In Defense of the B.A. in Physics at USM(2011 Edition)

“[Interim President Joseph] Wood used physics as an example. While not necessarily a popular major, he said, physics is ‘extremely important as a service science’ for students majoring in the biology [sic] and engineering and [it] would not be in the best interest of the school to eliminate the program” (The Free Press, October 29, 2007, p. 3).

“The University of Southern Maine, northern New England’s outstanding public, regional, comprehensive university, is dedicated to providing students with a high-quality, accessible, affordable education. Through its undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, USM faculty members educate future leaders in the liberal arts and sciences, engineering and technology, health and social services, education, business, law, and public service.” (USM Mission Statement)

Introduction & Background:

This document was initially composed by Professor Jerry LaSala; I (Paul Nakroshis) stand by all the information (both financial and otherwise) presented by Professor LaSala. The university was supposed to provide me with data on retention (presumably data about student credit hours is amongst this), but has not done so. Hence, I went to MaineStreet and downloaded the data myself and tabulated the student credit hours. There is some very small uncertainty on my data for student credit hours (on the order of possibly 10 credit hours) that occurs in semesters when there were independent study classes listed; there is no way to know in that case how many credits the independent study was for, so I made an assumption of 3 credits. This may be a slight overestimate, but in any case, is a small enough uncertainty that it does not effect the obvious very large increase in student credit hours generated by the physics department since Professor LaSala composed the original document.

In addition, Professor LaSala’s original document was exceptionally well-researched and demonstrated that the Department of Physics generates net revenue for the University; I’ve left those arguments unchanged because since he made them, we have only increased the number of student contact hours, and this generates even more revenue for the university. You can see this from the data I’ve presented in section III.

One last item---any increase in stridency of tone is my responsibility. I am personally dismayed at the very existence of the “rule of 5”; the criterium itself is absurd, and the motivation behind it---the most generous interpretation I can imagine is that it stems from a desire to cut costs---is misguided in that it treats a university as a merely a business. We’re not the same as a business, and I am vehemently opposed to any effort to put us in this box.

I. History

The Department of Physics has existed as a separate department within the College of Arts and Sciences only since 1988. Prior to that, physics was part of a larger department that included, at one time or another, all the sciences at USM. Most recently, the Department of Physics and Engineering split in 1988 into the separate departments of physics and electrical engineering; the latter is now part of the School of Applied Science, Engineering, and Technology.

The physics major was introduced in 1987. Prior to that, no upper-level courses in physics were offered. During this period the department taught university service and support courses and offered a two-year sequence preparing students to transfer to the Engineering Physics program at the University of Maine in Orono.

Prior to 1984, there were two physics faculty, C. E. Armentrout and R. A. Walkling, teaching the limited course offerings. In that year the department increased to three members with the hiring of R. W. Coakley as chair. In 1987 the department increased to 4 full-time faculty members with the hiring of J. LaSala, to provide the capacity to offer the full physics major in addition to the service courses that previously been the principal work of the physics faculty. At this time, Armentrout and Walkling carried 12-hour teaching loads, while Coakley and LaSala carried 9-hour loads. Almost every semester at least partial teaching overloads were required to offer the complete range of courses needed.

The first physics major students were admitted in 1987; since that time we have graduated an average of a little over 2 majors per year. This is typical of physics departments in undergraduate institutions.

In 1990, with the retirement of G. Ayers from the Department of Geosciences, the courses AST100K, Astronomy, and AST103K, Exercises and Experiments in Astronomy, became part of the Physics Department’s offerings. These courses are offered every semester and summer.

C. E. Armentrout retired in 1997 after thirty years of service to the University. In that year, P. Nakroshis was hired to replace him and maintain the department at four members.

In 2000, J. LaSala became Director of the Southworth Planetarium upon the retirement of R. Gallant. LaSala is thus now half time in the Physics Department and half time in the planetarium.

In 2001, after several years of study and planning, the department introduced a revised set of major requirements and courses to improve both the overall quality of the physics

major and the efficiency of teaching both major and service courses. This has resulted, among other things, in a notable increase in enrollment in upper-level physics courses.

