COPFIC report on teaching physics in the four‐year colleges

MAY 01, 1964

…a summary of the results of a recent study carried out by the AAPT‐AIP Committee on Physics Faculties in Colleges, otherwise known as COPFIC, with specific reference to problems affecting the preparation of students for graduate‐level work in physics

DOI: 10.1063/1.3051611

Physics Today

“Can Four‐Year Colleges Prepare Physics Majors for Graduate Work in Physics?” In a paper bearing this title George Pake discussed some of the problems faced by four‐year colleges trying to prepare physics majors. Dr. Pake’s article aroused a great deal of interest and concern. To a large extent it was the trigger for the formation of the Committee on Physics Faculties in Colleges, set up by the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics, with the aid of a grant by the National Science Foundation. The Committee (COPFIC) was asked to study the problems of physics in the colleges, particularly from the point of view of the conditions necessary to recruit able physics faculty members and to retain them there.

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References

1. G. E. Pake, American Journal of Physics 29, 678 (1961).https://doi.org/AJPIAS
2. The members of COPFIC are R. B. Brode, chairman; Fay Ajzenberg‐Selove, executive secretary; H. H. Barschall; P. G. Bergmann; W. C. Elmore; C. A. Fowler; Ronald Geballe; George E. Pake; G. C. Phillips; Karl Strauch; W. W. Watson. The Committee also benefited greatly from close cooperation with Dr. W. C. Kelly of the American Institute of Physics.
3. Henry A. Barton, R. Bruce Lindsay, and Leonard O. Olsen, Physics Today, June 1962, p. 42 and Fred Boercker, Director of Manpower Studies, American Institute of Physics, private communication.
4. Philip M. Morse and G. F. Koster, Physics Today, August 1961, p. 20.
5. The present situation is that only 15% of the physics grants and 7% of the physics research funds of the National Science Foundation were given to college physicists in Fiscal Year 1963.
6. The Placement Service of the American Institute of Physics has put into operation a program to meet this recommendation.
7. However, the members of COPFIC feel that the critical size of a college physics department is about three fulltime faculty members. COPFIC believes that teaching loads for college physicists should not be greater than 9 contact hours per week.
8. Copies of Toward Excellence in Physics—Reports from Five Colleges can be obtained upon request from the American Institute of Physics, 335 E. 45 Street, New York 17, New York.