Committee B: Under-represented Groups in Physics

Committee charge

The charge for Committee B is to answer these questions: Should SPS pursue funding to host a conference on diversity issues? Should a position statement be developed for consideration by the SPS Council? Who should be the principal players in such efforts? What guidance would you give to setting priorities among these items and the items above? The committee will prepare a document summarizing the committee’s accomplishments, recommendations and decisions to date to share with the rest of the Council. The document should include a timeline for accomplishing the committee’s goals for the rest of the academic year.

Committee members

Sauncy Toni, Chair (Zone 13) toni.sauncy@angelo.edu

Williams Krystle (XC, Zone 2) Krystle_Williams@URMC.Rochester.edu

Broadbridge Christine (Zone 1) broadbridge@southernct.edu

Brown David N. (Zone 8) D.N.Brown@louisville.edu

Chatham James (Zone 17) chatham@lclark.edu

Narayanan Ajay (Zone 17) ANarayan@greenriver.edu

Purnell Sacha (SPS staff) spurnell@aip.org

Some Background Information

---The AIP Advisory Committee on Physics Education has urged SPS and Sigma Pi Sigma to continue their work on reaching out to under-represented populations in physics. A list of SPS efforts along these lines in recent years includes:

1) a formal partnership between AIP/SPS/ and MentorNet, the award-winning nonprofit e-mentoring network that addresses the retention and success of those in engineering, science and mathematics, particularly but not exclusively women and other underrepresented groups, established in summer 2006, in response to a recommendation by Committee B last year.

2) chapter recruitment effort for over 40 campuses graduating significant numbers of students from under-represented groups (females, Hispanic, and African American), also at > 20 exceptionally active two-year college campuses.

3) a collaboration with MUSpIN (Minority University Space Interdisciplinary Network) and NASA to engage undergraduate physics students from under-represented groups in space research, initiated in 2005, with the first students participating in summer 2007.

4) participation in AGU’s Diversity Plan including the IDEaSS Conference (Increasing Diversity in the Earth and Space Sciences), hosted at ACP in June 2003, in which several SPS interns played visible roles and resulted in a position statement document (see http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/education/jsc/ for more details).

5) participation in national meetings of the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP), National Society of Hispanic Physicists (NSHP), and the National Conference of Black Physics Students (NCBPS), including sponsoring SPS reporters who have filed several stories over the past three years and SPS Director presenting an invited talk in 2004.

6) Collaboration with Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) and NSHP to partially support the best physics student presenter at the SACNAS national conference as a featured

7) recruitment of under-represented groups to be candidates for elective offices and to apply for awards,

8) feature articles in SPS/Sigma Pi Sigma publications and featured sessions and speakers at SPS/Sigma Pi Sigma meetings,

links and references

SPS National Council 2006-COMM-B