R. A. Walkling retired in 2005. For two years the department consisted only of Coakley, LaSala, and Nakroshis, or 2.5 full-time faculty. For the first time we were forced to rely on part-time faculty to deliver lecture courses as well as laboratories.

J. Ziffer joined the Physics Department as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in September 2007, so the department again consists of 3.5 full-time faculty. Since one member is currently on a 4-course teaching load and the other 2.5 are on three-course loads, our full-time teaching capacity is reduced by 18% from what it was in 1997; if, as expected, the person with the four-course load reverts to three after his post-tenure review this year, the cumulative loss of teaching capacity since 1997 will be 25%.

It should also be pointed out that during this same period (1997-2007), the department suffered an appreciable loss of both quantity and quality of teaching space. Two dedicated laboratories in Gorham and one in Portland were taken from the Physics Department and assigned to other departments; in addition, out principal teaching laboratory was badly compromised during remodeling associated with construction of the research wing and is now greatly inferior as a teaching laboratory to what it was before, and indeed inferior to most of the high school physics laboratories our students experienced before coming to USM.

Now, in 2011, we still are dealing with a shortage of space, and our introductory laboratory still needs updating. With the help of Dean Anderson, we have successfully cleaned out our lecture preparation room, and are beginning to organize this to help deliver better lecture demonstrations; however, most small physics departments have a laboratory and lecture demonstration technician to assist with setup and takedown of introductory laboratories and with creating and setting up lecture demonstrations. USM still does not have such a person, and the responsibility for this work is provided solely by faculty.

II. Centrality to Mission

“Through its undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs, USM faculty members educate future leaders in the liberal arts and sciences, engineering and technology, health and social services, education, business, law, and public service. Distinguished for their teaching, research, scholarly publication, and creative activity, the faculty are committed to fostering a spirit of critical inquiry and civic participation. ...”

USM MISSION STATEMENT: http://usm.maine.edu/about/mission-statement

Physics is a fundamental natural science, we might even say the fundamental natural science. All the other sciences as well as all engineering programs require physics courses of their majors, as does the TEAMS program for future K-12 science teachers, as do Sports Medicine, Nursing, Industrial Technology. In addition, Physics contributes extensively to General Education at USM. Fully 20% of USM graduates satisfy the Core Science requirement with Physics’ course AST100K and its lab AST103K, more than twice the number in any other K course.

In 2008, USM rolled out a new integrated marketing campaign, focusing on three undergraduates, including Sri Dhyana. Sri was a Physics major and biochemistry minor who was selected for the marketing campaign at least in part because her life was changed by her selection as the first recipient of USM’s John S. Ricci Fellowship, which enabled her to spend the summer working in a research laboratory at the prestigious Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California. The Ricci Fellowship was established and endowed by Ray Stevens (USM 86), probably USM’s most successful chemistry major. So one-third of the new marketing campaign is focused on a student whose entire career is centered on three programs on the suspension list. If this is not an argument for the centrality of these programs, what is?

There are only five institutions in the state of Maine offering a bachelor’s degree in physics. These are Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, University of Maine, and USM. USM is the only public institution in southern Maine where students wishing to major in physics have the opportunity to do so.

Like the entire nation, Maine suffers from a shortage of K-12 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) teachers, to the extent that the state has a student-loan-forgiveness program for graduates who become certified and teach science in the public schools. Approximately one third of our physics graduates go on to do just that, teaching high school physics and science in Maine schools.

The USM Mission Statement also emphasizes the importance of the University’s research effort to the University’s mission. The credibility of USM’s scientific research effort in the eyes of granting agencies will be compromised if the University does not show a commitment to undergraduate science education. In addition it will be impossible to recruit quality faculty to a physics department that offers no courses above the 100 level, and difficult to recruit research faculty to such an institution. The long-range implication of such a move will be to push USM toward the status it enjoyed in the 1970s, a second-rate institution of last resort.

III. Internal and External Benchmarks

(Note: The next 5 paragraphs refer to data included in Jerry LaSala’s report submitted in 2008, and these appendices are not available to me; the conclusions, however stand, and I will include additional data since this last report. p.n.) Table 1 and figures1 through 3 in the appendix show the trends in Physics enrollment from 1997 through the current semester.

