Oct. 6-7, 2001
College Park, MD
Board Members Present: John Hubisz, President; Ruth Howes, Past-President; Chris Chiaverina, President-Elect; Charles Holbrow, Vice-President; Mary Beth Monroe, Secretary; Alex Dickison, Treasurer; Steve Iona, Chair of Section Reps; Frank Peterson, Vice-Chair of Section Reps; Mary Fehrs, At-Large Member; Lila Adair, At-Large Member; Carolyn Haas, At-Large Member; Karl Mamola, Editor of The Physics Teacher; Jan Tobochnik, Editor of the American Journal of Physics; Bernard V. Khoury, Executive Officer.
Guests: Warren Hein, Valerie Evans, Frances Smith, Roxanne Muller, Carol Heimpel, Maria Elena Khoury, Sina Kniseley, Leonard Jossem, James Stith, Angelo Collins.
1. Call to Order.
President John Hubisz called the meeting to order at 8:00 AM in the Conference Room of the American Center for Physics and welcomed all Board members. Guests were recognized and introduced to the Board.
2. Additions to the Agenda.
There were no additions to the agenda. M.B. Monroe noted that the TYC Spin-Up Proposal (Item II H) would be a Discussion Item, not an Action Item as listed on the agenda.
3. Approval of the Minutes.
M. Fehrs made the motion, seconded by R. Howes, that the Minutes be approved as written. The motion passed unanimously.
4. Officers’ Reports.
President.
J. Hubisz reported that he had sent a letter of apology to Texas A&M University explaining that due to the busy time of the year for teachers, he had been unable to find someone to send as organizational representative to their university birthday celebration.
Hubisz added that the report of middle school texts continues to draw strong interest from members of the science community and the general public.
Merely as an item for the Board to consider, Hubisz reported that he had received letters from international parties expressing an interest in creating an Anthony P. French Award.
President Elect.
C. Chiaverina proposed April 13 and 14 as dates for the April 2002 meeting of the Executive Board. He explained that the Board members should plan to arrive the evening of Friday April 12 and depart Sunday afternoon, following the noon adjournment of the Board. He asked members to notify him of possible conflicts in their schedules as soon as possible. B. Khoury also suggested that the Board should begin considering dates for the next meeting of the Audit Committee.
Vice President.
C. Holbrow gave a status report on the Winter Meeting in Philadelphia. He reported that the program would have three plenary speakers and 75 sessions. To date AAPT had received a total of 353 papers: 108 invited papers, 199 contributed papers, and 46 posters. The number of invited papers for Philadelphia is larger than the number we had for the last winter meeting in San Diego. An important theme for the 2002 winter meeting will be "Physics First".
Past President.
In an e-mail sent to the Board members in September, R. Howes reported the names of physicists receiving awards during the 2002 Winter Meeting:
Oersted – David Hestenes
Richtmyer – Jordan Goodman
Distinguished Service Citations – Joe Drenchko, John Fitzgibbons, Harry Knowles, David Ohlde and Bill Ploughe
Secretary.
M.B. Monroe reported the results of two electronic motions receiving action by the Board since the Summer 2002 meeting.
B. Khoury and M.B. Monroe moved (on August 8, 2001) that the AAPT Board approve the submission of a proposal to the National Science Foundation seeking $67,024 in financial support for a Conference on the Introductory Calculus Based Physics Course. The project directors will be Bernard Khoury, Ramon Lopez, and Robert Beichner. Eleven votes were received: 10 yes and 1 abstain. The motion passed.
B. Khoury and M.B. Monroe made the following motion on August 13, 2001: The AAPT Executive Board authorizes submission of a proposal to the National Science Foundation requesting support of a $5.8 million over five years for the Rural PTRA Project. The budget and narrative in the attached documents will continue to be edited without significant or substantial changes in the project or the budget. Eleven votes were received: 9 yes, 1 no and 1 abstain. The motion passed.
Treasurer.
A. Dickison had no report at this time.
Executive Officer.
B. Khoury highlighted the following items from his October Report (See Board Packet, Item Ie7) for special attention and/or discussion.
Membership renewal is now available online. Khoury reported that AAPT had sent the first electronic notice for membership renewal five days before the Board meeting. To date about 500 members of the 3000 notified had responded with credit card payment and another 100 members had renewed membership indicating they preferred to mail in their payments. Non-responding members will receive a second electronic reminder and if necessary, AAPT will mail regular renewal notices to members. Valerie Evans, Director of Member Services, explained that currently the electronic renewals do not have a direct feed into the AAPT database.
In subsequent discussion, Board members generally expressed endorsement of the new membership service although one or two minor glitches in the software were reported. Holbrow inquired as to the related charges from credit card companies incurred by AAPT. Khoury explained that the savings in paperwork and postage realized by the organization exceed the fees charged by the credit card companies. M. Fehrs recommended that the service be modified allowing members to print the renewal forms as receipts at the time of submission. J. Tobochnik further recommended that the AAPT staff explore the feasibility of expanding the email notices to recruit new members.
AAPT has received approximately 80 nominees for the New Faculty Workshop, scheduled for November 8-11, 2001. This year the American Astronomical Society will share formal sponsorship with the AAPT and APS. Khoury indicated that the workshop would probably have 50 physics faculty and 10 astronomy faculty. Consequently, two astronomy faculty have been added as workshop presenters, in addition to Ken Krane, and a couple of breakout sessions of special interest to the astronomy faculty have been added. (See Minutes Item 8.)
Next year’s International Physics Olympiad will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Due to the recent domestic turmoil in that country and the threat of continued terrorist attacks following the events of September 11, Khoury expressed strong concerns about sending our students to this country. Mary Mogge, academic director of our Olympiad team, suggested that we might ask the Olympiad officials to bring the exams from Indonesia to their embassy in the United States. However, the flavor of an international competition would be lost if this approach were adopted. Khoury proposed that AAPT pursue the possibly of hosting a competition within the United States for our students. Khoury reminded the Board that AIP has underwritten the costs of the competition if the private backers remove their financial support. Although the competition is not scheduled until the summer, the high school teachers need to be informed of the AAPT’s plans for this year’s competition.
In a straw vote of the Board, nine members voted in favor of a resolution endorsing the Executive Officer’s current plan not to send our students to the international competition in 2002. R. Howes expressed the concern that if we remove our team from the international competition, this action may be perceived as a statement against the competition or that AAPT does not want to send our students to a 3rd world country, particularly in light of the current world situation.
Len Jossem will be completing his term on the US Liaison Committee (USLC) and Joe Redish on the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP. Upon request by the Board, Jossem recommended Dean Zollman for the International Commission on Education and Joe Redish for the US Liaison Committee. These names were accepted by the Board.
In response to a request from Hubisz that Nomination Forms be placed in every issue of the Announcer and published online for electronic submission, Khoury commented that the Announcer normally published the nomination forms in the Fall and Winter issues. These publication times correspond more closely to the working timeline of the Nominating Committee. Hubisz explained that the suggestion was made so that AAPT could continually receive nominations for area committees and association officers.
Following a short discussion by the Board, the members generally agreed that the members of the Nominating Committee would make the process work. The Nominating Committee would pass on the names of unused nominations and would work with the incoming Nominating Committee to make sure their successors received nominations submitted during the spring and summer. In closing, Khoury said the staff will work on the special wording on the nomination form to explain the dates for the terms of office and they will need some time to learn how to work with a long pipeline of names.
Physics Today (PT) is now available online, free of charge. Currently half of the readers of PT online are not members of AIP member societies. AIP plans to put PT behind a password so that access would be available primarily to those readers who receive the paper version. Login would be the reader’s email address and the reader would create his/her own password. Khoury reported that discussions are currently underway with AIP regarding the transfer by the AAPT of the email addresses of its members. AIP will not sell, give, or rent this information. However, if a member uses one of the vendors in the PT online version, the vendor would learn the email address of the user.
In an additional note, Khoury reported that the AAPT has received a check subsidizing the publication costs for the Reprint Book on Color and Light (see Rochester Board Minutes 27).
C. Heimpel, in a special report to the Board, stated that she had set two new goals for the Meetings Department: (1) to increase attendance at national meetings and (2) to increase the number of exhibitors at the meetings (which will occur only when goal one has been realized). In an effort to increase the attendance with measurable results, three marketing strategies were implemented:
A full page ad for the 124th AAPT National Meeting will be run in the November issue of Physics Today
A special mailing was sent to 5800 science educators within a 50-mile radius of Philadelphia, 300 department chairs, and 175 section liaisons.
A special postcard "series of two" for exhibitors was sent to 350 potential vendors. Heimpel added that the registration process for the meeting would allow her to track first -time participants and therefore measure the impact of the posters and other special mailings on the attendance to the meeting. In subsequent discussion, the Board inquired as to the success of the AAPT exhibits at NSTA meetings. The AAPT staff gave a favorable report but noted that a Board member does really need to orchestrate this activity. Currently the AAPT plans to prepare an exhibit for one national NSTA meeting and one regional NSTA meeting.
5. Budget Items and Preliminary 2002 Budget.
A. Dickison reported that the AAPT has a projected net deficit of $35,194 for FY-2001, which does not include the funds transferred from the designated funds account. For the same year, the Executive Office is projecting income from designated funds of $206,762 and expenses of $291,556. The difference, $84,794, added to the net income gives the Operating Fund account a net income of $49,600. ). Khoury explained that the designated funds show a deficit due to current expenditures of income received three years ago from the Campaign for Physics. The income was shown the year the income was received and now it appears as an expense.
