APS Career and Professional Development Committee Receives Final Approval

One of the primary motivating factors shared by the members of the APS Task Force on Careers and Professional Development (APS News, June 1997) was a desire to devise workable long-term strategies to better prepare physicists for a multitude of careers options. The task force made a number of key recommendations. The first was that a separate APS committee be established to address career and professional development issues. This has now happened in the newly established Committee for Careers and Professional Development (CCPD). APS Council unanimously approved the bylaw change establishing the CCPD at its April 1998 meeting. John Lowell, Applied Materials Inc, is serving as the first Chair of the CCPD.

A second key recommendation was for the establishment of a mechanism so that any materials developed could be disseminated widely, particularly to faculty and students through physics departments in academic institutions. This recommendation led to the idea of establishing a Career and Professional Development Liaison (CPDL) Program (see front-page article for a description of the first workshop of the CPDL Program). In addition, the CCPD will monitor career/employment status from both the perspective of the employers and physicists, such as was done in the recent email survey of Junior members and statistical studies. In addition, the CCPD is investigating initiation of a career and professional development site visit program to physics departments; offering a series of short courses for professional development on such subjects as elements of patent law, accounting, proposal writing and others. In addition, the CCPD is working closely with APS Units and committees, such as FIAP and CSWP, AIP's career and statistical divisions and Corporate Associates, and the physics community. Members with comments or suggestions for the CCPD to consider are invited to contact John Lowell, Barrie Ripin, or Arlene Modeste.