Minutes - April 2005 (Part 2)

April 23-24, 2005
College Park, MD


14. Report from the Secretary. Monroe reported that the Board acted on four electronic motions since its January meeting. 

  • The AAPT Executive Board appoints Bernard Khoury, or in his absence Warren Hein, as proxy to act for and in the name of the American Association of Physics Teachers at annual meetings of the American Center for Physics Incorporated. This appointment will be effective until the AAPT Executive Board appoints other persons to act in this capacity. The motion passed with a vote tally of 11 yes. (The motion prepared by B. Khoury was sent on January 28, 2005.)

 

  • The AAPT Executive Board revises its prior action taken in Albuquerque regarding the allocation of up to $15,000 per year to support page charges for authors whose papers have been accepted for publication in Physical Review Special Topic – Physics Education Research. The AAPT Board hereby rescinds its prior action that would have limited these funds to current AAPT members. The motion passed with a vote tally of 11 yes. (The motion prepared by B. Khoury was sent February 16, 2005.)

 

  • D. Peterson moved that the Board approve up to $5,000 toward travel expenses of a task force of two-year college physics teachers to meet at length with NSF personnel (and the national AAPT office) during a 1 – 1.5 day period prior to the AAPT Summer meeting of 2005. The task force is to be organized by AAPT CPTYC area committee. The task force will have responsibilities as specified in the attached proposal from CPTYC. Funding for this expense will be from the AAPT Klopsteg Fund. The motion passed with a vote tally of 10 yes and 1 abstain. (The motion was sent March 26, 2005.)

 

  • The AAPT Board approves the submission to NSF of the attached proposal to support ComPADRE. The Board understands that the attached proposal will continue to be edited between this version and the final version that will be submitted on the April 11 deadline, but that the essential elements and the budget of the attached version will be sustained in the final version. The motion passed with a vote tally of 10 yes with 1 member not voting. (The motion prepared by B. Khoury was sent on April 1, 2005.) 

 

The Nominating Committee working in 2005 had not completed, by Board time, its slate of candidates for the Fall 2005 elections. Monroe will quietly share the names with Board when she receives the committee’s list. Monroe reminded the Board that it needed to complete the appointments for the Nominating Committee working in 2006. (See these Minutes, Item 24.) The committee will select candidates for the positions of Vice President, Secretary, and At-Large Member for Four-Year Colleges.

 

Monroe summarized the status of the Five-Year Reviews of AAPT Publications. During the Summer 2005, the Board will hear a report from the committee conducting the Five-Year Review of the Physical Science Resource Center (PSRC). Members of that committee are Patsy Ann Johnson (Chair), Nancy Watson, and Dan Mac Isaac. The Five-Year Review of The Physics Teacher will be completed by January 2006. Members of that committee are Dwight (Ed) Neuenschwander (Chair), Marv Nelson, and Diane Riendeau. The Five-Year Review of Resource Letters was presented to the Board during its October 2004 meeting. Roger Stuewer, RL Editor, will meet with the Board in Salt Lake City to discuss this review and his response. 

 

15. Report from the Treasurer. C. Robertson had no report at this time.

 

16. Report from Section Representatives. R. Peterson reported that progress was being realized in reactivating inactive sections. The Alabama Section met and he anticipates that the section may have reached stability. The Louisiana Section is preparing a constitution and is organizing a meeting. However, the Section Reps were still working with the Kentucky Section. (Also see these Minutes, Item 35.)

 

17. Report from the Past President. J. Nelson had no report at this time. 

 

18. Report from the Executive Officer. B. Khoury highlighted the following items from his report to the Board included in the Board Packet.

 

The preparation of the Guidelines for Undergraduate Programs is nearing completion. The content of the brochure is largely based on the findings of the SPIN-UP site visit study conducted by the National Task Force on Undergraduate Physics. Ruth Howes, Don Holcomb, and J.D. Garcia were the key leaders in preparing this document and guiding it through various committees of the AAPT and APS. In the Summer 2004, the Board authorized the publication of these guidelines, allowing for minor editing changes. Subsequently the Executive Office learned that the APS Committee on Education had some changes it wanted to see incorporated. Khoury anticipated that this modification would be completed by May 11, at which time the brochure would be sent to the printers. Khoury explained that the changes were not substantive and therefore no additional consideration was needed by the AAPT Board. The brochure will be published with the endorsement of the APS Forum on Education. 