The budget for FY-2002 shows a deficit in net income of $335,801 before the transfer of designated funds. The projected income from the designated funds for this term is $62,600 and projected expenses are $332,435. When the difference of $269,835 is added to the net income, the Operating Fund has a deficit in net income of $62,600.
The 2002 Budget will be presented to the AAPT Board during the Winter 2002 meeting for consideration and action. During the general review and discussion of the assumptions made in preparation for the 2002 budget, Dickson explained that he projected a small deficit for the coming year, due to efforts by the AAPT to address the critical issues adopted by the Board during its January 2001 meeting. He explained that the salaries are based on the current number of AAPT employees. The budget development assumed funding for all NSF submitted proposals except the Rural PTRA program. The latter was not assumed because of the size of the request for funding, therefore carrying a considerable amount for indirect costs.
Additional assumptions receiving special discussion were:
The inclusion of a full year of AIP non-member subscription service. Dickison explained that the Board might need to take another look at subscription rates for the AAPT journals. New subscription rates for the American Journal of Physics and The Physics Teacher will go into effect on January 1, 2003. Library subscriptions of the journals will be handled by AIP. By going through AIP, the AAPT can participate in consortia that will allow the association to provide subscriptions to libraries without the need to sign separate licensing agreements for online subscriptions.
AAPT will begin participating in AIP’s health care benefit program on January 1, 2002, thereby realizing a savings for the Association.
AAPT will hire a full-time director for the PSRC using Campaign for Physics Funds. (See Minutes Item 6)
The proposed budget did not include capital funds for a content management system and redesign of the AAPT website. Sina Kniseley explained that the bids received for this expenditure were too high and that she is seeking additional bids. She hopes that the cost will be no more than $100,000 and believes that the change could probably be phased in over a period of three years. Dickison suggests that the Board may want to consider taking monies for this item from the short-term reserve instead of the operating budget.
In the subsequent discussion of the proposed 2002 budget, Dickison pointed out that changes from the 2001 budget are due to three major factors: (1) increased marketing (that will increase the membership in the association (projected to be about 10%) and the attendance in future AAPT meetings); (2) the hiring of a full-time director for the PSRC; and (3) the subscription fulfillment being given to AIP.
Dickison moved that the Executive Board approve the Budget Assumptions as presented. The motion passed unanimously.
6. Reports from Web Services Advisory Groups.
C Holbrow referred the Board members to the status reports of the AAPT web services included in the Board packet. Discussion and action by the Board addressed two main points: (1) the TPT Online Subgroup’s report and recommendations concerning the development of an electronic version of TPT and (2) the report from the Physical Science Resource Center Subgroup addressing improvements to the web site and the proposal to hire a new PSRC Director.
(1) The Task Force charged with investigating options to bring The Physics Teacher (TPT) online recommended that TPT be made electronically in the following phases:
Phase O – TPT homepage would be developed with selected articles, notes or columns made available free of charge. This phase has been completed.
Phase 1 – TPT would be posted online with the same features and in the same fashion, that AJP is made available. The proposed timeline is January 2003 for free demo version debuts and September 2003 as the date by which paying subscribers can access the electronic journal.
Phase 2 – Enhancements, such as a weekly electronic-only column, would be made during this period. The timeline for this phase has not been defined.
C. Holbrow made the motion to accept the TPT plan as presented in the report to the Board. K. Mamola seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
(2) The Physical Science Resource Center (PSRC) Subgroup of the Web Services Advisory Group met at the American Center for Physics on June 18-19, 2001 to consider how to make the PSRC a more viable physics education resource. Consequently the members of the subgroup proposed that a full-time director for the PSRC be hired by January 1, 2002 to implement five improvements for the resource center:
A set of metadata should be developed for the materials already included in the PSRC and any new materials that are added.
The PSRC needs a site map that will help users find the materials and assist in the orderly development of the site.
A consistent set of templates and fonts that would improve the appearance and functionality of the site.
A procedure for collecting, peer reviewing, and cataloging materials on the site.
Tools should be put in place that would make it easy to find and access information on the site.
Since its development in 1997, Warren Hein, Associate Executive Officer, has been solely responsible for the selection of the material on the PSRC site. Although a PSRC Advisory Committee has been in place since the site went live, the members have provided limited input on the structure or content of PSRC. The PSRC subgroup proposed that the new director of the PSRC should have a physics background and a good knowledge of web-based technologies that would serve him/her well in the implementation of the five recommended improvements. The new director would function much like a journal editor and would have the option of appointing assistant directors, an editorial board, reviewers, etc.
The primary responsibility of the PSRC Director, at least initially, would be the development of a proposal to the National Science Foundation requesting funding for the development of an astronomy and physics component of a National Science Digital Library (NSDL). The proposal, due by April 10, 2002, would be a joint venture of AAPT/AIP/APS with some input from the American Astronomical Society. The current PSRC subgroup and representatives from MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching) would serve as primary advisors to the new director as the proposal is developed.
The subgroup proposes that the remaining $105,000 in the Campaign for Physics funds allocated for the development of the PSRC would adequately provide a reasonable salary, benefits, and support for one year for the new PSRC director. During this year, the Director would prepare the proposal and implement the five recommended improvements. If the proposal is funded, the monies awarded by NSF will provide the support to maintain the PSRC and begin the development of the NSDL component. If the proposal is not funded, the PSRC Director could serve in this position from a college or university, similar to the current AJP and TPT editors and maintain the site by electronic communication. However, revenue sources will have to be identified which will provide the additional budget expenditures resulting from creation of the position of PSRC Director and probable PSRC Editorial Board and reviewers.
Members of the Board expressed the need to define some specific direction and/or concrete actions for the new director. F. Peterson also expressed concern about using all of the remaining PSRC funds to hire a new staff member at AAPT and suggested that a wiser alternative may be for AAPT to buy release time for a faculty member for one year. Dickison advised that special care be exercised in preparing the job description for the new PSRC Director.
Hein expressed confidence that the AAPT would get some funding for the digital library and added that the leaders of this effort believe the DL will be more successful if educators and teachers are involved rather than the researchers and collectors of data. He suggested that members of MERLOT would be strong candidates for the directorship. He advised the Board to approve the recommendation from the PSRC subgroup, particularly since the AAPT only has until April 2002 to submit the proposal.
With the understanding that the responsibilities of the position would include a charge to involve AAPT membership in evaluating PSRC and any enhancements to it or any efforts to connect it to NSDL, Holbrow made the motion that the Board approve the expenditure of the $105,000 from the Campaign for Physics funds to hire a PSRC Director. The Director will write a proposal seeking funding from the National Science Foundation for the development of the astronomy and physics component of the National Science Digital Library with input from the AAPT community concerning the definition of the content for the digital library. Iona seconded the motion. During discussion of the motion, it was agreed that Hubisz, Holbrow, and Hein would oversee the selection of the new PSRC Director and the development of the proposal. The motion passed unanimously.
7. Funding Decisions by Bauder Committee.
J. Hubisz made the motion that the AAPT Executive Board give the Bauder Fund Committee authority to approve expenditure requests less than $1000. In addition, the Committee will report these approvals to the Executive Board. C. Holbrow seconded the motion. Following a short discussion among Board members, the question was called and the motion passed unanimously.
8. Funding for New Faculty Workshop.
B. Khoury asked the Board for authorization to proceed with the New Faculty Workshop. The proposal to the National Science Foundation requesting funding for the workshop has been submitted. However, no award of funding can be made until Congress awards funding to NSF. The Executive Office is confident that the AAPT proposal will be funded. NSF routinely allows AAPT to fund activities occurring three months prior to the award and in this instance probably for a longer term. Khoury made the motion that the Executive Board authorize an expenditure of $35,000 to fund the New Faculty Workshop scheduled for November 8-11, 2001. The motion, seconded by L. Adair, passed unanimously.
9. Merger of Area Committees.
J. Hubisz received a request from the members of the Instructional Media Committee (IMC) and the Committee on Computers in Physics Education (CIPE) to merge the committees assimilating the duties and responsibilities of both previous committees and taking the name of "Committee on Educational Technologies (CET)". The primary reason cited for the merger was the strong overlap between the two committees. According to the plan of execution prepared jointly by the members of the two committees, the members of the two committees would meet jointly in January 2002 but the merged committee would carry out the sessions, workshops, and tutorials planned by the two committees for future AAPT meetings. At the end of the January 2002 meeting, Andrew Gavrin, current Chair for IMC, will assume the chair position for the merged committee.
C. Holbrow made the motion that the Executive Board approve the request for the merger of the AAPT Instructional Media Committee and the AAPT Committee on Computers in Physics Education as proposed and outlined in the letter to President Hubisz. The newly formed committee will be called the "Committee on Educational Technologies". (See Executive Board Packet IIE) C. Haas seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.
The Mission for the Committee on Educational Technologies proposed by the members of the two existing committees and adopted by the Executive Board is as follows:
Identify new developments in educational technology and new applications of educational technology to physics teaching and learning.
Communicate these new developments and applications to the AAPT membership through a variety of means, including print and electronic publications, workshops and sessions at national and regional meetings.
Conduct competitions, as appropriate, to recognize, promote and reward worthwhile contributions to the uses of educational technologies for physics education.
Coordinate with other area committees, organizations, and institutions in the development and dissemination of new ideas for the use of various educational technologies in physics education.
10. Student Confidence Workshop.
The Women in Physics Committee would like to seek funding, approximately $10,000, from an external agency to be used to improve the Student Confidence Workshop. Such action by a committee requires prior Board approval. A. Dickison reported that the Venture Fund Committee funded a similar request from the Women in Physics Committee a few years earlier. S. Kniseley also reported that the Workshop materials had not been recommended by the Publications Committee for publication, stating that the materials lacked the quality AAPT would want to have. She advised the Board to provide some kind of guidance to insure that the revision effort would be successful.
