We look at the outcome of the Society of Physics Student graduate program panel earlier this week, share a cool video with a crazy map of the universe, and warn the community about upcoming scheduled electrical power events.
Contents
CHAIR’S WEEKLY MESSAGE
“In the Classroom, One More Time”
This has been a weird semester. Bear with me. I’m not talking about the loss of spring break or the winter disaster. As far as I am concerned, all of that is baked into every moment of this semester like some kind of unpleasant bitter herb. I’m talking about suddenly starting teaching a class this week.
Specifically, up until this week my primary concern for teaching has been Honors Physics, PHYS 1010. That’s been meeting every Monday night, and students there are exploring the “physics of failure” as they develop ideas for their physical failure-themed final projects. This week, however, things changed for me. I’m also now the lead instructor in PHYS 1303, introductory mechanics for first-year students. I took over from my colleague, Prof. Cooley, who is now devoted to teaching the second half of a special graduate seminar course on the Higgs particle and Dark Matter. Prof. Ryszard Stroynowski taught the first half, exploring the nature and implications of the Higgs particle. Prof. Cooley now takes the students into the wide world of dark matter theories and experiments.
Which leaves me in PHYS 1303. It’s potentially jarring for students when a class is co-instructed like this, which is why Prof. Cooley and I were very careful to set out course policies before day 1 of the class to insure harmony in our approaches to the class. We agreed to adopt consistent grading policies and rubrics, a consistent style of problem-solving and presentation for class periods, and to add more small exams in between larger exams to avoid the “few points of failure” problem common to many STEM classes.
Nevertheless, the transition can still be jarring for the instructor and the students. I’ve enjoyed relative peace for seven weeks, and now that is ended. In fact, I really enjoy teaching, but it was one of those weeks where I found myself having to repeat to some students “this is the policy of this course” and “this has been the way since day one of this class.” I had to get into a mood for grading again. There was a lot of change, even while things actually stayed the same.
In truth, I find teaching this class fun. I like active learning classrooms, even on Zoom, where I demonstrate a problem-solving activity and then have the students work in teams for the rest of the class (yes, even on Zoom) to solve problems that have not seen before. It makes things lively. Some teams struggle, and some excel. Some declare victory when, in fact, they have not succeeded at all. Learning is happening in all its messy glory.
Of course, my first week also contained our course’s second “macro-exam” – a “midterm” in more traditional parlance – and that was stressful for me and for the students. Minding 27 students in 27 breakout rooms, guided on my journey through the rooms by a random number generator while students work in an open-book, open-note situation, is not how I prefer to teach. But these are the times, with all their crazy “Snowvid” bitter herb baked-in goodness.
In this issue of the Friday Physics Newsletter, we look at the outcome of the Society of Physics Student graduate program panel earlier this week, share a cool video with a crazy map of the universe, and warn the community about upcoming scheduled electrical power events.
Sincerely,
Stephen Jacob Sekula Chair, Department of Physics |
DEPARTMENT VIEWS
Expect Some Planned Power-Outages to Fondren Science Building in April
Work is scheduled to address a long-standing and important electrical issue that needs to be resolved in the area around SMU. This is likely to result in, at minimum, “electrical service fluctuations” of a short but meaningful duration in April. The community is asked to prepare ahead of time for such events by verifying un-interruptable power supply (UPS) batteries are operating at nominal capacity on sensitive equipment, or shutting off equipment (computers, instrumentation, etc.) entirely in advance of the scheduled events.
The current schedule has this work aimed for the weekends of April 10-11 and April 17-18. We’ll repeat this announcement in subsequent newsletters to keep awareness high about the upcoming electrical service fluctuations.
No Speaker Series Event on March 29, 2021
There is no scheduled speaker series event on Monday, March 29. You can reclaim the hour to catch up on things or make a start on the “Justice League” Snyder Cut.
Miss a Colloquium or Seminar? Don’t Panic … They’re Recorded!
You can catch up on the Spring 2021 (and Fall 2020!) Physics Speaker Series by checking out your favorite subjects from archives! Explore supermassive black holes, the new Electron-Ion Collider planned for construction in the U.S., new ideas about dark matter or other novel particles or forces, or the basic research needs for future scientific instrumentation in HEP … all from your personal devices! Enjoy our archive of the Physics Speaker Series Talks below.
FACULTY NEWS
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of your activities in research, the classroom, and beyond are very welcome!
STAFF NEWS
Staff In-Office Schedule for Week of March 29
The in-office staff schedule for the week of March 29 is nominally as follows:
- Monday: Lacey
- Tuesday: Michele
- Wednesday: Lacey
- Thursday: Michele
- Friday: Lacey
Of course, both are always available on Microsoft Teams, by Email, or by phone.
Full staff in-office calendar for March:
STUDENT NEWS
If you have something to share please feel free to send it along. Stories of students in research, the classroom, internships or fellowships, awards, etc. are very welcome!
SPS Graduate School Workshop and Graduate Student Q&A a Success!
SMU’s Society of Physics Students (SPS) hosted a workshop presentation on the process of applying to graduate school in physics and the basic information around graduate school in physics. The event took place this past Wednesday.
Twelve people participated in the event, including the six graduate student panelists. The panelists represented a range of experience in the SMU physics graduate program, from students very early into their doctoral work to students writing their Ph.D. dissertation and preparing to defend it this year.
“This even helps me with my ongoing search for a graduate program right now.”
SPS President Jared Burleson
The audience was equally diverse, with students from early in their college careers to students in their senior year actively working through the decision-making process about selecting their preferred physics doctoral program. The panelists discussed the decision process behind how they chose a physics graduate program, especially what things prospective graduate students look for in a favored program. These might include the climate or atmosphere of that program, especially taking input from current graduates students at the institution. Of course, panelists highlighted the importance of selecting a program with the research opportunities of most interest to them. They also emphasized the effect of pre-existing relationships with faculty at the target institutions, which can be a strong influence on selecting a school. The location of the program is also important, and panelists spoke about how they selected SMU in part because of its location in Texas.
“It was great to receive advice form current grad students on things that help them decide where to go to grad school and to hear them share the lessons they have learned since choosing a program. This even helps me with my ongoing search for a graduate program right now,” said SPS President Jared Burleson.
The department was very pleased to support this event by providing food delivery to SMU student attendees who RSVP’d before the event. Facilitating these conversations is important, not only for future doctoral candidates but also for current students who have valuable experience to share.
ALUMNI NEWS
If you are an alum of the doctoral, masters, majors or minor programs in Physics at SMU, or have worked in our program as a post-doctoral researcher, and wish to share news with the community, please send your story to the Physics Department and we’ll work with you to get it included in a future edition.
THE BACK PAGE
Like “Streetview,” but for the Universe
Thanks to Dr. Ryan Staten, who shared this really cool video of the sky map created by more than 1,400 observing nights at three telescopes over the course of six years. It will help inform survey targets for the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) in preparation for its measurements of cosmic expansion. This is a nice touch to complement the seminar given earlier this week by Prof. Robert Kehoe, which you can check out on our Department Speaker Series Youtube playlist. Enjoy!
