SPIN-UP Regional Workshops:

1
SPIN-UP Regional Workshops Building
Undergraduate Physics Programs for the 21st
Century
Robert C. Hilborn University of Texas at Dallas
Support from American Association of Physics
Teachers, American Physical Society American
Institute of Physics
2
The Workshop Series

• Four regional workshops
• Marquette
• North Carolina State
• Rutgers
• Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
• About 20 participating departments per workshop

3
Project Management

• Bob Hilborn and Warren Hein, PIs
• Ruth Howes, Project Director
• Karen Johnston, external evaluator
• Steering Committee

4
Goals and Objectives

• Goal enhance undergraduate physics learning for
  both majors and non-majors
• Project Objective Have 80 physics departments
  in the U.S. implement significant improvements in
  their undergraduate programs.
• Long-term Objective Have 50 of physics
  departments do the same.

5
Goals for this Workshop

• Goal document changes and challenges in
  undergraduate physics at major Research-I
  Universities (Doctoral/research
  universities-extensive)
• Product Report on the current state and future
  plans of undergraduate physics
• Dissemination Send report to all physics
  departments in US and to federal and private
  funding agencies

6
Our Schedule Friday, June 4

• 500 pm Welcoming Remarks
• 515 Bob Hilborn Project Overview and the
  SPIN-UP Message
• 545 Questions and Discussion
• 600 pm Brief Reports I 
• Chicago, Cornell, Georgia Tech
• 700 pm Reception with posters
• 730 pm Dinner
• 830 pm Brief Reports II
• Harvard, Illinois, Michigan

7
Our Schedule - Saturday, June 5

• 800 am Breakfast
• 830 am Case Study 1 MIT
• 900 am Case Study 2 Rutgers
• 930 am Break
• 1000 am Diversity and Undergraduate Physics in
  the 21st Century Jim Stith
• 1045 am Case Study 3 University of Colorado -
  Boulder
• 1115 am Brief Reports III
• Michigan State, Penn State, Princeton
• 1215 Lunch
• 100 pm Breakout Session A new directions in
  undergraduate physics

8
Our Schedule - Saturday, June 5

• 200 pm Role of Physics Education Research in
  Enhancing Undergraduate Physics Programs
  Eugenia Etkina
• 245 pm Break
• 330 PM Breakout Session B introductory physics
  for engineering and life science students
• 430 pm Brief Reports IV
• Purdue, Stanford, Toledo
• 530 pm Free time
• 600 pm   Informal Reception
• 630 pm   Dinner
• 730 pm  Talk Anthony Johnson - UMBC

9
Our Schedule - Sunday, June 6

• 800 am Breakfast
• 845 am  Breakout Session C Do our
  undergraduate programs prepare our students for
  their careers?
• 930 am  Brief Reports V
• Virginia, Yale
• 1015 am   Break
• 1030 am  Defining the key challenges facing
  undergraduate physics over the next ten years
  What needs to be done
• 1115  am Wrap Up and Evaluation -  Bob Hilborn
  and Karen Johnston