R. Howes moved that the Executive Board accept in principle the request from the Women in Physics Committee, but delay formal support of the request until after the Committee has supplied the Board with more detail as to what would be accomplished and how it would be done. C. Haas seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.
11. Publication of Paper Abstracts.
Holbrow presented for Board consideration, a plan prepared by S. Kniseley, AAPT Director of Communications (Packet Item III G), providing for a gradual move over the next year to publish the paper abstracts outside the Announcer. Although the online publication of abstracts would relax the submission deadline by one month, some members expressed reluctance to abruptly terminate the printing of the abstracts in the Announcer.
R. Howes made the motion that the AAPT publish paper abstracts as proposed by S. Kniseley as an experiment, allowing AAPT members time to react and respond to the new mode of publication. Dickison seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
The Plan as submitted contains three steps for the proposed transition. For the Winter 2002 Meeting of the AAPT, the program will be printed in the Announcer. A new online program and itinerary scheduler will debut. For the Summer 2002 Meeting, all AAPT members will receive a full printed program by one of two options: (1) a copy printed in the Announcer or (2) a copy printed separately from the Announcer but mailed with the Announcer. The staff during this second step will also collect input on the operation of the new itinerary program and abstract archive and modify the system as needed. For the Winter 2003 Meeting, the full program will be given only to those attending the meeting.
The Executive Board recessed for lunch. A special luncheon for both AAPT staff and Executive Board members provided opportunities for an exchange of ideas and perspectives to assure that the associational services address the needs of AAPT members.
12. Executive Session I.
Following lunch, the Board met in Executive Session I (without the Executive Officer).
13. Future of PER Supplement.
The American Journal of Physics (AJP) has published a Physics Education Research Supplement (PERS), consisting of 64 pages, in July of each of the past three years. The Supplement provides a research publication venue for the PER community that currently constitutes a small representation of the broad-based readership of the AJP. The AAPT funded the publication of the first two Supplements and the Spencer Foundation funded the third supplement. When the AAPT Board appointed Jan Tobochnik as the new AJP editor, the Board indicated informal support for the publication of a fourth PER Supplement in 2002, thereby allowing the new editor time to consider the value of PER articles to the readership of the AJP.
Joe Redish, PERS Editor, in his July 21, 2001 Annual Report to the Publications Committee, reported that he had 5 manuscripts and one note that had been accepted for publication and that an additional 2-4 submitted manuscripts were expected to receive favorable reviews. In an August 2001 memo to the Board and the Publications Committee, Beth Ann Thacker as Chair of the PER Committee requested that the Board (1) encourage the new editor of AJP to publish PER articles that would be of interest to the broad community of physics instructors, (2) provide the resources necessary for the publication in the Supplement of those PER papers currently accepted and those currently in the review process, and (3) continue the support for the publication of the PER Supplement indefinitely.
In an effort to formalize AAPT support for the publication of the 2002 PER Supplement, B. Khoury made the following motion. The AAPT Executive Board approves the publication of the 2002 PER Supplement to the American Journal of Physics and allocates up to $20,000 to support the printing and distribution of the Supplement. The Board authorizes the President, the AJP Editor, and the Executive Officer to determine how best to carry out the PERS Editor role for 2002. M. Fehrs seconded the motion.
Tobochnik asked the Board to first consider how PER articles would be published after 2002. He proposed the publication of future PER articles in a designated section of AJP, such as "Apparatus Notes", to be published in two or three issues of the AJP. The AJP Editor would appoint a section editor to handle the PER submissions and authors would designate whether they wanted their manuscript to be considered for the PER section or the regular part of the AJP. The Editor of AJP would have final say on all submissions to the PER section. However, Jan noted that if the submitted PER manuscripts accepted for publication regularly exceeded 20 in number, the PER section would necessarily need to become an online journal with its own editorial office. Tobochnik added that the PER Supplement as a specialized journal publishing the research output from the PER community might be a good candidate for electronic publication and that the PER community should consider submitting their research manuscripts to the arXiv.org.e-Print archive.
Discussion among the Board members primarily addressed two points. (1) anticipated increase in the number of submitted PER manuscripts and (2) obligation by AAPT to publish research from the PER community. Board members were generally divided concerning the first issue. Holbrow does not believe the PER community would grow as projected by Khoury in his memo to the Board. Other members indicated that they do not perceive a real demand for PER publications. On point two, Fehrs and Peterson expressed the view that the members of the PER community are members of the AAPT membership and therefore we should publish articles of benefit and service to these members. Some concern was expressed that the publication of PER articles might be perceived as an endorsement of the research.
Discussion returned to the motion on the floor. Some members preferred the publication of 64 additional pages over the year within AJP rather than as a separate supplement. Tobochnik felt that it would be best to publish the articles in two or three issues a year rather than spreading them over the monthly journals. Therefore, the friendly amendment was proposed and accepted by Khoury and Adair: The AAPT will publish one 64-page supplement or will publish two 32-page sections incorporated within the AJP. Khoury, Dickison, and Tobochnik will work out the details with the PER Editor, Joe Redish. The motion passed unanimously.
In follow-up, Iona pointed out that the AAPT had no plans for the publication of PER articles for 2003 or beyond. However, it was pointed out that the Editor’s role does include the authority to decide the nature/venue of future PER publications.
14. Report from AIP’s Physics Resources Center.
Jim Stith, former AAPT president and current Director of the Physics Resources Center (PRC) at AIP, highlighted some PRC activities of special interest to the AAPT during his visit with the Board. The PRC would like to provide publicity for every meeting of the AIP member societies. He needs the help of the AAPT staff and Board in identifying what items within the AAPT meetings need to be publicized. This will be an ongoing initiative. Physics Today is available online, thereby carrying physics news to a broader audience. AIP proposes to use the email address of a society member as the login and the subscriber could then submit his/her own password. It will take about $60,000 to implement this feature of the electronic journal.
The Industrial Physicist (TIP) targets an audience outside the typical physics community and has a readership of about 60,000. Eighty per cent of the subscribers are not affiliated with any AIP member society. However, these readers are strong candidates for membership in these societies.
The Discoveries & Breakthroughs Inside Science takes physics to the broad community via television. The Center is confident that the DBIS will project clients in 80 US television markets by the end of the year. The challenge is to reach 150 stations, at which point the service will be self-sufficient. Currently the service requires a subsidy of about $300,000 a year.
The Education Liaison Committee is being revamped in an effort to improve its productivity. Staff members of the member societies have been invited to participate in the Committee’s activities. Attending the last meeting of the Committee were staff from the Optical Society of America, the American Astronomical Society and the American Geophysical Union.
In closing Stith commented that the core function of AIP is to do things collaboratively with a number of societies. He asked for help from the AAPT in attaining this goal.
15. Knowles Science Teaching Foundation.
In a special presentation to the Board, Angelo Collins, Director for the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation, explained that Metrologic Instruments, Inc. had closed its education division and consequently the Knowles Foundation would assume the co-sponsorship for the AAPT Physics Bowl competition and scholarships in 2002. Harry and Janet Knowles, the founders of Metrologic, used their accumulated monies to organize the Science Teaching Foundation to encourage and sustain young scientists who will become teachers.
Over the next few years, the Foundation proposes to implement four programs targeting high school physics teachers. The Knowles Teaching Fellows Program, the corner stone program, will select recent baccalaureate graduates in physics who plan to teach and will support them financially as they complete the teacher certification requirements. After certification, the Knowles Program will help the young teachers find teaching positions and will provide some funds with which to purchase teaching materials. The program will not target mid career shifts. Collins requested the help of the AAPT in identifying candidates for the 3-6 fellows positions available this year. In addition, she asked for help from the AAPT in identifying 3-6 master teachers, possibly from the AAPT PTRA program, to serve as mentors for the beginning teachers.
Additional Knowles programs propose to support research fellows to evaluate teacher programs and assess teacher effectiveness as well as successful teachers who will work with the research fellows.
Collins specifically asked the AAPT Board for access to the AAPT listserv for the purpose of advertising the Knowles Foundation website.
16. Planning Initiatives.
Khoury reviewed the progress by AAPT in addressing each of the five initiatives. (See related items in Minutes.) He reported that the AAPT survey assessing member needs had been developed and was in the process of being distributed to the membership. Hubisz, Chair of the Task Force on Physics Standards, reported the availability of a website listing the standards for any state, including the listing of standards by some counties within states. Chiaverina reported that he will ask the Area Chairs in Philadelphia for input and discussion regarding the identification of five planning initiatives of the AAPT for the coming year.
17. National Task Force on Undergraduate Physics. Howes reported the status of each of the four activities supported by the National Task Force on Undergraduate Physics (NTFUP). The Task Force is an umbrella organization with representative membership from the AIP, APS, and AAPT.
She and Ken Krane, co-project directors for SPIN-UP, have set the dates for three of the proposed twenty site visits to be conducted during the next year. Included in the Board packet were the list of criteria guiding the selection of the departments for site visits and the protocol for the site visits. In addition, initial conversations are occurring with Roman Czujko in the AIP Statistics Division concerning the preparation of the survey of all undergraduate physics departments.
The Research Chairs’ Meeting has been scheduled for November 17, 2001. Carl Wieman (University of Colorado and the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics), as a member of the Task Force has taken the lead in inviting the participants and in the planning of the program.
