Physics Panel

Panel: Robert Fuller 1, Rubin Landau 2, Denis Donnelly 3, Norman Chonacky 4

1. Emeritus Professor of Physics, U. of Nebraska-Lincoln and conductor of the survey.
2. Professor of Physics at Oregon State University and one of the faculty identified by the survey as a paradigmatic implementer of computing in the undergraduate physics curriculum.
3. Professor of Physics at Siena College and now an associate editor of CiSE.
4. Research Fellow at Yale University and Editor in Chief of CiSE.

Topic

To present and discuss the results of a national survey of physics departments regarding their use of computation within their undergraduate courses. This survey was commissioned by the AIP (American Institute of Physics) sponsored magazine "Computing in Science and Engineering" (CiSE) as part of an extended effort to assist transformation of physics curricula in response to the growing, crucial role that computing now plays in all the sciences and engineering. This effort is based upon a conception by Denis Donnelly when he was then the CiSE educational editor. It was initiated with the advice of members of the AAPT (American Association of Physics Teachers) who are particularly concerned with such curricular transformation and who feel an immediate need for baseline information about the current state of affairs and for support of development of a community of common interest to act on the critical issues inferred from such information. This effort is sponsored by CiSE and is being conducted in cooperation with the AAPT, its committee on Educational Technology, and ComPADRE - an AAPT-based, NSF-supported Pathways project of the National Science Digital Library.)