In the decade from 1997 to 2007, total physics enrollments by headcount and by total credit hours have increased by 36% and 41% respectively, while the total number of sections offered has increased by only 10%. The average number of students per section has thus increased by 23%. During that same period, as noted above, the full-time teaching capacity of the department has decreased by 18%-25%. Thus our productivity in terms of student credit hours generated per faculty member increased by 72%.

For comparison, the Physics Department generated 2381 Student Credit Hours during Academic Year 2007-2008. During the same period, the School of Applied Science, Engineering, and Technology generated approximately 7000 SCH, including graduate students. ASET is a School consisting of 5 departments with a Dean and 34 full-time faculty and a budget of $4.1 million. Physics is a single department with 3.5 full-time faculty and a budget of $0.31 million. So Physics faculty generated 680 SCH per faculty member while ASET generated 206; or Physics generated one-third as many SCH as ASET on less than one-tenth the budget.

Table 2 and Figures 4 through 6 in the appendix show the enrollment trends in Physics courses numbered 200 and higher, again from 1997 through the current semester. The number of sections offered remained essentially constant, at 4 +/- 1 per semester, but total headcount increased from 31 in 1997 to 60 in 2007 (66 in AY 2007-2008), and total student credit hours from 81 in 1997 to 180 in 2007 (198 in AY 2007-2008). This represents a 94% increase in headcount and a 122% increase in total SCH in ten years! Our average number of students per section increased from 4.2 in 1997 to 6.7 in 2007. It

is difficult to imagine how we could be thought not to be exceeding internal benchmarks for program growth and viability.

Update (2011): The figure to the right shows the Student Credi t Hours (SCH) generated in each academic year from 2006 to 2010. Since our previous report, it’s pretty clear that w e a r e g e n e r a t i n g increasing numbers of c r ed i t hou r s , f u r the r increasing the net profit that that the physics department generates.

The American Institute of Physics collects data and publishes annual statistics on physics enrollment and graduation rates at all American colleges and Universities. The most recent edition covers Academic Years 2006-2008. It is interesting to note see this data which results from a survey of 506 colleges and universities in the United States where a bachelor’s was the highest physics degree offered:

A quick study of the figure reveals that 70% of all bachelor’s-only granting institutions graduate 5 or fewer physics majors per year. So, if the author or authors (presumably from the Chancellor’s office) of this “rule of 5” wished this rule to apply nat ional ly, i t would c lear ly decimate the ability of the United States to produce physics majors at small colleges and universitie (and the data for Chemistry programs is similar) I submit on this basis alone that this criterium is non-sensical, and I would urge the faculty and administration of USM make an effort to eliminate the “rule of 5” from the UMS system.

Returning to the American Institute of Physics data, it shows that the national median graduation rate for American institutions granting no degree in physics higher than a bachelor’s is three (3) bachelor’s degrees per year. That’s three, absolute, not three per thousand or any other number; this is largely insensitive to the overall size of the

An Aside:

It is also interesting to note that this data is quite non-coincidentally in exactly the format the physics department needed for addressing the “rule of 5”; the American Institute of Physics produced this histogram precisely because the University of Texas system used (prior to Maine) the exact same “rule of 5” to eliminate many physics programs. I have contacted the American Physical Society about this issue and it turns out that not only Maine, but Florida and Louisiana are using the same tactic to eliminate programs. It’s hard to escape the suspicion that the Chancellor’s Office has either been in communication with, or been influenced by what has happened in Texas.

According to the University of Maine System Mission Statement, the University System (and the Board of Trustees):

“...provides leadership on higher education policy within the System and the State, is committed to strengthening the unique characteristics of each University's mission, and advocates aggressively for adequate resources to support the System and its universities.”