A proposal, authored by Ramon Lopez and Bob Beichner, has been submitted to the NSF requesting funding for a conference on calculus-based introductory physics to be hosted during the Spring 2002.
Tom O’Kuma, R Howes, and M.B. Monroe are preparing a proposal for submission to the NSF requesting funding for a project targeting the two-year college community. The effort, which parallels the SPIN-UP project, will conduct ten site visits to community colleges and a survey of all two- year college physics departments to examine how they are responding to changes in the environment for undergraduate physics. (The draft of the SPIN-UP/TYC proposal was included in the Board packet.)
18. Status and Plans for the Dodge Building.
Khoury reported that the proposed sale of the Dodge Building had been brought to the Board’s attention when a potential buyer had expressed a serious interest in the purchasing the building. Due to the unstable American economy since the attacks on America on September 11, the buyer had changed his mind. However, Khoury invited comments from the Board concerning the general conditions under which the AAPT might sell the building.
The Dodge Building was purchased sixteen years ago by the AAPT for about $850,000. At that time, an additional $100,000 was expended for a major retrofit of the building facilitating the needs of the AAPT. Khoury reported that the Dodge Building is currently listed on the AAPT financial records with a net value of $230,000, reflecting an accumulated depreciation of $720,000. The most recent appraisal, four years old, assigned a value of $700,000. He reported that the Board members had indicated a readiness to sell the Dodge Building at the appraised value and assist in the financing of the sale if the buyer would provide a down payment of at least 25%.
Khoury recommended that the AAPT sell the Dodge Building at the last appraisal value, converting the asset into cash that could be invested more flexibly. The AAPT realizes some net income from rental on part of the building. Other building space is used for storage and the AAPT would need to rent storage space if the Dodge building were sold. Khoury indicated that the University of Maryland was a strong candidate as a buyer.
Dickison agreed with the recommendation to sell the Dodge Building but added that the Board should carefully consider selling the building for less than the appraisal value and that the Board should not agree to a sale just to get rid of the building. He asked Khoury to immediately notify the Board if the Executive Office got a hot lead.
19. Possible Committee on Interests of Senior Physicists.
Upon request from John Rigden, Roger Stuewer, and C. Holbrow, the Executive Board considered the creation of a Committee on the Interests of Senior Physicists. The Committee would have the following Preamble and Charge.
Preamble:
"Physicists in or near retirement have talents and experience that can be shared usefully with the AAPT membership. Senior physicists also have interests and concerns that are distinct from those of physicists and physics teachers who are in earlier stages of their careers. To exploit their talents and experience and to provide a forum in which they can explore their interests and concerns, we request that AAPT establish an ad hoc Committee on the Interests of Senior Physicists (CISP)."
Charge: "CISP shall concern itself with matters of particular interest and concern to physicists in or near retirement. The committee may sponsor meeting sessions and speakers and propose to the Association actions and activities that deal with such matters and concerns.
CISP shall work to involve senior physicists in the activities of the AAPT and find ways to make their experience and wisdom available to the AAPT membership."
C. Holbrow moved the creation of the Committee on Interests of Senior Physicists, as described by the Preamble and Charge above, as a Temporary Committee for three years. Chiaverina seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
20. Report from Investment Advisory Committee.
Dickison reported that the Investment Advisory Committee had met with all in attendance except one. Since the Committee met early in the month, the members did not have complete financial reports for September. Reports will be posted on the secure area of the Executive Board’s website when they arrive.
The AAPT currently has about $1.5 million dollars in short term reserves and around $3 million in long term reserves. Some of these assets are designated funds. The short term reserves are in fixed investments and thus lost nothing during these troubled times. The Association did realize some losses due to broad market declines including those following the terrorist attacks on September 11; these amounted to overall declines of about $250,000 in long term funds. Dickison will prepare a more comprehensive report showing gains and losses for the January 2002 meeting.
The Committee is pleased with the services of TIAA-CREF. Legg Mason provides more diversity in what the AAPT invests in, but the Committee is pleased with their reporting.
The Advisory Committee will look into agencies that manage the investments for their clients and will also look into individual investment managers.
The present investment scheme for the long term reserve is 70% in equity funds and 30 % in bonds. The Advisory Committee, based on the information currently available, recommends that the AAPT maintain that ratio.
21. Future Meeting Sites.
The AAPT has defined dates and sites for the next five national meetings. The Association is maintaining a pattern of summer meetings located on university campuses and winter meetings at conference centers. The AAPT staff will prepare more than one option for future meeting sites for the next three-four open dates. In response from the Board, Khoury was asked to explore the possibility of a joint meeting with another society or organization in the near future. However, Khoury felt that it would be wiser to discuss with Council which societies the members would like to meet with before any action was taken along these lines.
Hubisz recessed the Board until Sunday morning.
22. Executive Session II (with the Executive Officer).
23. SPS Representative at Program Committee.
M.B. Monroe moved that the AAPT invite the SPS Director, or his representative, to attend and participate in the AAPT Programs Committee. M. Fehrs seconded the motion. In discussion of this motion, Monroe explained that such participation would facilitate and sustain the Society of Physics Students (SPS) sessions in future AAPT meetings, would facilitate and help in the organization of special sessions such as the Marsh White Memorial Session, and would contribute to the physics content of our meetings. She had discussed this action with Gary White, current SPS Director, and he was agreeable to this action. White expressed to her that he was looking for ways to strengthen the ties between SPS and the AAPT and this would address that interest. The motion passed unanimously.
24. Report on PhysTEC.
W. Hein reported that PhysTEC had received $5.8 million from NSF along with an additional award of $400, 000 from FIPSE. The PIs for the project are Fred Stein (APS), Jack Hehn (AIP), John Layman(AAPT), and Warren Hein (AAPT). During the term of the project John Layman will be using one of the AAPT offices allowing him close contact with the other PIs. The project grant received by APS includes partial salary and benefits for both Hein and Layman.
25. Services for Persons with Disabilities.
During the Summer 2001, Hubisz received a letter from Betty Price stating that the AAPT was not in compliance with the Persons with Disabilities Act. He had sent a follow-up letter to Preece asking for information that is more specific but he had not heard a response. C. Heimpel reported to the Board that during visits to potential AAPT meeting sites, the staff makes sure that the hotels and meeting rooms are in compliance.
26. Support for Schools Moving to "Physics First".
During the Summer 2001 meeting of the Executive Board, the members approved a motion to develop a planning grant providing for faculty with experience in teaching ninth grade physics to meet and interact with faculty who might be implementing similar curriculum. Chiaverina, Holbrow, and Khoury will have a draft of the proposal ready for Board consideration by the January 2002 meeting. In addition, the AAPT Winter Meeting in Philadelphia will have two sessions that focus on the experiences of teachers who have implemented ninth grade physics curriculum.
Included with the Board packet (See Item IIIL), was a report The State of Physics-First Programs, provided by Leon Lederman. Khoury commented that while the report is primarily anecdotal, it does reinforce the need for collaboration among ninth grade physics teachers. He added that he and Chris Chiaverina would be attending a small "physics first" workshop in November being convened by Lederman at Fermi Lab.
During the subsequent discussion, Board members batted ideas concerning how the AAPT should best address the curricular and teacher training needs of the schools implementing physics first. The two main ideas voiced by the Board members concerned the lack of an AAPT support system for these schools and the lack of an AAPT policy statement regarding physics first. Although AAPT has developed the curriculum package, Active Physics, the materials were not designed to serve the curricular needs of ninth grade physics.
Khoury reminded the Board that they had asked him during the Summer 2001 meeting to prepare an editorial for the Announcer that would explain the position of the AAPT on physics first. His editorial and the President’s Report in the Winter 2001 Announcer will address this concern.
Hubisz appointed an ad hoc committee (Adair, Chiaverina, Iona and Haas) charged with the preparation of a list of appropriate action items for the AAPT addressing support for schools implementing physics first. The ad hoc committee will present their report to the Board in January 2002.
27. 2002 Appointments to AIP & Other External Committees.
Hubisz gave the Board members a few moments to review the letter and attachments from AIP regarding the nominations by the AAPT of candidates for membership on AIP committees and subcommittees. He asked that Board nominations be sent to him by November 15 with supporting statements for the nomination. The nominations for candidates are due at AIP by December 21.
28. Committee Assignments for Vice-Chair of the Section Representatives.
Hubisz explained that all members of the Board normally served on at least one committee. However, the creation of the Vice-Chair of the Section Representatives by the revised AAPT Constitution did not define specific committee assignments associated with the new position. Iona, after reviewing the committees he serves on as Chair of Section Reps, suggested that the Vice-Chair might be appropriately placed on the Review Board or the Publications Committee. Monroe spoke to the need for a member of the Publications Committee to serve as recording secretary, therefore allowing the Chair of Pubs to focus on conducting the necessary business of the meeting.
The motion was made and seconded that the Vice-Chair of the Section Representatives would serve as member of the Review Board and recording secretary of the Publications Committee. The motion passed with 10 yes votes and one not voting.
29. Site for Summer Meeting.
Khoury received a serious invitation from Paul Lane, University of St. Thomas in Minnesota to host a summer meeting of the AAPT. The university has the facilities to accommodate the workshops but not the regular meeting sessions. Khoury commented that given the prior discussion within Council in which the members indicated that they did not want summer meetings in hotels, he was inclined to decline the invitation. The Board generally expressed the view that AAPT should probably continue with the pattern of one meeting a year at a hotel and one meeting a year on a college campus.
30. Adjournment.
Hubisz adjourned the meeting at 10:40 AM.
