In turbulent times, physics department leaders share strategies for moving forward

In June, more than 100 physics department leaders and changemakers — from chairs to students — convened in Chicago for three days with one purpose: creating thriving physics departments.

The challenge has snowballed over the last several months, as executive orders have terminated federal science grants; dismantled diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; and moved to change the accrediting process for higher education institutions.

“It has felt a little bit like the end of the world,” says Andrea L. Del Vecchio, chair of the physical sciences department at Rhode Island College. The symposium, she says, was a boost to the spirit — an optimistic forum for discussing how the community can best serve physics students and prepare the STEM workforce, despite growing threats.

APS and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) laid the groundwork for the new symposium last fall, with support from the National Science Foundation and University of Chicago. They designed it to reflect a holistic view of physics education, weaving together strands for physics department chairs, leaders of graduate education programs, and those dedicated to creating more welcoming and inclusive departments. These groups typically meet separately through events like the Physics Department Chairs Conference, Conference on Graduate Education in Physics, and APS-IDEA network.

This year, planning for the symposium took on a sense of urgency, says Kathryn Walters-Conte, Head of Innovation at APS. As early as the APS Annual Leadership Meeting in January, the community expressed a heightened need for departments to align and share ideas, she says, realizing that they would need to shoulder more of the efforts to support students, despite fewer resources.

Representatives from 78 institutions attended the symposium, meeting in interactive sessions on recruitment, retention, graduate enrollment, and mentoring.

During a session on preparing students for diverse career paths, Christine Nattrass, a professor and director of the undergraduate program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, highlighted a low-cost, one-credit careers seminar at UT. The seminar largely consists of weekly one-hour Zoom sessions with recent physics graduates, who discuss their careers. Given the federal funding situation, conference attendees seemed especially drawn to lean but effective programs like this, Walters-Conte says.

Current and proposed federal science funding cuts are prompting many departments to prioritize career preparation. “Graduate admissions have been wild,” Nattrass says. Many excellent undergraduate students who would have been accepted in a typical year weren’t because of fewer openings, she says.

James Kakalios, head of the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota, says his department didn’t cut graduate admissions this year. Still, the situation is uncertain for next year. Current admission numbers assume that students will become research assistants within a few years, he says, and whether that assumption remains valid depends on federal funding. Navigating the fluid situation “is like trying to build a house in a lava lamp,” he says.

A new chair, Kakalios attended the symposium to get ideas for navigating the challenging environment and building a stronger department community, which he sees as essential to a thriving department. Echoing the words of the late Senator Paul Wellstone, Kakalios says, “We all do better when we all do better.”

This is a longstanding value in the physics community, made evident by initiatives like the APS-IDEA network, which seeks to make the discipline more accessible and collaborative. However, in the face of recent anti-DEI orders and state laws, some institutions have begun eliminating programs designed to support students.

That’s the main reason Jessica Burns, a University of Cincinnati graduate student, attended the symposium. “I was hoping to get a clearer idea of what can be done, and should be done, to make physics more equitable for our department,” she says. The question of what can be done became more urgent this spring, when a new measure to support students in the College of Arts and Sciences was abruptly rolled back by administrators, she says.

Burns says the faculty members in her department have been supportive of equity measures but unclear about what they’re allowed to do. She left the symposium more hopeful than she arrived, with new ideas and a better understanding of what her department can implement. She says she was especially encouraged when Art Coleman, a founding partner of EducationCounsel LLC, highlighted the growing pushback against many of the executive orders in his keynote.

Despite the challenging climate, the symposium had an optimistic and collaborative energy, says Marvin Jones, a graduate student at Indiana University and a member of the APS-IDEA Steering Committee. “People came genuinely ready to ask questions and engage in really tough conversations,” he says. “It gave me a lot of hope.”