Advocating for the removal of a fundamental science such as physics (not to mention all of the other programs under review) goes against the mission statement of the University and I therefore submit that the author(s) of the “rule of 5” should be made to retract this rule. Instead of aggressively advocating for adequate resources, the Chancellor’s office is aggressively advocating for removal of programs.

institution. In 2006, USM graduated 3 physics majors, exactly at the national median. In 2008 we graduated 4 majors, greater than the national median; the six-year average of our number of graduates, 2003-2008, is 2.5, with a standard deviation of 1.3; this is statistically indistinguishable from the national median. For the previous six-year period (1997-2002), our average annual number of graduates was 1.33, with a standard deviation of 1.5. From 2009-2011, we graduated an average of 3.3 majors. While the large standard deviations associated with the statistical fluctuations of small numbers make absolute conclusions impossible, it seems clear that we have shown a significant increase in our annual graduation rate.

For comparison, the AIP reports that the median number of physics bachelor’s degrees granted annually by institutions offering a Ph.D. in physics is 11. The University of Maine offers a Ph.D. in physics. In 2006 it graduated 4 physics majors. This from a department of 15 full-time faculty with an extensive support staff.

The AIP also reports that there is a strong correlation between the size of the physics faculty and the number of bachelor’s degrees granted annually. At 3.5 full-time faculty, USM’s physics department is below the national median of 4 for institutions granting a bachelor’s degree only, and in fact at the bottom of the middle third of that group. Given that, and the graduation rate data discussed above, we can see that USM Physics scores very well against national benchmarks.

Let us also compare USM Physics with Physics Departments in some of our “peer” institutions, both nationally and regionally. Institutions often considered peer institutions for USM include Portland State University, University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Western Washington University, Northern Kentucky University, Indiana State University, and George Mason University. Table 3 shows statistics for these institutions, along with our regional “competitors” University of Maine, University of New Hampshire, and University of New England. Data shown include highest degree offered, number of faculty, and number of bachelor’s degrees in physics granted in 2006. Degree data are taken from the American Institute of Physics Publication Number R-394.13; faculty data are taken from the respective institutional websites. In interpreting these data, remember that the national median for bachelor’s degrees granted by a bachelor’s-only institution is 3; for a Ph.D.-granting institution it is 11.

Table 3

Institution Highest Degree Full-time Faculty Bachelor’s Degrees Offered Conferred, 2006

USM BA 3.5 3

Portland State PhD 12 25

UMass Lowell PhD 22 5

Western Washington BS 10 13

Northern Kentucky BS 14 8

Indiana State BS 5 4

George Mason PhD 35 4

U Maine PhD 15 4

UNH PhD 22 6

UNE none 2 N/A

USM Physics doesn’t look too bad in this comparison, does it? Only two schools produce more graduates per faculty member than USM, and even these have departments 3 to 4 times larger than ours. Most of these institutions, even the huge Ph.D.-granting ones, have graduation rates per faculty member a third or less of ours.

IV. Cost/Benefits of Program

The Physics Department budget for FY 2008 is $313,183. For Academic Year 2007-08, the Department generated 2381 Student Credit Hours. Assuming 10% out-of-state students (the USM average), that yields $604,536 in tuition and per-credit-hour fees, for a net revenue “profit” of $291,353. If we include summer session, that adds another 890 SCH and $218,851 in tuition and fees, for a FY2008 total revenue of $823,387, or a return of $2.63 in revenue for every dollar in the Physics Department budget! (These figures to not include revenue from laboratory fees, which are assumed to stay within the department and not contribute to the University general fund, nor student Activity, Transportation, nor Health fees, as these are also dedicated revenues. If these revenues are included, the Physics Department generates over $1 million per year.)

Let us now consider the financial impact of eliminating the B.A. program in Physics.

The department currently consists of 3.5 full-time faculty, one of whom is on a 12-contact-hour load; it is expected that he will return to a 9-contact-hour load after his post-tenure-review this semester. This gives us, after 3 hours released time for the chair, a total capacity of 31.5 contact hours this semester, which we expect will revert to 28.5 contact hours in Fall 2008; this gives a total full-time teaching capacity of 57 contact hours per year beginning Fall 2008 (63 contact hours this current AY).

