Service Courses: The department offers physical science and introductory physics courses to over 3,000 students each year. Most of these courses also have a laboratory component. Our goal is to cover the basic concepts of physics and astronomy and teach our students to analyze and solve physical problems. We use lectures, demonstrations and laboratories to help students develop an intuitive as well as a logical understanding.

Major Program: The department offers the B.A. and B.S. degrees in the College of Arts and Sciences as well as the B.S. in Physics and Engineering Physics in the Honors Tutorial College. The goal of these degree programs is to prepare our graduates with a solid foundation in physics and/or engineering which they can use in their life, work, and/or in a variety of advanced degree programs.

Graduate Program: The department offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics. Our goals are to train professional physicists who are well grounded in the fundamentals of the subject and are capable of doing original research. In selected areas our doctoral program aims to compete effectively at the national and international level.

Service Courses: Each of our service course sequences has a coordinator who chairs a committee consisting of all faculty teaching in the sequence. The content and success of each of the sequences is examined regularly. This examination considers recommendations from students who have taken the courses, the faculty and teaching associates working in the sequences and faculty from the departments whose students take the course. As a result of this continuing examination, the courses have been modified extensively over the past five years and this modification continues. The course evaluations by the students enrolled have improved and we have obtained very strong student support for our introduction of the Computer Assisted Personalized Assignments (CAPA) system. This system allows the student a number of tries in completing homework problems. If a response to a question is incorrect, the students can try again to answer the question. Students have indicated that they are pleased that they are no longer evaluated on the first attempt (the old system when homework was graded by faculty or teaching assistants) but can try again and receive credit if they find the correct answer.

Major Program: Majors in the Arts and Sciences Program are advised by Professor Steve Grimes and since the number of majors is not very large he meets with the students on a regular basis. Majors in the Honors Tutorial College are advised by Professor David Onley or Professor Roger Rollins. Again the numbers are not very large so the program is characterized by close interaction between students and their advisors. Almost all physics majors become involved in research programs during their undergraduate career. The Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics offers summer internships each summer and a number of faculty with research grants employ undergraduate majors as research assistants during the academic year and summer. All tutorial students are required to prepare a Senior Thesis which serves as a closure for their undergraduate experience. Most of our majors in both Arts and Sciences and the Tutorial College enter graduate or professional school for obtaining a B.S., while others go to work directly for industry. The department collects an exit questionnaire from our graduates and we maintain contact with them via a departmental newsletter. The success of our graduates over the years convinces us that we are doing an outstanding job in the undergraduate program. In the appendix we show the form used for the survey and the results obtained. They indicate a generally high level of satisfaction among recent graduates.

Graduate Program: Most graduate students enter our program with the intent of obtaining a Ph.D., although we do also offer an M.S. degree both with and without thesis. The M.S. degree without thesis is based on taking a number of required courses and in producing a scholarly or research paper, while an M.S. degree with thesis requires a research thesis. Many of our students who graduate with an M.S. degree transfer to other universities to seek Ph.D.’s in fields that are not represented in our department while some enter the industrial job market.

The Self-Study of the doctoral degree program in Physics at Ohio University was evaluated and examined by the Board of Regents and the State Investment in Higher Education Task Force last year. As part of this Self-Study, we sent questionnaires to all Ph.D. graduates of the past 10 years. We obtained very positive reports from our graduates on our training and learned that, in general, they were employed in good jobs utilizing physics. The self study is available on the department’s homepage for anyone to examine [http://www.phy.ohiou.edu]. The review by the three external reviewers who came to campus for two days was very positive (one of the quotes was: "Ohio University has done an exemplary job of building a strong physics program at the undergraduate and graduate level.") At the state level our program was judged very solid, with a recommendation of continued support. In particular, the physics doctoral program was treated Type 1 by the Ohio Committee on Investment in Higher Education. Type 1 means no concern about viability and represents a high quality program. In the National Research Council ratings of doctoral programs in 1992, the physics doctoral program at Ohio University was ranked significantly higher than all other programs at Ohio University except History.

The graduate program is controlled by the Graduate Committee which monitors the progress of students on a regular basis and is the agent for curricular change.

During the past year 11 students received their Ph.D. degree in Physics at Ohio University. One has received a faculty position, five are in post-doctoral positions and five are working in industry. None is unemployed as of this time.

The Department of Physics and Astronomy seeks to be one of the outstanding departments at Ohio University, in the state and in the nation. The department is characterized by a great deal of internal cohesion and a willingness to try new techniques of instruction and to move into new research areas. For example, we are in the forefront of using computers in our undergraduate service and major courses and we continue to investigate more effective ways of teaching physics and astronomy. At the graduate level we moved aggressively into surface science eight years ago and now we have one of the best programs in the state last year a consortium of faculty from Physics, Chemistry and Engineering attracted a 5 year grant worth $2,000,000 in recognition of this expertise. During the 1996-97 year, the annual grant monies received by faculty in the department exceeded $2,200,000, the largest amount among departments in Arts and Sciences.

Due to the complexity of the department’s operation, a number of committees are set-up to monitor and recommend changes in programs and/or curricula. General oversight is provided by the departmental Chair and an advisory committee. This running of a department with active faculty participation has been working very well as evidences by our successes over the past ten years. Because of our drive for excellence and our departmental cohesion, faculty and staff give their very best. It is this atmosphere and our concern for our students which will guide us in the future.