 

Included in the Board Packet were letters to national Congressional representatives signed by B. Khoury as EO of the AAPT. These letters addressed NSF funding issues impacting STEM education. Khoury explained that he automatically signs off on such letters when they concern efforts previously endorsed by the AAPT Board. However, letters addressing new issues are first brought to the Board for its consideration. 

 

For the past two years, the AAPT has made available small grants of $500 to AAPT sections to support their local discussions and activities addressing teacher preparation. Fourteen sections have received such grants. Khoury asked the Board to consider extending these grants to sections to stimulate discussions of standards at the local level. He pointed out that this support could be given without additional funding. The Board’s original allocation for these grants was $5,000 and since then the AAPT has received two gifts of $3,000 each to supplement these awards. 

 

Khoury reported that as this is Mary Mogge’s last year as Director of the U. S. Physics Team, she would be given some type of commendation during the meeting at Salt Lake City. Bob Shurtz and Paul Stanley will serve as academic director and senior coach, respectively, next year.

 

Khoury mentioned the problem associated with downloading electronic material from Kinetic Books. Some users reported that when they uninstalled the materials, the process wiped out all their files. The AAPT sent a warning to all AAPT members with instructions on how to safely remove the materials. 

 

Joe Meyer has agreed to serve as Election Teller for the AAPT Fall 2005 elections. However, Lila Adair who has served as Assistant Teller will be a candidate in these elections. Therefore an appointment for her replacement will need to be made.

 

Chairs of area committees, both incoming and outgoing, are expected to attend the Area Chairs’ Meeting held on Saturday of the AAPT Winter Meetings. In the past financial support to attend this special one-day meeting was given to chairs when they expressed a need for it. Khoury explained that the AAPT staff will inform all chairs of this available support. The President also asked Monroe to reflect this funding support in her letters of appointment to the chairs.

 

In discussion of Khoury’s Report to the Board, Heller advised that the “physics first” book should have data identifying schools that teach “physics first” and data demonstrating the impact of this curriculum on their students. He felt such information would be valuable to possible adopters of this curriculum and is very different from identifying related websites. J. Roeder clarified that the AAPT has not endorsed “physics first” per se but has stated that it is one way to go. Heller added that such data would be ammunition for teachers to use with their administrations if the teachers wanted to adopt “physics first” curriculum.

 

19. Budget Committee. C. Robertson moved that the AAPT establish a Budget Committee to help prepare the annual operating and capital budget for presentation to the Executive Board for approval at its October Meeting. This committee will consist of the Treasurer (Chair), the senior At-Large Member of the Executive Board, and the Past President. The Executive Officer and Associate Executive Officer will also be members. The committee will receive the proposed budget, with assumptions, no later than two weeks before the October Meeting. They will discuss it via a conference call one week before that meeting and would meet the evening before the Executive Board meeting. A final recommendation to the Board will then be made. J. Roeder seconded the motion.

 

D. Peterson explained to the Board that at one time the AAPT had had a Personnel and Finance Committee, which had not worked very well.  However, he expressed that a budget committee provides the Board with a larger spectrum to review the proposed budget. No disagreement was expressed. The motion passed unanimously. 

 

20. Audit Committee Report. R. Peterson reported that the Audit Committee met with the auditors and reviewed their draft report. The committee accepted the report with a number of clarifications. Therefore R. Peterson moved that the Executive Board accept the Auditors’ Report and Recommendations, allowing for minor changes. Robertson noted that there were some errors in the report and asked if the Board should delay this action. B. Khoury did not think a delay was necessary. He explained that the committee received the report very late and consequently the AAPT staff had little time to correct the misunderstandings reflected in the report from the auditors. Khoury stated that the staff had voiced their complaints to the auditors. D. Peterson added that the chiding was such that the auditors realize this should not happen again. Question was then called. The motion passed unanimously. 

