 A Letter to Members
President's Commentary
Lila Adair
March 17, 2008
Dear fellow AAPT members,
Please join me in welcoming Dr. Charles Holbrow, who became our new Executive Officer on March 7. Charlie has been a member of AAPT for more than 46 years and served as President in 2003 and as Senior Staff Physicist in 2006. Among the many initiatives during his presidency were the development of the high school program for teaching physics to ninth graders and improvements in the web presence of AAPT through the extensive development of our website. As Senior Staff Physicist he designed and implemented: (1) a topical conference on teaching general relativity to undergraduates for college and university teachers of intermediate and advanced undergraduate physics, (2) a workshop organized by and for physics graduate teaching assistants, and (3) a conference for physicists in leading R1 universities on achieving systemic change in physics teaching at large universities. Through his efforts, topical conferences have become a regular offering in tandem with AAPT Annual Meetings.
Charlie is currently Visiting Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, and holds the title of Charles A. Dana Professor of Physics, Emeritus at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, where he taught for 36 years. Upon Charlie’s retirement in 2003, Professor Vic Mansfield stated that, Charlie was well known at Colgate for “his excellence in teaching and his willingness to try fresh approaches to a continually changing student population, his active involvement in advanced undergraduate physics education, and that his effort has helped make undergraduate participation in research a hallmark of our department.” At Colgate Charlie did research in nuclear physics and laser spectroscopy of exotic atoms. His interest in the history of nuclear astrophysics led him to write an extensive biographical essay about the Caltech nuclear physicist Charles C. Lauritsen. Most recently, while at MIT, he wrote for Physics Today an account of some of MIT physicist Jerrold Zacharias’s defense work during the Cold War, and he is working in MIT’s Harrison Spectroscopy Laboratory with a group developing new kinds of optical microscopy.
I have had the personal privilege of working with Charlie twice on the Executive Board during both of our paths to the presidency and find his energy and enthusiasm for history, physics, and teaching invigorating. In our recent conversation about the title educator versus teacher, Charlie commented, “I am a teacher and proud of it, and I value my association with other physics teachers.” Charlie Holbrow is indeed a gifted teacher and leader, and AAPT is fortunate to have him as our new Executive Officer. He will bring great talents to bear on the improvement of physics education at all school levels. The breadth of his experiences and interests will serve the Association well in our ongoing support of physics education and physics teachers.
Please join me in welcoming Charlie to the Central Office.
Return to March AAPT NEWS
Return to President's Commentaries
|