Mary Beth Monroe, Secretary
College Park, MD
Board Members Present: John Hubisz, President; Ruth Howes, Past-President; Chris Chiaverina, President-Elect; Charles Holbrow, Vice-President; Mary Beth Monroe, Secretary; Alex Dickison, Treasurer; Steve Iona, Chair of Section Reps; Frank Peterson, Vice-Chair of Section Reps; Mary Fehrs, At-Large Member; Lila Adair, At-Large Member; Carolyn Haas, At-Large Member; Karl Mamola, Editor of The Physics Teacher; Jan Tobochnik, Editor of the American Journal of Physics; Bernard V. Khoury, Executive Officer.
Guests: Warren Hein, Valerie Evans, Frances Smith, Roxanne Muller, Carol Heimpel, Maria Elena Khoury, Sina Kniseley, Leonard Jossem, James Stith, Angelo Collins.
1. Call to Order.
President John Hubisz called the meeting to order at 8:00 AM in the Conference Room of the American Center for Physics and welcomed all Board members. Guests were recognized and introduced to the Board.
2. Additions to the Agenda.
There were no additions to the agenda. M.B. Monroe noted that the TYC Spin-Up Proposal (Item II H) would be a Discussion Item, not an Action Item as listed on the agenda.
3. Approval of the Minutes.
M. Fehrs made the motion, seconded by R. Howes, that the Minutes be approved as written. The motion passed unanimously.
4. Officers’ Reports.
President.
J. Hubisz reported that he had sent a letter of apology to Texas A&M University explaining that due to the busy time of the year for teachers, he had been unable to find someone to send as organizational representative to their university birthday celebration.
Hubisz added that the report of middle school texts continues to draw strong interest from members of the science community and the general public.
Merely as an item for the Board to consider, Hubisz reported that he had received letters from international parties expressing an interest in creating an Anthony P. French Award.
President Elect.
C. Chiaverina proposed April 13 and 14 as dates for the April 2002 meeting of the Executive Board. He explained that the Board members should plan to arrive the evening of Friday April 12 and depart Sunday afternoon, following the noon adjournment of the Board. He asked members to notify him of possible conflicts in their schedules as soon as possible. B. Khoury also suggested that the Board should begin considering dates for the next meeting of the Audit Committee.
Vice President.
C. Holbrow gave a status report on the Winter Meeting in Philadelphia. He reported that the program would have three plenary speakers and 75 sessions. To date AAPT had received a total of 353 papers: 108 invited papers, 199 contributed papers, and 46 posters. The number of invited papers for Philadelphia is larger than the number we had for the last winter meeting in San Diego. An important theme for the 2002 winter meeting will be "Physics First".
Past President.
In an e-mail sent to the Board members in September, R. Howes reported the names of physicists receiving awards during the 2002 Winter Meeting:
Oersted – David Hestenes
Richtmyer – Jordan Goodman
Distinguished Service Citations – Joe Drenchko, John Fitzgibbons, Harry Knowles, David Ohlde and Bill Ploughe
Secretary.
M.B. Monroe reported the results of two electronic motions receiving action by the Board since the Summer 2002 meeting.
B. Khoury and M.B. Monroe moved (on August 8, 2001) that the AAPT Board approve the submission of a proposal to the National Science Foundation seeking $67,024 in financial support for a Conference on the Introductory Calculus Based Physics Course. The project directors will be Bernard Khoury, Ramon Lopez, and Robert Beichner. Eleven votes were received: 10 yes and 1 abstain. The motion passed.
B. Khoury and M.B. Monroe made the following motion on August 13, 2001: The AAPT Executive Board authorizes submission of a proposal to the National Science Foundation requesting support of a $5.8 million over five years for the Rural PTRA Project. The budget and narrative in the attached documents will continue to be edited without significant or substantial changes in the project or the budget. Eleven votes were received: 9 yes, 1 no and 1 abstain. The motion passed.
Treasurer.
A. Dickison had no report at this time.
Executive Officer.
B. Khoury highlighted the following items from his October Report (See Board Packet, Item Ie7) for special attention and/or discussion.
Membership renewal is now available online. Khoury reported that AAPT had sent the first electronic notice for membership renewal five days before the Board meeting. To date about 500 members of the 3000 notified had responded with credit card payment and another 100 members had renewed membership indicating they preferred to mail in their payments. Non-responding members will receive a second electronic reminder and if necessary, AAPT will mail regular renewal notices to members. Valerie Evans, Director of Member Services, explained that currently the electronic renewals do not have a direct feed into the AAPT database.
In subsequent discussion, Board members generally expressed endorsement of the new membership service although one or two minor glitches in the software were reported. Holbrow inquired as to the related charges from credit card companies incurred by AAPT. Khoury explained that the savings in paperwork and postage realized by the organization exceed the fees charged by the credit card companies. M. Fehrs recommended that the service be modified allowing members to print the renewal forms as receipts at the time of submission. J. Tobochnik further recommended that the AAPT staff explore the feasibility of expanding the email notices to recruit new members.
AAPT has received approximately 80 nominees for the New Faculty Workshop, scheduled for November 8-11, 2001. This year the American Astronomical Society will share formal sponsorship with the AAPT and APS. Khoury indicated that the workshop would probably have 50 physics faculty and 10 astronomy faculty. Consequently, two astronomy faculty have been added as workshop presenters, in addition to Ken Krane, and a couple of breakout sessions of special interest to the astronomy faculty have been added. (See Minutes Item 8.)
Next year’s International Physics Olympiad will be held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Due to the recent domestic turmoil in that country and the threat of continued terrorist attacks following the events of September 11, Khoury expressed strong concerns about sending our students to this country. Mary Mogge, academic director of our Olympiad team, suggested that we might ask the Olympiad officials to bring the exams from Indonesia to their embassy in the United States. However, the flavor of an international competition would be lost if this approach were adopted. Khoury proposed that AAPT pursue the possibly of hosting a competition within the United States for our students. Khoury reminded the Board that AIP has underwritten the costs of the competition if the private backers remove their financial support. Although the competition is not scheduled until the summer, the high school teachers need to be informed of the AAPT’s plans for this year’s competition.
In a straw vote of the Board, nine members voted in favor of a resolution endorsing the Executive Officer’s current plan not to send our students to the international competition in 2002. R. Howes expressed the concern that if we remove our team from the international competition, this action may be perceived as a statement against the competition or that AAPT does not want to send our students to a 3rd world country, particularly in light of the current world situation.
Len Jossem will be completing his term on the US Liaison Committee (USLC) and Joe Redish on the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP. Upon request by the Board, Jossem recommended Dean Zollman for the International Commission on Education and Joe Redish for the US Liaison Committee. These names were accepted by the Board.
In response to a request from Hubisz that Nomination Forms be placed in every issue of the Announcer and published online for electronic submission, Khoury commented that the Announcer normally published the nomination forms in the Fall and Winter issues. These publication times correspond more closely to the working timeline of the Nominating Committee. Hubisz explained that the suggestion was made so that AAPT could continually receive nominations for area committees and association officers.
Following a short discussion by the Board, the members generally agreed that the members of the Nominating Committee would make the process work. The Nominating Committee would pass on the names of unused nominations and would work with the incoming Nominating Committee to make sure their successors received nominations submitted during the spring and summer. In closing, Khoury said the staff will work on the special wording on the nomination form to explain the dates for the terms of office and they will need some time to learn how to work with a long pipeline of names.
Physics Today (PT) is now available online, free of charge. Currently half of the readers of PT online are not members of AIP member societies. AIP plans to put PT behind a password so that access would be available primarily to those readers who receive the paper version. Login would be the reader’s email address and the reader would create his/her own password. Khoury reported that discussions are currently underway with AIP regarding the transfer by the AAPT of the email addresses of its members. AIP will not sell, give, or rent this information. However, if a member uses one of the vendors in the PT online version, the vendor would learn the email address of the user.
In an additional note, Khoury reported that the AAPT has received a check subsidizing the publication costs for the Reprint Book on Color and Light (see Rochester Board Minutes 27).
C. Heimpel, in a special report to the Board, stated that she had set two new goals for the Meetings Department: (1) to increase attendance at national meetings and (2) to increase the number of exhibitors at the meetings (which will occur only when goal one has been realized). In an effort to increase the attendance with measurable results, three marketing strategies were implemented:
A full page ad for the 124th AAPT National Meeting will be run in the November issue of Physics Today
A special mailing was sent to 5800 science educators within a 50-mile radius of Philadelphia, 300 department chairs, and 175 section liaisons.
A special postcard "series of two" for exhibitors was sent to 350 potential vendors. Heimpel added that the registration process for the meeting would allow her to track first -time participants and therefore measure the impact of the posters and other special mailings on the attendance to the meeting. In subsequent discussion, the Board inquired as to the success of the AAPT exhibits at NSTA meetings. The AAPT staff gave a favorable report but noted that a Board member does really need to orchestrate this activity. Currently the AAPT plans to prepare an exhibit for one national NSTA meeting and one regional NSTA meeting.
5. Budget Items and Preliminary 2002 Budget.
A. Dickison reported that the AAPT has a projected net deficit of $35,194 for FY-2001, which does not include the funds transferred from the designated funds account. For the same year, the Executive Office is projecting income from designated funds of $206,762 and expenses of $291,556. The difference, $84,794, added to the net income gives the Operating Fund account a net income of $49,600. ). Khoury explained that the designated funds show a deficit due to current expenditures of income received three years ago from the Campaign for Physics. The income was shown the year the income was received and now it appears as an expense.