 

21. 2006 Membership and Subscription Rates.  Included in the Board Packet, Item II E was a table outlining the proposed 2006 AAPT member and nonmember subscription rates. W. Hein, Valerie Evans, and Sina Kniseley developed the proposal. W. Hein in his presentation explained that had been the position of the Executive Board that it was better to raise subscription rates by a small percentage each year rather than adopting a large percentage increase at irregular intervals. Their recommended increases in rates are in agreement with this position. The proposed increases will help generate revenue closer in value to the costs of producing the journals. 

 

  • The staff proposed an increase in the member rate for TPT from $101 to $103 and an increase in the member rate for AJP from $129 to $131. These increases will realize a revenue increase of $11,300 for TPT and $3,600 for AJP, based on the current number of subscribers for each journal. Members subscribing to both journals will not experience an increase in subscription rates. 

 

  • For online versions, member subscribers currently pay an additional $9 for TPT and an additional $12 for AJP. By the proposed plan, members who subscribe to both online journals will only pay an additional $16. 

 

  • The staff recommends increases of $5 for TPT and $6 for AJP for nonmember subscription rates, producing a combined revenue increase of approximately $19,000. 

 

  • The proposal also explained that in response to a request from the Memberships and Benefits Committee, the staff is collecting information that would help predict the impact to AAPT if members and nonmembers were given the option of receiving the electronic versions without the print versions. Some of the issues to be resolved concern archiving and separating membership from journal subscriptions. 

 

Heller asked for the sake of discussion what would be the down side for AAPT if people received the journals through their institution without becoming AAPT members. His thoughts were that membership should not be linked to the journal subscription. V. Evans replied that according to the recent survey, members say they join for the journals. She argued that AAPT would lose members if the subscriptions were not linked to the membership. Heller agreed with this but said that work needs to be done to wean members from this thought process. Members need to realize the other benefits they receive by joining the Association. He suggested that if the link were broken, fees adjustments would have to be made for membership and for library subscriptions. Robertson pointed out that the Society of Treasurers, after having this same discussion, strongly advised that the journal subscriptions should not be separated from the membership due to economic considerations associated with publishing. 

 

Heller also expressed that the membership rates are too high for graduate students. He suggested that if the revenue stream from this group of subscribers is not too large, the AAPT should lower the rates to them as encouragement for them to join early in their careers. V. Evans reported that post grads want a tier rating to the full membership rate, which the APS provides. D. Peterson expressed that the same opportunity should be extended to undergraduate students. He explained that these students view Photonic News as a good deal but think the membership rate for AAPT is too high especially when they don’t understand the Announcer. Heller said the AAPT needs aggressive marketing in the student population. B. Khoury reminded the Board that the AAPT gives first timers membership rates at half price. J. Roeder suggested that since students are “online people” the AAPT could make membership more attractive to such students by giving them the option to receive only the electronic copies. Stone suggested that the AAPT might want to direct membership to the department chairs instead of singling out the students, much like a site license. Robertson and D. Peterson both expressed that this might bear further thought.  

 

D. Peterson called for a vote on the proposed increase in 2006 Member and Nonmember Subscription Rates as presented in the staff report. The motion passed with a vote tally of 9 yes and 1 abstain.

 

In response to a question from Heller, B. Khoury explained that there was a marginal expense difference of about $10 between the costs of giving a member a hard copy of a journal and the costs for an electronic version. AAPT has to pay by the person for a member authentication process. One extra hard copy per year is $25. Heller concluded then that if someone did not get a print copy, the AAPT could reduce their dues by $10 if the Association switched their subscription from a hard copy to an electronic copy. Tobochnik reported that the AJP has about 4000 member subscribers and maybe 3000 of these have access to their institutional subscription. However, the AJP has not realized a significant drop in journal requests.  Heller moved that the AAPT conduct the experiment of giving AAPT members the option to receive only the electronic version of an AAPT journal without a change in membership rates. This action is to be taken after the AAPT staff has determined that this action will not have a negative impact on the Association. Leff seconded the motion.  B. Khoury commented that most members who have paid for the online access to AAPT journals have not activated these subscriptions and therefore have never used the electronic format. Evans said about 915 members have activated their online subscriptions to AJP and 3394 members have activated their TPT online subscriptions. These members also currently receive the paper versions.  The motion passed. 