The 100-level service and general education courses (AST100K, PHY101K, PHY111K, PHY112, PHY121K, and PHY123) ant their associated laboratories (AST103K, PHY102K, PHY114K, and PHY116) amount to 70 contact hours per year. Thus we do not have enough full-time faculty to teach even these courses that are absolutely central to the University, being required by many majors and the General Education program. The deficiency, of course, is made up by part-time faculty teaching most or all of the laboratory sections.

Now consider the courses numbered 200 and higher, mostly, but not exclusively, taken by Physics majors. For AY 2007-2008 these amount to 33 faculty contact hours. If we were to eliminate all these courses, the full-time faculty teaching them would simply be reassigned to 100-level lab sections currently taught by part-time faculty; this amounts to at most 16 credit hours per year of part-time laboratory instruction that would be eliminated (each credit hour of lab requires two faculty contact hours). At the part-time lab rate of about $1500 per credit hour (depending on rank), this translates to a maximum saving of $24,000 per year. The enrollment in the 200-level courses in AY2007-08 is 66 students, or 198 SCH; this amounts to $39,204 in tuition at in-state rates; accounting for out-of-state students and per-credit fees brings the total revenue associated with these courses to $50,272, or more than twice the cost of offering them.

It might be argued that if these students didn’t major in physics, they’d take some other courses instead, so revenue would be unaffected. But is it certainly reasonable to expect that at least some fraction of students majoring in Physics would choose not to attend USM if this major were not offered. If even 5 students (25-33% of majors) made that decision, the lost revenue would more than offset the saving to be had by canceling the major.

The upshot of all this is that the Physics B.A. program is supported on the backs of part-time and overload teaching, and offers a quality major that produces graduates at a rate statistically the same as the national median for no net cost to the University.

V. Future Plans to increase number of majors and increase benefit

There are several ways to improve graduation rates in physics; these stem from intra-departmental efforts already in progress, from the College/University level.1) Intra-departmental efforts:

SchedulingIn a previous incarnation of this “Departmental Defense Document”, we had the following benchmark:

Benchmark: During Fall Semester 2008 we shall develop a three-year scheduling plan incorporating such streamlining measures as further investigation shows to be viable.

This benchmark has been implemented, and we have a regular scheduling plan to maximize upper level course enrollment; this plan necessitates a rotation of the offering times for our upper level courses which reduces scheduling options for students, but minimizes course overloads.

RecruitmentThe Department already is active in outreach work to high schools through guest lectures and faculty collaborations by Professors LaSala and Nakroshis at schools including Casco Bay High School and Catherine McAuley High School, and even George Stevens Academy in Blue Hill, where Professor Nakroshis has been tutoring students in Physics and has been teaching computational physics to a group of interested students. He has met with the headmaster to promote USM and its Pioneers Program. Professor LaSala’s summer teaching at Phillips Exeter Academy introduces USM Physics to highly qualified students from around the world as well. In addition, the Department reaches thousands of southern Maine middle school students annually through the outreach work of the USM Southworth Planetarium. Professor Ziffer has presented programs at Southworth Planetarium as part of her outreach efforts, as well as hosting students from the East Program. We have continued and extended our outreach plans as we stated in 2008, and will continue to do so in the future.

Another aspect of our recruitment efforts relies upon being motivating and inspiring teachers in the introductory physics and astronomy courses. Communicating our passion for the subject is one of the most effective ways to engage and motivate our students and attract students to the study of physics. By continually improving our teaching, reflecting upon our practice of teaching, we are continually making improvements to each of our courses.

Involving Undergraduates in Research

Research is central to the mission of the university; Professors Coakley, Ziffer and Nakroshis have all involved undergraduates in research projects; and Professor LaSala has students involved in the running of the Planetarium. In particular, since the last edition of this report:

Professor Coakley has published a paper with Undergraduate Jeff Stevens (Brillouin scattering measurements of the temperature dependence of sound velocity and acoustic absorption in simple alcohols, Journal of Modern Optics 58, 2011)

Professor Ziffer has had 5 student presentations at Thinking Matters, had 10 student talks at various national and international conferences, and supported published papers with several of her students, in addition to mentoring students through several Faculty Senate Grants.