The budget for FY-2002 shows a deficit in net income of $335,801 before the transfer of designated funds. The projected income from the designated funds for this term is $62,600 and projected expenses are $332,435. When the difference of $269,835 is added to the net income, the Operating Fund has a deficit in net income of $62,600.
The 2002 Budget will be presented to the AAPT Board during the Winter 2002 meeting for consideration and action. During the general review and discussion of the assumptions made in preparation for the 2002 budget, Dickson explained that he projected a small deficit for the coming year, due to efforts by the AAPT to address the critical issues adopted by the Board during its January 2001 meeting. He explained that the salaries are based on the current number of AAPT employees. The budget development assumed funding for all NSF submitted proposals except the Rural PTRA program. The latter was not assumed because of the size of the request for funding, therefore carrying a considerable amount for indirect costs.
Additional assumptions receiving special discussion were:
The inclusion of a full year of AIP non-member subscription service. Dickison explained that the Board might need to take another look at subscription rates for the AAPT journals. New subscription rates for the American Journal of Physics and The Physics Teacher will go into effect on January 1, 2003. Library subscriptions of the journals will be handled by AIP. By going through AIP, the AAPT can participate in consortia that will allow the association to provide subscriptions to libraries without the need to sign separate licensing agreements for online subscriptions.
AAPT will begin participating in AIP’s health care benefit program on January 1, 2002, thereby realizing a savings for the Association.
AAPT will hire a full-time director for the PSRC using Campaign for Physics Funds. (See Minutes Item 6)
The proposed budget did not include capital funds for a content management system and redesign of the AAPT website. Sina Kniseley explained that the bids received for this expenditure were too high and that she is seeking additional bids. She hopes that the cost will be no more than $100,000 and believes that the change could probably be phased in over a period of three years. Dickison suggests that the Board may want to consider taking monies for this item from the short-term reserve instead of the operating budget.
In the subsequent discussion of the proposed 2002 budget, Dickison pointed out that changes from the 2001 budget are due to three major factors: (1) increased marketing (that will increase the membership in the association (projected to be about 10%) and the attendance in future AAPT meetings); (2) the hiring of a full-time director for the PSRC; and (3) the subscription fulfillment being given to AIP.
Dickison moved that the Executive Board approve the Budget Assumptions as presented. The motion passed unanimously.
6. Reports from Web Services Advisory Groups.
C Holbrow referred the Board members to the status reports of the AAPT web services included in the Board packet. Discussion and action by the Board addressed two main points: (1) the TPT Online Subgroup’s report and recommendations concerning the development of an electronic version of TPT and (2) the report from the Physical Science Resource Center Subgroup addressing improvements to the web site and the proposal to hire a new PSRC Director.
(1) The Task Force charged with investigating options to bring The Physics Teacher (TPT) online recommended that TPT be made electronically in the following phases:
Phase O – TPT homepage would be developed with selected articles, notes or columns made available free of charge. This phase has been completed.
Phase 1 – TPT would be posted online with the same features and in the same fashion, that AJP is made available. The proposed timeline is January 2003 for free demo version debuts and September 2003 as the date by which paying subscribers can access the electronic journal.
Phase 2 – Enhancements, such as a weekly electronic-only column, would be made during this period. The timeline for this phase has not been defined.
C. Holbrow made the motion to accept the TPT plan as presented in the report to the Board. K. Mamola seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
(2) The Physical Science Resource Center (PSRC) Subgroup of the Web Services Advisory Group met at the American Center for Physics on June 18-19, 2001 to consider how to make the PSRC a more viable physics education resource. Consequently the members of the subgroup proposed that a full-time director for the PSRC be hired by January 1, 2002 to implement five improvements for the resource center:
A set of metadata should be developed for the materials already included in the PSRC and any new materials that are added.
The PSRC needs a site map that will help users find the materials and assist in the orderly development of the site.
A consistent set of templates and fonts that would improve the appearance and functionality of the site.
A procedure for collecting, peer reviewing, and cataloging materials on the site.
Tools should be put in place that would make it easy to find and access information on the site.
Since its development in 1997, Warren Hein, Associate Executive Officer, has been solely responsible for the selection of the material on the PSRC site. Although a PSRC Advisory Committee has been in place since the site went live, the members have provided limited input on the structure or content of PSRC. The PSRC subgroup proposed that the new director of the PSRC should have a physics background and a good knowledge of web-based technologies that would serve him/her well in the implementation of the five recommended improvements. The new director would function much like a journal editor and would have the option of appointing assistant directors, an editorial board, reviewers, etc.
The primary responsibility of the PSRC Director, at least initially, would be the development of a proposal to the National Science Foundation requesting funding for the development of an astronomy and physics component of a National Science Digital Library (NSDL). The proposal, due by April 10, 2002, would be a joint venture of AAPT/AIP/APS with some input from the American Astronomical Society. The current PSRC subgroup and representatives from MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resources for Learning and Online Teaching) would serve as primary advisors to the new director as the proposal is developed.
The subgroup proposes that the remaining $105,000 in the Campaign for Physics funds allocated for the development of the PSRC would adequately provide a reasonable salary, benefits, and support for one year for the new PSRC director. During this year, the Director would prepare the proposal and implement the five recommended improvements. If the proposal is funded, the monies awarded by NSF will provide the support to maintain the PSRC and begin the development of the NSDL component. If the proposal is not funded, the PSRC Director could serve in this position from a college or university, similar to the current AJP and TPT editors and maintain the site by electronic communication. However, revenue sources will have to be identified which will provide the additional budget expenditures resulting from creation of the position of PSRC Director and probable PSRC Editorial Board and reviewers.
Members of the Board expressed the need to define some specific direction and/or concrete actions for the new director. F. Peterson also expressed concern about using all of the remaining PSRC funds to hire a new staff member at AAPT and suggested that a wiser alternative may be for AAPT to buy release time for a faculty member for one year. Dickison advised that special care be exercised in preparing the job description for the new PSRC Director.
Hein expressed confidence that the AAPT would get some funding for the digital library and added that the leaders of this effort believe the DL will be more successful if educators and teachers are involved rather than the researchers and collectors of data. He suggested that members of MERLOT would be strong candidates for the directorship. He advised the Board to approve the recommendation from the PSRC subgroup, particularly since the AAPT only has until April 2002 to submit the proposal.
With the understanding that the responsibilities of the position would include a charge to involve AAPT membership in evaluating PSRC and any enhancements to it or any efforts to connect it to NSDL, Holbrow made the motion that the Board approve the expenditure of the $105,000 from the Campaign for Physics funds to hire a PSRC Director. The Director will write a proposal seeking funding from the National Science Foundation for the development of the astronomy and physics component of the National Science Digital Library with input from the AAPT community concerning the definition of the content for the digital library. Iona seconded the motion. During discussion of the motion, it was agreed that Hubisz, Holbrow, and Hein would oversee the selection of the new PSRC Director and the development of the proposal. The motion passed unanimously.
7. Funding Decisions by Bauder Committee.
J. Hubisz made the motion that the AAPT Executive Board give the Bauder Fund Committee authority to approve expenditure requests less than $1000. In addition, the Committee will report these approvals to the Executive Board. C. Holbrow seconded the motion. Following a short discussion among Board members, the question was called and the motion passed unanimously.
8. Funding for New Faculty Workshop.
B. Khoury asked the Board for authorization to proceed with the New Faculty Workshop. The proposal to the National Science Foundation requesting funding for the workshop has been submitted. However, no award of funding can be made until Congress awards funding to NSF. The Executive Office is confident that the AAPT proposal will be funded. NSF routinely allows AAPT to fund activities occurring three months prior to the award and in this instance probably for a longer term. Khoury made the motion that the Executive Board authorize an expenditure of $35,000 to fund the New Faculty Workshop scheduled for November 8-11, 2001. The motion, seconded by L. Adair, passed unanimously.
9. Merger of Area Committees.
J. Hubisz received a request from the members of the Instructional Media Committee (IMC) and the Committee on Computers in Physics Education (CIPE) to merge the committees assimilating the duties and responsibilities of both previous committees and taking the name of "Committee on Educational Technologies (CET)". The primary reason cited for the merger was the strong overlap between the two committees. According to the plan of execution prepared jointly by the members of the two committees, the members of the two committees would meet jointly in January 2002 but the merged committee would carry out the sessions, workshops, and tutorials planned by the two committees for future AAPT meetings. At the end of the January 2002 meeting, Andrew Gavrin, current Chair for IMC, will assume the chair position for the merged committee.
C. Holbrow made the motion that the Executive Board approve the request for the merger of the AAPT Instructional Media Committee and the AAPT Committee on Computers in Physics Education as proposed and outlined in the letter to President Hubisz. The newly formed committee will be called the "Committee on Educational Technologies". (See Executive Board Packet IIE) C. Haas seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.
The Mission for the Committee on Educational Technologies proposed by the members of the two existing committees and adopted by the Executive Board is as follows:
Identify new developments in educational technology and new applications of educational technology to physics teaching and learning.
Communicate these new developments and applications to the AAPT membership through a variety of means, including print and electronic publications, workshops and sessions at national and regional meetings.
Conduct competitions, as appropriate, to recognize, promote and reward worthwhile contributions to the uses of educational technologies for physics education.
Coordinate with other area committees, organizations, and institutions in the development and dissemination of new ideas for the use of various educational technologies in physics education.
10. Student Confidence Workshop.
The Women in Physics Committee would like to seek funding, approximately $10,000, from an external agency to be used to improve the Student Confidence Workshop. Such action by a committee requires prior Board approval. A. Dickison reported that the Venture Fund Committee funded a similar request from the Women in Physics Committee a few years earlier. S. Kniseley also reported that the Workshop materials had not been recommended by the Publications Committee for publication, stating that the materials lacked the quality AAPT would want to have. She advised the Board to provide some kind of guidance to insure that the revision effort would be successful.