 

22. Response to Monalco.  In 2001 the AIPStatisticalResearchCenter conducted an AAPT Member Needs Assessment. 992 responses were received to two different versions for the survey. In March 2004 AAPT contracted with Monalco, Inc. to conduct a survey of Non-Member Physics Teachers. Upon the completion of this study, AAPT asked Monalco to reanalyze the 2001 member survey data. Monalco presented a report of their findings to the AAPT Board in January 2005. V. Evans informed the Board that the AAPT staff response to this report would be prepared in time for the Summer 2005 meeting. The report will include recommendations for consideration by the Board and/or area committees.

 

23. Extra Signatures for TPT. K. Mamola explained that the TPT over the past five years has accumulated a substantial backlog of paper submissions. The submission number (about 360) has remained basically the same and the acceptance rate (about one-third) has remained the same and is the same rate as was experienced under the previous editor. 

 

 The backlog is credited to two changes made by TPT staff to improve the readability and quality of the journal. (1) In January 2001, the font size was increased slightly and the layout was changed to allow for more “white space” to make the journal easier to read. This change resulted in one less paper being published each month. (2) The other change involved several column modifications. Although the number of columns was reduced, the space occupied by the columns has increased by about 2.5 pages per issue, much to the pleasure of the TPT readers. These changes have produced a net result of about two papers being accepted each month without being published. Over the five-year term with these incorporated changes, the backlog has grown to about 80 accepted, but unpublished papers. In other words, a paper accepted for publication now would likely not be published until May 2006. Mamola said this is too long a delay.

 

Therefore Mamola proposed a short-term plan and a long-term plan to reduce the backlog of papers accepter for publication. He requested that the Board authorize the addition of a 16-page signature to six TPT issues beginning in September 2005. These 96 additional pages would allow the editorial staff to publish about 40 additional papers during the six-month period, substantially reducing the size of the backlog. Mamola projected the extra cost for each signature, including paper, labor, postage, etc., would be about $1760 per issue or a total of $10,560. He explained that the long-term need would be for additional page space to accommodate 20 papers, which would require an addition of 50 pages or three signatures. This would be realized by adding one signature to three issues annually. Such long-term changes will impact the future budgets for TPT. 

 

Mamola presented the following motion: the AAPT Executive Board authorizes the addition of a 16-page signature to each of six TPT issues beginning in September 2005. Further, the Board anticipates that future budgets for TPT will allow the editor the discretion to include three additional 16-page signatures each year. R. Peterson seconded the motion. 

 

In response to a question from Tobochnik, Mamola explained that the number of pages in the TPT manuscript has increased but the number of published articles has remained the same. Tobochnik said that the acceptance rate for the AJP is 25%-30% and that he has reduced the acceptance rate by being tougher on submissions. For example he avoids accepting submissions that are repetitious in content. Consequently, the backlog of accepted papers for AJP has decreased. Leff asked if this practice was feasible for TPT. Mamola explained that TPT is publishing two articles per month less now, but he would like to restore the published number. He added that the additional column space reduces the number of pages for articles. 

 

The motion passed unanimously.

 

24. 2007 Nominations Committee. D. Peterson explained that the 2007 Nominations Committee would begin its work during the Summer 2005 meeting to identify candidates for the Fall 2006 elections. In addition, the committee would appoint two members to serve on each area committee. Committee appointments and candidates elected in 2006 will begin their terms of office in January 2007. 

