuclear, and astrophysics. We start telling students about the importance of research even before they arrive on campus for their first day of college. The message about the importance of research is first delivered during recruiting via brochures and in person, for those students who make personal visits. Students hear about the importance of research again during orientation. Students in the Discovering Physics course described above not only listen to talks about the department’s research areas but are also required to interview a professor about her or his research.

Those students who participate in research in the department are invited to take part in a departmental student research poster session in the spring. A private donor provides prize funds to reward the top three undergraduate posters in the session. The prizes are substantial - $750 for first place, $500 for second, and $250 for third. The awards serve not just to reward the strongest undergraduate research projects, but also to make it clear to the entire department — both faculty and students — that research is of great importance to the undergraduate program. Students are also encouraged to explore summer research opportunities at other institutions through the NSF’s Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. These opportunities are often used by students to scope out possible graduate programs.

The recent growth in the number of bachelors’ degrees demonstrates the impact of these innovations. In the four academic years before 2011, the department graduated 52 bachelor’s degree recipients. For the next four academic years, that number rose to 85. The department has supported these efforts with staff and other resources, but none of the improvements would have occurred without Dr. Blessing taking on the role of champion.

Paul Cottle is Professor of Physics at Florida State University.

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.