The North Carolina Section

of the

American Association of Physics Teachers

Minutes

for the

8th Annual Fall Meeting

UNC - Wilmington

Wrightsville Beach NC

November 8, 2003

 

1.                Roll Call: Wessell, Wetli, Tiwari, Stone, Briggs, D’Arruda, Titus, Hubisz, McMurray, Shepherd, Belloni, plus about 55 members.  Kolena was recently hospitalized and sent his regrets.

2.                The Minutes of the Spring 2003 Meeting at NC A&T State University were accepted as presented on a motion from D’Arruda, seconded by Shafroth.

3.                The Treasurer’s Report was accepted as presented on a motion from Shafroth, seconded by Creason.  Item d. from New Business was taken up at this time.  The Secretary-Treasurer was given unanimous approval to set up an account with Vanguard to handle the Lifetime memberships.

4.                Report from the High School Representative, Terri McMurray.  Terri reported that she and we should be pleased at the number of high school teachers and students taking part in the meeting.

5.                Report from the Four-Year College/University Representative, José D’Arruda.  José volunteered UNC – Pembroke for the Fall 2005 Meeting and the offer was unanimously accepted.  We were reminded of the award for best undergraduate student and the listserv for the group.

6.                Report from the Two-Year College Representative, Chuck Stone.  Chuck is also the Two-Year College Representative to the National AAPT.  Nine TYC members met Friday night, but did not conduct much in the way of business.  Missing the Friday night session and the social that was usually part of our meeting was something that they did not want to repeat.  Results of recent national elections were reported:  Ken Heller was elected vice-president, Ruth Chabay was elected Four-Year College/University Representative, and Chuck Robertson was re-elected Treasurer.  The year 2005 has been designated “World Year of Physics 2005” and we are encouraged to suggest activities for the year.  Go to www.physics2005.org for further information.  A list of national future meetings and the reasons for some changes in the schedule were presented.  We were also reminded of the total lunar eclipse occurring around 7:30 to 8:30 PM.

Report from the Section Representative, Mario Belloni.  Most of the news has already been made available.  Madison was one of the largest meetings of the national AAPT, if not the largest with over 1300 in attendance.  Remember that you can get half price NEW membership in the national AAPT if you are a member of a Section of AAPT.  The Yale Meeting and the Dayton Meeting will not take place at those locations.  In Sacramento, the theme will be “Physics of Sports and the Human Body.”  All sessions and workshops will be held on campus at CSU - Sacramento.  There will be an APS-sponsored session on beams.  (This will be an annual affair, as the Forum on Education will organize a session at AAPT Meetings from one of the APS Forum/Division members.)  Bruce Sherwood has been made a Fellow of the APS, recognized for his many outstanding contributions to physics education.

7.                Report of the Awards Committee, Mario Belloni.  Nothing to report at this time.  You are encouraged to nominate candidates for our various rewards.

8.                New Business

a.                                         Discussion of items coming out of the Minutes.  No comments.

b.                                         Discussion of meeting with SESAPS.  What happened to the Health Science people who met in Wrightsville Beach two weeks ago?  They claim that they were not contacted about the meeting and had to make their own arrangements.  SACS had a similar story.  Communications were not the best.  I learned of a planning meeting in Wilmington the day of the meeting.  Although we were asked to take part in a joint meeting a couple of years ago and we agreed from the outset, we were never mentioned in the APS bulletin announcements, the advertising posters, or anywhere else.  One announcement made after I complained had the wrong name of our group.  When I enquired about vendors, I was told, “No,” which changed to, “Yes,” after I had sent a notice to our members and vendors.  I originally heard that SESAPS was to close at 5:00 PM on Saturday, but that was changed to noon, which effectively made our papers an afterthought after SESAPS’s papers were finished at about 11:00 AM.  Our guest speaker spoke in the middle of two SESAPS sessions on Saturday morning.  I accepted this placement of his paper in the hopes of stimulating SESAPS members to know about and stay for our papers.  I felt that I could not place our papers in competition with those papers as they were obviously of interest to us.  There was much more said, but let me summarize by saying that I will write SESAPS and the Tennessee Section and the Florida Section some suggestions for planning a truly joint meeting.  I can’t say anything yet about what it is going to cost us for the room on Saturday afternoon.  (Had one more person signed up for a room at the Sunspree, we would have gotten a room free.)

c.                                         Nominations are being sought for Vice-President (John Hubisz, NC State), High School Representative (No nominees yet), and Secretary-Treasurer (Mary Creason, Duke University.)  Chuck Stone nominated Joe Heafner for the Two-Year College Representative position the next time that it comes up.  {This was an error.  In fact, the election is for the TYC Representative, not the High School Representative.}

d.                                         Several people have taken up the offer of Lifetime membership at $100.  Can the Secretary-Treasurer start a Vanguard account into which that money be deposited against future dues?  This was handled under the Treasurer’s Report.

e.                                         Should the Spring Meeting be moved to late February or early April?  Late February was voted down and early April was acceptable.  Should newly elected officers take office on May 1st rather than immediately at the end of the Spring Meeting?  Accepted.  This affects the By-Laws so it will be brought up at the Spring Meeting (2004) and voted on.

f.                                          We meet at Meredith College on March 26-27, 2004.  We meet at Davidson College in the Fall of 2004.  We meet at UNC – Pembroke in the Fall of 2005.

g.                                         Further business, reports, or announcements?  John Riley at Spartanburg, SC, is interested in hosting the Fall 2004 Meeting of SACS-AAPT and would like us to join with them.  The general reaction was that we would like to meet with them, but we are already committed to Davidson College and no one wanted to change that.  The Secretary-Treasurer was directed to contact SACS-AAPT, express our regrets at this time, and offer Davidson or UNC-Pembroke as a site for a joint meeting in Fall 2004 or 2005.  There was a reminder to nominate papers for our awards and to include any papers from the SESAPS portion of the meeting.  Unfortunately, not too many SESAPS members nominated many papers for awards.

9.                Drawing for door prizes.  Despite the original information that there would be no room for vendors, there were vendors at the meeting (WebAssign, Pearson/Prentice-Hall and John Wiley) and there were vendors who contributed even though they did not come (Spectrum Techniques and Vernier.)  NC State University also contributed support.  There were over 25 door prizes given out.

10.           Adjourn.

 

Submitted by John L. Hubisz, Secretary-Treasurer

 

Results of the voting for Best Papers:  Undergraduate, Bryan Nelsen of Georgia Southern University for “Index of Refraction Profile in a Highway Mirage”; Pedagogical, Harlan Devore of Cape Fear High School for “Interactive Excel for the Science Classroom.”  (For a copy of his CD, send a note to him at mailto:Hdev48@aol.com.)  We do not have a “second place award,” which is too bad for this particular meeting.