 

Section Representatives select two members to serve on each nominations committee. In January 2005, the Reps selected Todd Leif and William Waggoner to serve on the 2007 Nominations Committee. The Board appoints the chair and two additional members to the nominations committee. D. Peterson explained that customarily the Board prepares a prioritized list of candidates and authorizes the President to make the appointments from among these suggestions. Following the preparation of a ranked list of AAPT members to serve as chair and members of the nominations committee, J. Roeder moved that the Board authorize the President, D. Peterson, to appoint a chair and two members to the 2007 Nominations Committee. J. Nelson seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. D. Peterson explained that he would try to complete the appointments by June 1, so that the members would have ample time to make travel arrangements to Salt Lake City.  

 

(D. Peterson adjourned the Board for the day and reconvened the Board Sunday morning.)

 

25. Statement on Evolution and Cosmology.  As background for this discussion, D. Peterson explained that Al Gibson during the Council meeting in January 2005 had asked if the AAPT had a position statement regarding evolution and cosmology. D. Peterson explained that the AAPT had such a statement but that it needed to be updated. Therefore Hein prepared a revision of the statement for Board consideration. 

 

Hein explained that the new statement, included as Item II H in the Board Packet, had removed the specific reference to Kansas and had added comments addressing intelligent design. The revised statement was essentially the same statement posted on the AAPT website, which had been drafted by Bob Romer. 

 

In discussion of the revised statement, Heller disagreed with the sentence in the prepared statement saying that the “Big Bang Theory” of the origin of the universe was not firmly established on scientific evidence. Heller said the theory was strongly supported with scientific evidence.  J. Nelson moved that the Board accept the revised statement with the understanding that Heller and Hein would edit the sentences regarding the “Big Bang” to reflect Board discussion. Leff seconded the motion. The motion passed. The Board will receive a final copy of the Statement on Evolution and Cosmology and the Statement will be posted on the AAPT website and will be published in the Announcer

 

Khoury and Hein reported to the Board that the AAAS was preparing a special symposium for its 2006 Annual Meeting addressing this issue (Item II H in Board Packet). The day-long symposium will feature prominent scientists, teachers and other resource people who will provide overviews about and discuss the challenges to science education. During a working session participants will formulate strategies to address these challenges. The audience for the symposium will include scientists, science teachers, education and science policymakers, and members of the press.  Khoury moved that the AAPT co sponsor the AAAS symposium, “Threats to Science Education”, to be held at the 2006 AAAS Annual Meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. J. Roeder seconded the motion. During discussion of this motion, it was agreed that J. Roeder and Lawrence Krauss would serve as AAPT resources in the planning stages for the meeting.  The motion passed unanimously.

 

26. Book Editor Search Committee.Monroe learned just prior to the Board meeting that one of her three nominations for the Book Editor Search Committee would be a candidate in the fall elections. The person’s position on the search committee could be perceived as unfair publicity by AAPT membership. Therefore, Monroe said she would prepare a new list of three candidates and present her nominations to the Board by electronic ballot within two weeks of the Board meeting. 

 

27. 2006 Board Retreat. D. Peterson explained that the dates and length for the 2006 Board retreat needed to be finalized. Based on Board members’ input regarding their available times, the best time seemed to be around the weekend of June 24-25, 2006. Following a short discussion, D. Peterson moved that the Board set the dates for the retreat to be June 22-25, 2006, Thursday evening to Noon Sunday. J. Roeder seconded the motion. The motion passed with a vote tally of 9 yes, 1 abstain. D. Peterson asked Maria Elena Khoury to prepare, by Board meeting time in Salt Lake City, two suggestions for retreat sites, reminding her that the Board preferred to meet in a somewhat remote and relaxing area rather than a standard hotel. D. Peterson also asked B. Khoury to prepare a recommendation of 2-3 facilitators, possibly including names of professional facilitators as well as names from the physics education community known to Board members. During the 2005 summer meeting, the Board will decide who will be invited to the retreat. The structure and agenda for the retreat should be defined by the time of the Anchorage meeting in January 2006.

