Friday, June 29, 2018
By:
"If you think of anything ever, do it. Then show me." -Brad Conrad, encouraging me to be creative with new SPS promotional material.
I had the priveledge of meeting with the Deputy Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) on Wednesday. This opportunity came about after winning a t-shirt design contest that the organization had promoted on Twitter. When I recieved an email from the Programs Assistant, I noticed that her office was based only a few blocks away from the GW campus (where we're living for the ten weeks) so I requested to meet with someone to get advice on growing a math department and to network for future employment. It was very cool to compare and contrast SPS and MAA: many of the same values and goals (i.e. promotion of STEM, specifically math for MAA and physics for SPS), similar roots (founded to unite formal and informal educators), however MAA's audience tends to be high school teachers and professors while SPS is focused on undergraduate students. Dr. Ensley was kind enough to grab coffee and chat with me for over an hour!
As for the tasks I completed this week:
- I reached out to the Madame Curie Museum in France asking permission to use one of their archived photos in a poster that will be sent out to all of the SPS chapters in the US, however I have not heard back from them. So, I spent most of Monday drafting a new poster. The new design features an image from the NASA Image and Video Library of a successful space shuttle launch accompanied by a quote from Maria Mitchell (1818 - 1889), the first female professional astronomer. The quote reads, "We have a hunger of the mind which asks for knowledge of all around us, and the more we gain, the more is our desire; the more we see, the more we are capable of seeing." which, in my opinion, directly reflects the attitude held by most scientists I know---knowledge is truly addicting; for every answer found, five new questions appear. I think the juxtaposition of this quote from the mid-1800s to an accomplishment of NASA in 2000 will be an inspiring addition to the walls of physics rooms across the country.
- July 5th will mark the first annual international celebration of LGBT STEM Day, a day to increase the visibility of LGBT+ scientists through public, academic and industry engagement and to celebrate LGBT+ individuals in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The American Institute of Physics (AIP) of which SPS is a member society holds inclusivity and diversity as priorities therefore they've encouraged all of their members to participate in promoting this celebration on social media. I was in charge of putting together a post for SPS (below). In tandom, I also helped populate a list of resources for people looking to learn more about LGBTQ+ scientists and ways to make your work/social spaces more inclusive (check it out: https://www.aip.org/diversity-initiatives/pride-month).
- I spent most of Tuesday creating a new version of Physics Jeopardy that can be accessed from the SPS National website which is a fun way to engage your chapter and test your general physics knowledge ("general" as in various fields, not as in "physics 101").
- Our new Spherical Space Cow stickers and Approximations Make the World Go Round t-shirts arrived this week so now all the SPS interns and staff can be matchy. Also, I designed and printed business cards for all of the interns to take with them during networking events in the upcoming weeks.
Ongoing projects:
- We're working on creating a new Alumni Engagement program on the national website that will allow post-grads to stay in touch with undergrad communities via a "communication request" portal. Students will be able to search through pages of speakers from varying fileds, industries, and locations and request to interact with them either in-person or electronically. I see the "mentorship" functionality of the program being really popular with undergrad researchers looking for external resources/references.
- The American Physical Society (APS, more abbreviations) hosts Future of Physics Days which are meetings exclusively for college undergraduates where they can participate in undergraduate research sessions, career and professional workshops, graduate school fairs and networking opportunities. Every year they design a t-shirt to give out at the meetings, and this year I'm in charge of coming up with some potential options. I'm trying to formulate a design that emulates or explains a physics concept in a fun and visually appealing way. We'll see what my brain cooks up in the next few weeks.
- By August 1st we'll be sending our Fall Mailer and Journal of Undergraduate Reports in Physics (JURP) to print. Soon after, the next edition of the SPS Observer magazine will be in its final stages of editting. I've been helping gather and organize content for all of those publications and am even co-authoring one of the articles in the Observer!
- One of the projects I'm looking forward to starting is writing a "Best Practices" article for new and reinvigorated SPS chapters. This article will be a collection of tips and ideas that I've gathered from personal experience being an SPS member, SPS president and SPS intern for students looking to lay groundwork for a successful SPS community. I'm excited to reflect on the past few years at HPU and summarize my most and least favorite experiences as a physics major.
I've started to decorate my cubicle with the miscellaneous projects I've designed for SPS so far. Week five, here we come!
Michael Welter