R. Howes moved that the Executive Board accept in principle the request from the Women in Physics Committee, but delay formal support of the request until after the Committee has supplied the Board with more detail as to what would be accomplished and how it would be done. C. Haas seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously.
11. Publication of Paper Abstracts.
Holbrow presented for Board consideration, a plan prepared by S. Kniseley, AAPT Director of Communications (Packet Item III G), providing for a gradual move over the next year to publish the paper abstracts outside the Announcer. Although the online publication of abstracts would relax the submission deadline by one month, some members expressed reluctance to abruptly terminate the printing of the abstracts in the Announcer.
R. Howes made the motion that the AAPT publish paper abstracts as proposed by S. Kniseley as an experiment, allowing AAPT members time to react and respond to the new mode of publication. Dickison seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
The Plan as submitted contains three steps for the proposed transition. For the Winter 2002 Meeting of the AAPT, the program will be printed in the Announcer. A new online program and itinerary scheduler will debut. For the Summer 2002 Meeting, all AAPT members will receive a full printed program by one of two options: (1) a copy printed in the Announcer or (2) a copy printed separately from the Announcer but mailed with the Announcer. The staff during this second step will also collect input on the operation of the new itinerary program and abstract archive and modify the system as needed. For the Winter 2003 Meeting, the full program will be given only to those attending the meeting.
The Executive Board recessed for lunch. A special luncheon for both AAPT staff and Executive Board members provided opportunities for an exchange of ideas and perspectives to assure that the associational services address the needs of AAPT members.
12. Executive Session I.
Following lunch, the Board met in Executive Session I (without the Executive Officer).
13. Future of PER Supplement.
The American Journal of Physics (AJP) has published a Physics Education Research Supplement (PERS), consisting of 64 pages, in July of each of the past three years. The Supplement provides a research publication venue for the PER community that currently constitutes a small representation of the broad-based readership of the AJP. The AAPT funded the publication of the first two Supplements and the Spencer Foundation funded the third supplement. When the AAPT Board appointed Jan Tobochnik as the new AJP editor, the Board indicated informal support for the publication of a fourth PER Supplement in 2002, thereby allowing the new editor time to consider the value of PER articles to the readership of the AJP.
Joe Redish, PERS Editor, in his July 21, 2001 Annual Report to the Publications Committee, reported that he had 5 manuscripts and one note that had been accepted for publication and that an additional 2-4 submitted manuscripts were expected to receive favorable reviews. In an August 2001 memo to the Board and the Publications Committee, Beth Ann Thacker as Chair of the PER Committee requested that the Board (1) encourage the new editor of AJP to publish PER articles that would be of interest to the broad community of physics instructors, (2) provide the resources necessary for the publication in the Supplement of those PER papers currently accepted and those currently in the review process, and (3) continue the support for the publication of the PER Supplement indefinitely.
In an effort to formalize AAPT support for the publication of the 2002 PER Supplement, B. Khoury made the following motion. The AAPT Executive Board approves the publication of the 2002 PER Supplement to the American Journal of Physics and allocates up to $20,000 to support the printing and distribution of the Supplement. The Board authorizes the President, the AJP Editor, and the Executive Officer to determine how best to carry out the PERS Editor role for 2002. M. Fehrs seconded the motion.
Tobochnik asked the Board to first consider how PER articles would be published after 2002. He proposed the publication of future PER articles in a designated section of AJP, such as "Apparatus Notes", to be published in two or three issues of the AJP. The AJP Editor would appoint a section editor to handle the PER submissions and authors would designate whether they wanted their manuscript to be considered for the PER section or the regular part of the AJP. The Editor of AJP would have final say on all submissions to the PER section. However, Jan noted that if the submitted PER manuscripts accepted for publication regularly exceeded 20 in number, the PER section would necessarily need to become an online journal with its own editorial office. Tobochnik added that the PER Supplement as a specialized journal publishing the research output from the PER community might be a good candidate for electronic publication and that the PER community should consider submitting their research manuscripts to the arXiv.org.e-Print archive.
Discussion among the Board members primarily addressed two points. (1) anticipated increase in the number of submitted PER manuscripts and (2) obligation by AAPT to publish research from the PER community. Board members were generally divided concerning the first issue. Holbrow does not believe the PER community would grow as projected by Khoury in his memo to the Board. Other members indicated that they do not perceive a real demand for PER publications. On point two, Fehrs and Peterson expressed the view that the members of the PER community are members of the AAPT membership and therefore we should publish articles of benefit and service to these members. Some concern was expressed that the publication of PER articles might be perceived as an endorsement of the research.
Discussion returned to the motion on the floor. Some members preferred the publication of 64 additional pages over the year within AJP rather than as a separate supplement. Tobochnik felt that it would be best to publish the articles in two or three issues a year rather than spreading them over the monthly journals. Therefore, the friendly amendment was proposed and accepted by Khoury and Adair: The AAPT will publish one 64-page supplement or will publish two 32-page sections incorporated within the AJP. Khoury, Dickison, and Tobochnik will work out the details with the PER Editor, Joe Redish. The motion passed unanimously.
In follow-up, Iona pointed out that the AAPT had no plans for the publication of PER articles for 2003 or beyond. However, it was pointed out that the Editor’s role does include the authority to decide the nature/venue of future PER publications.
14. Report from AIP’s Physics Resources Center.
Jim Stith, former AAPT president and current Director of the Physics Resources Center (PRC) at AIP, highlighted some PRC activities of special interest to the AAPT during his visit with the Board. The PRC would like to provide publicity for every meeting of the AIP member societies. He needs the help of the AAPT staff and Board in identifying what items within the AAPT meetings need to be publicized. This will be an ongoing initiative. Physics Today is available online, thereby carrying physics news to a broader audience. AIP proposes to use the email address of a society member as the login and the subscriber could then submit his/her own password. It will take about $60,000 to implement this feature of the electronic journal.
The Industrial Physicist (TIP) targets an audience outside the typical physics community and has a readership of about 60,000. Eighty per cent of the subscribers are not affiliated with any AIP member society. However, these readers are strong candidates for membership in these societies.
The Discoveries & Breakthroughs Inside Science takes physics to the broad community via television. The Center is confident that the DBIS will project clients in 80 US television markets by the end of the year. The challenge is to reach 150 stations, at which point the service will be self-sufficient. Currently the service requires a subsidy of about $300,000 a year.
The Education Liaison Committee is being revamped in an effort to improve its productivity. Staff members of the member societies have been invited to participate in the Committee’s activities. Attending the last meeting of the Committee were staff from the Optical Society of America, the American Astronomical Society and the American Geophysical Union.
In closing Stith commented that the core function of AIP is to do things collaboratively with a number of societies. He asked for help from the AAPT in attaining this goal.
15. Knowles Science Teaching Foundation.
In a special presentation to the Board, Angelo Collins, Director for the Knowles Science Teaching Foundation, explained that Metrologic Instruments, Inc. had closed its education division and consequently the Knowles Foundation would assume the co-sponsorship for the AAPT Physics Bowl competition and scholarships in 2002. Harry and Janet Knowles, the founders of Metrologic, used their accumulated monies to organize the Science Teaching Foundation to encourage and sustain young scientists who will become teachers.
Over the next few years, the Foundation proposes to implement four programs targeting high school physics teachers. The Knowles Teaching Fellows Program, the corner stone program, will select recent baccalaureate graduates in physics who plan to teach and will support them financially as they complete the teacher certification requirements. After certification, the Knowles Program will help the young teachers find teaching positions and will provide some funds with which to purchase teaching materials. The program will not target mid career shifts. Collins requested the help of the AAPT in identifying candidates for the 3-6 fellows positions available this year. In addition, she asked for help from the AAPT in identifying 3-6 master teachers, possibly from the AAPT PTRA program, to serve as mentors for the beginning teachers.
Additional Knowles programs propose to support research fellows to evaluate teacher programs and assess teacher effectiveness as well as successful teachers who will work with the research fellows.
Collins specifically asked the AAPT Board for access to the AAPT listserv for the purpose of advertising the Knowles Foundation website.
16. Planning Initiatives.
Khoury reviewed the progress by AAPT in addressing each of the five initiatives. (See related items in Minutes.) He reported that the AAPT survey assessing member needs had been developed and was in the process of being distributed to the membership. Hubisz, Chair of the Task Force on Physics Standards, reported the availability of a website listing the standards for any state, including the listing of standards by some counties within states. Chiaverina reported that he will ask the Area Chairs in Philadelphia for input and discussion regarding the identification of five planning initiatives of the AAPT for the coming year.
17. National Task Force on Undergraduate Physics. Howes reported the status of each of the four activities supported by the National Task Force on Undergraduate Physics (NTFUP). The Task Force is an umbrella organization with representative membership from the AIP, APS, and AAPT.
She and Ken Krane, co-project directors for SPIN-UP, have set the dates for three of the proposed twenty site visits to be conducted during the next year. Included in the Board packet were the list of criteria guiding the selection of the departments for site visits and the protocol for the site visits. In addition, initial conversations are occurring with Roman Czujko in the AIP Statistics Division concerning the preparation of the survey of all undergraduate physics departments.
The Research Chairs’ Meeting has been scheduled for November 17, 2001. Carl Wieman (University of Colorado and the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics), as a member of the Task Force has taken the lead in inviting the participants and in the planning of the program.