 

28. PER Conference in Maine. During the Board’s meeting in January 2005, Michael Wittman as representative of a small group within the PER community asked the Board for its support for a PER conference to be held in Maine in August 2005, one week after the AAPT Summer Meeting in Salt Lake City. The Board advised that it preferred to have a recommendation from the RIPE (Research in Physics Education) committee before acting on this request. B. Khoury reported that after the January 2005 meeting, he had received such a recommendation from the RIPE committee. The conference plans and participant list were included in the Board Packet as Item IIK.  Khoury moved that the AAPT Board endorse the Conference on Foundations and Frontiers in Physics Education Research being held in Bar Harbor, Maine, in August 2005. C. Robertson seconded the motion. Heller asked for a copy of the recommendation. Khoury explained that he had only received a one-sentence email from Scott Franklin, RIPE Chair, saying that the committee passed such a recommendation. Chabay said she had attended the committee meeting and the motion was not voted on at that time. Khoury explained that it was his feeling that the recommendation was passed when the committee members met privately following the public meeting. 

 

D. Peterson reported that he had learned from Paula Heron, one of the co-organizers for the PER conference, that the APS Forum on Education had voted to provide some financial support for the conference. It was also the feeling of the Forum that this special conference would have little or no effect on the PER Conference held in tandem with the AAPT Summer meeting. Khoury explained that a PER tandem meeting (PERC) was being planned for Utah. AAPT does not make any cash allocation to the support of this meeting. C. Heimpel uses some of her time to help in the planning of the conference and PERC has some space on the AAPT website.

 

Heller asked Khoury to explain what it meant for AAPT to endorse the special PER conference. Khoury responded that it was merely a word endorsement and that the organizers no longer needed help with initial cash flow, which was requested during the Board’s January 2005 meeting. D. Peterson suggested that the AAPT endorsement might help the organizers obtain support from the meeting site host, College of the Atlantic. Tobochnik commented that if the APS were providing some type of financial support, it might look bad if the AAPT did not. Chabay and Heller both described the conference as being a meeting of a small group with points of view not commonly accepted by all members of the PER community. Chabay expressed the concern that the Board’s endorsement of the special conference might contribute to the fragmentation within the PER community, but she added that since the community was so small, it might not pose a serious problem. 

Heller suggested that the Board endorse the special PER conference in principle, but add a statement saying the dates of the PER conference conflict with the dates of the AAPT meeting. 

 

D. Peterson called for a vote on the motion.  The vote was 4 yes, 1 no, and 4 abstain. D. Peterson ruled that the motion passed. It was agreed that Khoury would convey to the RIPE committee the Board’s concerns regarding the timing of the PER conference and other logistics, which are in conflict with the AAPT’s Summer meeting. 

 

29. New Criteria for High School Innovative Grants. J. Roeder distributed a motion from the High School Committee requesting the approval of new criteria for its Innovative Grant. Leff seconded the motion. Following some minor wordsmithing by Board members, the motion as voted on by the Board appears below.

The AAPTHigh School Committee requests the AAPT Board to approve the following changes to the high school Innovative Grant.

1.      Applicants for the grant must be AAPT members.

2.      A non-AAPT member may join at half price before sending in an application or at the time of sending in an application.

3.      The recipient(s) of each grant will be invited to attend a national AAPT meeting to present a paper or poster describing how they used the grant. The awardee(s) may turn in a travel voucher and receive up to $200 per grant to support their attendance at the meeting. This money may be spent on registration, hotel, plane, or other expenses for the meeting. It will be given only after the awardee attends and presents a paper or poster. 

 

The Innovative Grant is a small grant to support innovations within the high school community and supervised by the High School Committee. In the past, the grant awards

were only $100. Roeder explained that recipients rarely attended AAPT meetings and gave papers. M.E. Khoury explained that the high school committee has $1000 allocated by AAPT for Innovative Grants.

 

In response to a question from Heller, B. Khoury said the purpose of the grant was to get high school teachers to think creatively about what they do in the classroom and to submit a grant to help implement innovations. Heller said he was not enthusiastic about giving money for grants available to only one committee. He also asked why the grants should be given only to AAPT members. Hein responded to the second comment saying that the membership requirement addresses member benefits. The Bauder Fund requires that grant recipients be AAPT members. He noted that most of grant recipients are not AAPT members. Nelson also expressed reservations concerning the membership requirement and Stone questioned if the purpose of the grant was innovation or member benefit. In conclusion of the discussion, Roeder expressed that he would relay the concerns to Al Gibson, Chair of the High School Committee. The motion passed.