Professor Nakroshis has also had several Faculty Senate Grants with students, has one student paper submitted for publication, and had a student presentation at Thinking Matters.

Our department is clearly active in fostering student research, and, given our heavy teaching load and lack of institutional support, does an impressive job. We will continue to involve students in research and we expect this to further increase our numbers of majors. We actively recruit majors from the introductory physics courses, and the increase in the numbers of these introductory physics students puts us on track to successfully do so.

Other Efforts: Improving our number of Majors in a two-fold manner

Physics is involved in preparing students to teach high school physics; as previously mentioned, about 1/3 of our graduates go on to teach HS. Unfortunately, however, the State of Maine does not actually require prospective teachers to major in physics to be certified to teach it in high school. (This is a national problem; according to the American Institute of Physics, in 2009, only 26% of high school physics teachers had a bachelor’s degree in physics.)

Speaking for myself (Paul Nakroshis) I’d argue that this is not an ideal situation, and it would be far better to have high school teachers that have had the full complement of courses before embarking on a career teaching physics. I know I’d be pretty disappointed to have my child take a physics course from someone that did not have a solid grasp of the material, and I wouldn’t be surprised if such a teacher didn’t have much passion for the subject.

So, one avenue to improve the long term number of graduating physics majors involves a concerted and long term effort to improve the quality of the teachers that instruct our high school students, thus producing more motivated students entering USM. However, the way I’d argue to achieve this is by creating a path for students that major in physics to easily get certified to teach high school. A student with such preparation would be very attractive to high schools throughout the state that have a difficult time finding qualified people to teach physics.

I have begun to discuss this issue with Professor Bob Keuch in Education, and over the next three years, I hope to create a pathway for certification that requires a physics major as well as including a capstone course for such students that would require them to create curricular materials relevant to introductory physics. Such a degree/certification path would clearly increase our number of majors and produce highly qualified future teachers of high school physics.

2) College/University Level Support

Given the fact that the Department of Physics is understaffed (relative to the national norm) and yet generates a net profit for the University, and the University system is mandating that we increase our graduation rates, it is entirely reasonable to ask the University for more assistance to achieve this end.

The Department of Physics has submitted a request for another faculty member (to bring our FTE to 4.5 faculty) and a full-time laboratory assistant to help with setup of laboratory experiments and lecture demonstrations. We also need access to a machinist to help with creation of apparatus for both research and teaching.

Our undergraduate laboratory needs a serious facelift both for the room and the equipment we use. This laboratory is one of the first visual encounters prospective students and parents and enrolled students have with the department, and it doesn’t paint a very positive picture. If the University steps up and helps our Department, it can only benefit our graduation rate for majors in all STEM fields.

Another area that the College/University can assist with is marketing; the recent 2011 marketing efforts have entirely omitted physics. I offered several students for interview

under the condition that physics gets mentioned in the marketing, but was told our Department was not on the “list”. In addition, there was no mention of the physics program in the Spring 2011 CSTH newsletter.

The entire Department of Physics would be delighted to see the University put some financial and marketing muscle into promoting our program. Give us some improvements to our department lab space and equipment, another tenure-track professor, a lab technician, and a machinist, and you can expect to see us generate more physics majors and more STEM majors as a whole. Do nothing, and we’ll continue to do the best be can with what little we have.

We’d really like to see the Administration of CSTH, the Provost, and the President fight for this University. Get rid of this “rule of 5” which is destructive to faculty/student morale, which undermines our positive marketing efforts, and wastes precious faculty time preparing documents and convening committees to argue for our continued existence.

This university is NOT a business. We’re here to educate, to enliven students’ lives through passionate engagement with important ideas, to build critical reasoning skills, and prepare them for graduate school and careers, and to be informed citizens. Our society is in need of intelligent, critical thinkers, and especially technologically savvy ones. Physics is excellent training for this, as are all the sciences.

It’s time that the University of Maine System Mission Statement’s charge to “...advocate aggressively for adequate resources to support the System and its universities” be put into action. Oh, and let’s fire the authors of the “rule of 5”.