A proposal, authored by Ramon Lopez and Bob Beichner, has been submitted to the NSF requesting funding for a conference on calculus-based introductory physics to be hosted during the Spring 2002.
Tom O’Kuma, R Howes, and M.B. Monroe are preparing a proposal for submission to the NSF requesting funding for a project targeting the two-year college community. The effort, which parallels the SPIN-UP project, will conduct ten site visits to community colleges and a survey of all two- year college physics departments to examine how they are responding to changes in the environment for undergraduate physics. (The draft of the SPIN-UP/TYC proposal was included in the Board packet.)
18. Status and Plans for the Dodge Building.
Khoury reported that the proposed sale of the Dodge Building had been brought to the Board’s attention when a potential buyer had expressed a serious interest in the purchasing the building. Due to the unstable American economy since the attacks on America on September 11, the buyer had changed his mind. However, Khoury invited comments from the Board concerning the general conditions under which the AAPT might sell the building.
The Dodge Building was purchased sixteen years ago by the AAPT for about $850,000. At that time, an additional $100,000 was expended for a major retrofit of the building facilitating the needs of the AAPT. Khoury reported that the Dodge Building is currently listed on the AAPT financial records with a net value of $230,000, reflecting an accumulated depreciation of $720,000. The most recent appraisal, four years old, assigned a value of $700,000. He reported that the Board members had indicated a readiness to sell the Dodge Building at the appraised value and assist in the financing of the sale if the buyer would provide a down payment of at least 25%.
Khoury recommended that the AAPT sell the Dodge Building at the last appraisal value, converting the asset into cash that could be invested more flexibly. The AAPT realizes some net income from rental on part of the building. Other building space is used for storage and the AAPT would need to rent storage space if the Dodge building were sold. Khoury indicated that the University of Maryland was a strong candidate as a buyer.
Dickison agreed with the recommendation to sell the Dodge Building but added that the Board should carefully consider selling the building for less than the appraisal value and that the Board should not agree to a sale just to get rid of the building. He asked Khoury to immediately notify the Board if the Executive Office got a hot lead.
19. Possible Committee on Interests of Senior Physicists.
Upon request from John Rigden, Roger Stuewer, and C. Holbrow, the Executive Board considered the creation of a Committee on the Interests of Senior Physicists. The Committee would have the following Preamble and Charge.
Preamble:
"Physicists in or near retirement have talents and experience that can be shared usefully with the AAPT membership. Senior physicists also have interests and concerns that are distinct from those of physicists and physics teachers who are in earlier stages of their careers. To exploit their talents and experience and to provide a forum in which they can explore their interests and concerns, we request that AAPT establish an ad hoc Committee on the Interests of Senior Physicists (CISP)."
Charge: "CISP shall concern itself with matters of particular interest and concern to physicists in or near retirement. The committee may sponsor meeting sessions and speakers and propose to the Association actions and activities that deal with such matters and concerns.
CISP shall work to involve senior physicists in the activities of the AAPT and find ways to make their experience and wisdom available to the AAPT membership."
C. Holbrow moved the creation of the Committee on Interests of Senior Physicists, as described by the Preamble and Charge above, as a Temporary Committee for three years. Chiaverina seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously.
20. Report from Investment Advisory Committee.
Dickison reported that the Investment Advisory Committee had met with all in attendance except one. Since the Committee met early in the month, the members did not have complete financial reports for September. Reports will be posted on the secure area of the Executive Board’s website when they arrive.
The AAPT currently has about $1.5 million dollars in short term reserves and around $3 million in long term reserves. Some of these assets are designated funds. The short term reserves are in fixed investments and thus lost nothing during these troubled times. The Association did realize some losses due to broad market declines including those following the terrorist attacks on September 11; these amounted to overall declines of about $250,000 in long term funds. Dickison will prepare a more comprehensive report showing gains and losses for the January 2002 meeting.
The Committee is pleased with the services of TIAA-CREF. Legg Mason provides more diversity in what the AAPT invests in, but the Committee is pleased with their reporting.
The Advisory Committee will look into agencies that manage the investments for their clients and will also look into individual investment managers.
The present investment scheme for the long term reserve is 70% in equity funds and 30 % in bonds. The Advisory Committee, based on the information currently available, recommends that the AAPT maintain that ratio.
21. Future Meeting Sites.
The AAPT has defined dates and sites for the next five national meetings. The Association is maintaining a pattern of summer meetings located on university campuses and winter meetings at conference centers. The AAPT staff will prepare more than one option for future meeting sites for the next three-four open dates. In response from the Board, Khoury was asked to explore the possibility of a joint meeting with another society or organization in the near future. However, Khoury felt that it would be wiser to discuss with Council which societies the members would like to meet with before any action was taken along these lines.
Hubisz recessed the Board until Sunday morning.
22. Executive Session II (with the Executive Officer).
23. SPS Representative at Program Committee.
M.B. Monroe moved that the AAPT invite the SPS Director, or his representative, to attend and participate in the AAPT Programs Committee. M. Fehrs seconded the motion. In discussion of this motion, Monroe explained that such participation would facilitate and sustain the Society of Physics Students (SPS) sessions in future AAPT meetings, would facilitate and help in the organization of special sessions such as the Marsh White Memorial Session, and would contribute to the physics content of our meetings. She had discussed this action with Gary White, current SPS Director, and he was agreeable to this action. White expressed to her that he was looking for ways to strengthen the ties between SPS and the AAPT and this would address that interest. The motion passed unanimously.
24. Report on PhysTEC.
W. Hein reported that PhysTEC had received $5.8 million from NSF along with an additional award of $400, 000 from FIPSE. The PIs for the project are Fred Stein (APS), Jack Hehn (AIP), John Layman(AAPT), and Warren Hein (AAPT). During the term of the project John Layman will be using one of the AAPT offices allowing him close contact with the other PIs. The project grant received by APS includes partial salary and benefits for both Hein and Layman.
25. Services for Persons with Disabilities.
During the Summer 2001, Hubisz received a letter from Betty Price stating that the AAPT was not in compliance with the Persons with Disabilities Act. He had sent a follow-up letter to Preece asking for information that is more specific but he had not heard a response. C. Heimpel reported to the Board that during visits to potential AAPT meeting sites, the staff makes sure that the hotels and meeting rooms are in compliance.
26. Support for Schools Moving to "Physics First".
During the Summer 2001 meeting of the Executive Board, the members approved a motion to develop a planning grant providing for faculty with experience in teaching ninth grade physics to meet and interact with faculty who might be implementing similar curriculum. Chiaverina, Holbrow, and Khoury will have a draft of the proposal ready for Board consideration by the January 2002 meeting. In addition, the AAPT Winter Meeting in Philadelphia will have two sessions that focus on the experiences of teachers who have implemented ninth grade physics curriculum.
Included with the Board packet (See Item IIIL), was a report The State of Physics-First Programs, provided by Leon Lederman. Khoury commented that while the report is primarily anecdotal, it does reinforce the need for collaboration among ninth grade physics teachers. He added that he and Chris Chiaverina would be attending a small "physics first" workshop in November being convened by Lederman at Fermi Lab.
During the subsequent discussion, Board members batted ideas concerning how the AAPT should best address the curricular and teacher training needs of the schools implementing physics first. The two main ideas voiced by the Board members concerned the lack of an AAPT support system for these schools and the lack of an AAPT policy statement regarding physics first. Although AAPT has developed the curriculum package, Active Physics, the materials were not designed to serve the curricular needs of ninth grade physics.
Khoury reminded the Board that they had asked him during the Summer 2001 meeting to prepare an editorial for the Announcer that would explain the position of the AAPT on physics first. His editorial and the President’s Report in the Winter 2001 Announcer will address this concern.
Hubisz appointed an ad hoc committee (Adair, Chiaverina, Iona and Haas) charged with the preparation of a list of appropriate action items for the AAPT addressing support for schools implementing physics first. The ad hoc committee will present their report to the Board in January 2002.
27. 2002 Appointments to AIP & Other External Committees.
Hubisz gave the Board members a few moments to review the letter and attachments from AIP regarding the nominations by the AAPT of candidates for membership on AIP committees and subcommittees. He asked that Board nominations be sent to him by November 15 with supporting statements for the nomination. The nominations for candidates are due at AIP by December 21.
28. Committee Assignments for Vice-Chair of the Section Representatives.
Hubisz explained that all members of the Board normally served on at least one committee. However, the creation of the Vice-Chair of the Section Representatives by the revised AAPT Constitution did not define specific committee assignments associated with the new position. Iona, after reviewing the committees he serves on as Chair of Section Reps, suggested that the Vice-Chair might be appropriately placed on the Review Board or the Publications Committee. Monroe spoke to the need for a member of the Publications Committee to serve as recording secretary, therefore allowing the Chair of Pubs to focus on conducting the necessary business of the meeting.
The motion was made and seconded that the Vice-Chair of the Section Representatives would serve as member of the Review Board and recording secretary of the Publications Committee. The motion passed with 10 yes votes and one not voting.
29. Site for Summer Meeting.
Khoury received a serious invitation from Paul Lane, University of St. Thomas in Minnesota to host a summer meeting of the AAPT. The university has the facilities to accommodate the workshops but not the regular meeting sessions. Khoury commented that given the prior discussion within Council in which the members indicated that they did not want summer meetings in hotels, he was inclined to decline the invitation. The Board generally expressed the view that AAPT should probably continue with the pattern of one meeting a year at a hotel and one meeting a year on a college campus.
30. Adjournment.
Hubisz adjourned the meeting at 10:40 AM.
Mary Beth Monroe, Secretary
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