 

30. Guidelines for Physics First Curriculum. J. Roeder summarized the history leading to the leading to the charge to the High School Committee to develop a booklet of guidelines for physics first curriculum. Barry Feierman and Rex Rice were first assigned this charge. However, there was disagreement among committee members as to the intent and vision for the guidelines, delaying the preparation of a draft for publication by the AAPT. Therefore in an effort to expedite the production of the Physics First document, the High School Committee requested $2500 to be used as described below:

$125 to cover one day’s food and lodging at the Salt Lake City meeting for each of no more than four members of a working group designated by the Committee to brainstorm the content of the brochure and draft a preliminary outline or version of the document. 

$1000 to cover travel and per diem expenses of a writer designated by the Committee to fashion the product of the working group meeting into a final document.

$1000 honorarium for the writer of the final document. 

 

Feierman will be one of the four Committee members and Al Gibson, Committee Chair, will ask Patty Blanton to be the writer for the document. Nelson was not comfortable with giving an honorarium to the writer. Roeder explained that the rationale was that the writer would not be a member of the Committee. Hein and Monroe cited as precedents for payments of honoraria to writers the Two-Year College Guidelines and the revision of the New Teacher’s Resource Kit. Monroe added that she did have a concern about the timing of the payment, as the Publications Committee will review the product. Khoury suggested that it would be practical to make the payments in installments, although this provision did not appear in the motion. Leff asked how the matter of the honorarium would be handled if members of the High School Committee and/or Pubs did not mutually accept the draft. Chabay asked for further information explaining why the Committee had not been able to produce a draft. 

 

Khoury said the disagreement among Committee members addressed content and purpose issues. He characterized Feierman as being a passionate advocate for physics first and had written a lot of words in the first drafts. Chabay asked if the Committee agreed on the substance of the book. Khoury felt the argument within the Committee concerned the target audience, saying that if the Committee can agree on the audience, then they can address the content. In his opinion the audience for the guidelines should be teachers who have heard about physics first. Chabay stated that it did not seem appropriate to hire a writer when the Committee members could not agree on what the product should be. Heller opined that the High School Committee should send this request to Pubs. D. Peterson expressed that he did not know if the High School Committee had the needed resources to actually get the document written. Leff moved that the motion be tabled. Nelson seconded the motion. The motion passed. 

 

31. SPIN-UP/TYC. W. Hein reported that the SPIN-UP/TYC project had received an extension through August 2005 in order to complete the writing and publication of the project’s findings. A project status report was included in the Board Packet, Item III B. The project leadership (Tom O’Kuma, M.B. Monroe and Hein) are talking to leaders within the TYC community as to appropriate next steps. He anticipates that one topic that will receive serious consideration will be the role of two-year colleges in teacher preparation. 

 

32. ComPADRE. Hein announced that Thad Lurie had submitted his resignation as web designer and developer for ComPADRE effective May 13. Most the collections are functioning. The project leadership expected to learn by the end of June if the collaborative (AAPT, AIP, and APS) would likely receive additional funding from NSF. ComPADRE was funded in October 2002 by the National Science Digital Library program of the NSF, which was created in response to a mandate from Congress. Hein and D. Peterson both explained that there was huge competition for these funds. However, during a conversation with D. Peterson a week earlier Jack Hehn, who is in frequent communication with NSF program officers, said that he thought the project had a chance of receiving a second award of funding. 

 

33. World Year of Physics. Stone expressed that the events for the World Year of Physics were going well and referred to the list of events planned by AAPT in the Board Packet, Item III D. The Talent Search competition is under way. Many colleges are conducting special outreach programs during this special commemoration and SPS chapters are actively hosting local WYP activities. Stone expressed concern that while there is a lot of press and television coverage about Einstein, the media was not linking this publicity to the World Year of Physics. Conversations are occurring among AAPT, SPS, AIP, and APS regarding how the physics community can best bring closure to the year’s events. Stone suggested that the AAPT might want to consider sending a thank you note to all physics departments for their involvement. D. Peterson asked Stone to think on how this idea might be implemented.

 

34. ST-PER Electronic Journal. In discussion of Khoury’s report in the Board packet concerning the status of the Physics Review Special Topic-Physics Education Research electronic journal, Tobochnik asked Khoury what Beichner’s plans were with regard to the journal’s editorial board and if the AAPT Publications Committee would be involved in the appointment of members to this board. (Bob Beichner is ST-PER Editor.) Khoury said he had received an email from Beichner listing his recommendations for associate editors and members of the board. Tobochnik stressed that the AAPT should approve such appointments. Khoury explained that the process is complicated since the journal is an APS publication and therefore the APS Editor-in-Chief would approve appointments. The APS publication procedures are different from the AAPT publication procedures. Tobochnik clarified that he did not have a problem with decisions made by Marty Blume, Editor-in Chief, but if there was to be meaning to AAPT’s involvement in this publication, advice should be sought from the Association in some way, possibly including the nomination of persons to these positions. Khoury will send a copy of the message to Monroe and other members of the AAPT Publications Committee.

 

35. Dodge Fund. A few months earlier, Khoury wrote the Homer Dodge family to inform them of the creation of the Dodge Fund and asked them for suggestions regarding criteria for its use. Khoury had not received a reply. He explained that the AAPT was in an awkward situation since the purpose of the Fund had not yet been defined. In the week preceding the Board meeting, AAPT auditors encouraged the Association not to create free standing funding without defined limits on what could be done with the money. Khoury suggested that the Fund should be used to bestow honors on people, but did not have a specific recommendation. Hein suggested that the Fund could be used to provide financial support for a student intern program, similar to the one that SPS has. Monroe voiced support for this idea, saying that the SPS program had been very successful for both students and participating organizations and associations.  

 

Hein recommended that the Board appoint a subgroup of its members to formulate recommendations for funding criteria or how the AAPT might consolidate this fund with other AAPT funds. The Board members accepted this recommendation and it was agreed that D. Peterson would appoint such a committee. 

 

36. Report from Section Representatives. R. Peterson said that he anticipated bringing to the Board during its summer meeting a request from Section Representatives that AAPT provide additional financial support for Representatives to attend the January 2006 meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. During this winter meeting, Representatives will be expected to attend both the meeting of the Representatives and the Council meeting. The request would likely be for about $20 K to cover the travel and per diem support for two nights and three days. The funding currently available to Section Representatives covered all reimbursements for the Albuquerque meeting in January 2005. R. Peterson added that as a general rule Representatives from 4U institutions do not request travel support from the AAPT. He explained that generally 7-8 Representatives do not attend the winter meetings.

 

37. APS Liaison Report. D. Peterson, as AAPT Liaison to the APS, circulated his report of the meetings of the APS Council and the APS Forum on Education (FEd) in Tampa, Florida the week before the AAPT Board meeting. He highlighted two points of his report. 

  • The Forum allocated up to $5000 to support page charges of ST-PER authors. These funds will be used only after the AAPT $15 K contribution is exhausted. The Forum made this commitment for three years, subject to evaluation of need and usage in 2008.
  • The Forum is pleased with its formal involvement in the AAPT Summer meetings, which began in the Summer 2004. The APS Division on Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics has organized a session for the AAPT Summer 2005 meeting. Discussions occurred within the Forum for such options in the Summer 2006 at Syracuse University. In formal action, the Forum passed a motion to provide up to $4 K to support such sessions on a continuing basis. 

The Forum has not discussed organizing sessions for the AAPT Winter meetings. 

 

38.  Executive Session I (with Executive Officers). D. Peterson called the Board into Executive Session I to discuss the Editor’s response to the Five Year Review of Resource Letters and to continue the discussion regarding the search for a new Executive Officer.  

 

39. Adjournment.  Peterson expressed his appreciation to the members and adjourned the meeting.

 

Mary Beth Monroe, AAPT Secretary

(with minor corrections by BVK)