1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Please direct comments to Tom Tiedje.

1.0.1 Research

The departmental research and hiring plan from January 2000, entitled ``Origins and Complexity'', is included in the full text version of this Unit Plan and is available on our Web site (see Preface). It is not included in this Executive Summary but should be regarded as the core of our Unit Plan. Briefly, the hiring plan proposes 16 new hires in the areas of subatomic physics, astronomy, biophysics, optics, condensed matter physics and medical physics.

1.0.2 Hiring, Equity & Salaries

1.

With 10 retirements in 2002 and 2003 it is critical that the Department immediately accelerate faculty recruiting so that we can continue to fulfill our teaching and research commitments. All opportunities offered by faculty fellowships, leaves without pay etc. should be exploited to bridge retirement slots. New faculty traditionally require reduced teaching responsibilities to facilitate the start-up of their research programs. Teaching loads will need to be increased or cuts made to our program even if we are successful in finding qualified faculty to replace retiring faculty.

2.

The Department is committed to a hiring plan designed to maintain our position as the top Canadian Department in Physics and Astronomy, and to bring us up to the top league of such Departments in North America, in both research and teaching. We will therefore maintain a constant search for the best people from around the world.

3.

As part of our committment under the preceding point, we will attempt to increase the number of female and visible minority faculty members, using tools like the NSERC UFA program to do so.

4.

The Department needs an immediate and large increase in merit and PSA salary money in order to eliminate salary inequities created by rapidly escalating starting salaries.

1.0.3 New Medical Physics Program

The Department has submitted a proposal to expand our unofficial medical physics program and create a new medical physics graduate degree program including a CO-OP M.Sc. We propose to support this program with professional graduate tuition, with positions created through the CRC and NSERC UFA programs and with existing resources. The degree requirements for this program are distinct from conventional M.Sc. and Ph.D. Physics degrees. This program is urgently needed to meet student demand and help satisfy the unmet demand for medical physicists in BC.

1.0.4 Engineering Physics

Strong student demand for admission to Engineering Physics justifies a 50% increase in enrollment in this program. An increase in the admission quota from 40 to 60 requires additional support for the undergraduate project and laboratory courses as well as new faculty appointments with expertise in photonics who are eligible for P.Eng. status.

1.0.5 Undergraduate Education

1.

In its Physics service course offerings the Department plans to continue to evolve to serve the changing needs of other Departments. In addition the Department plans to configure its service courses to appeal to students who will increasingly be taking Physics because they choose to and not as part of their program requirements. Our Astronomy service courses already operate successfully in an elective environment.

2.

We plan to extend the independent project work embodied in the 4$^{\rm th}$ year honours thesis project to third year with a research seminar/reading course. This will expose students to the scientific literature earlier in their academic career and give them a chance to improve their speaking and writing skills. Additional student project work requires additional faculty resources and is contingent upon our being able to make cuts in other areas or obtain additional resources.

3.

New interactive learning technologies and the results of recent Physics education research will be incorporated wherever possible in our programs, especially in the large undergraduate service courses. The new learning technologies require classroom and laboratory modification and new types of ongoing technical support.

4.

We plan to reduce the total number of lectures required in our programs to free up student and faculty time for more project supervision and individual contact. Students will be expected to take more responsibility for their own education.

5.

The number of courses that are offered in separate sections for honours and majors students will be reduced in order to relieve pressure on our limited teaching resources and improve the learning experience for majors students.

6.

As with most scientific disciplines, Physics and Astronomy have a rich history of classical material that every student of the subject must know. The challenge is to balance this with material from the forefront of the discipline. To achieve the correct balance requires continual renewal, weeding out of less critical material and replacing it with new and advanced subject matter. Recent examples of new additions include a new third year probability course and new courses in general relativity, membrane biophysics and computational physics in the fourth year undergraduate curriculum. We plan to take advantage of our broad based research strengths to achieve a leadership position in Physics curriculum development.

1.0.6 Outreach

1.

The Department plans to continue its excellent outreach programs including tours, public astronomical observing sessions, talks, courses for high school teachers, summer camps and competitions such as the Physics Olympics and the Physics Olympiad. These activities encourage interest in science generally, in UBC and in our programs. We need to identify funding sources for these outreach activities.

2.

An annual meeting with selected high school physics teachers to discuss topics of mutual interest, following a successful model in the Maritimes, is under discussion.

1.0.7 Recruiting

1.

The wide variety of exciting career opportunities open to Physics or Engineering Physics graduates are not well understood by high school students. The demand for people trained in physics is currently very high at both the graduate and undergraduate level, with critical shortages of qualified people in areas such as photonics, medical physics and high school teaching. Outreach and recruitment will include visits to high schools to explain the opportunities at UBC in Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy.

2.

With more active recruiting we hope to be able to increase the enrollment and admission threshold for our honours and majors programs and in the case of Engineering Physics to increase enrollment without lowering the high admission standard.

1.0.8 Graduate Program

1.

Aggressive recruitment of the very best graduate students, both in Canada and internationally, is a top priority for the graduate program. This will be carried out by:

• continued sizable top-up awards for major scholarship holders (ongoing funding for top-ups needs to be identified, as competition for top graduate students continues to intensify);
• continuation and expansion of our graduate recruitment weekend for NSERC holders; and
• more active recruitment, both in person, by faculty members giving invited talks at other universities, and via our recently enhanced Web presence.

2.

We are extending our efforts to collaborate with other BC universities in teaching graduate courses in Physics, Medical Physics and Astronomy. These efforts include:

• We will extend to other courses the videoconferencing of classes at SFU and UBC that was successfully piloted in 2000. More systematic use of this option will allow is to make more graduate courses available to our students and improve efficiency in course delivery by taking advantage of courses offered by the other universities. In order to accomplish this we need to equip one classroom for video course delivery.
• We will encourage more of our students to take such courses via the Western Dean's Agreement (WDA) at other universities, and continue to communicate with other universities to encourage more of their graduate students to consider enrolling in advanced courses at UBC via the WDA.

3.

A CO-OP M.Sc. program is under consideration, building on the success of our undergraduate CO-OP program. A sizable fraction of our graduate students elect to obtain a Masters degree and then go directly to employment in industry. Work experience combined with an advanced level degree would be an attractive option for some students.

1.0.9 Physical Infrastructure

1.

The physical infrastructure of the Hennings building was described by the external review committee as more appropriate to a Third World country than to Canada's leading Physics and Astronomy Department. Services such as heating, ventilation, electrical power and washrooms are substandard. A new Physics and Astronomy building is needed.

2.

In the meantime we need to upgrade the lecture theatres and improve the æsthetics of social space (departmental coffee room, PhysSoc space). The physical layout of the undergraduate labs in the Hebb building, designed in the 1950's, needs to be remodeled to meet the needs of the more effective interactive learning styles of today.

3.

The 42 cm telescope needs to be moved from the roof of the Geophysics and Astronomy Building to the roof of the Hebb building. This is an important and popular outreach facility as well as a teaching tool.

4.

We plan to make the interior of the Hennings building more attractive and interesting for students with poster displays of departmental research projects.

1.0.10 Technical Support and Staff

1.

To support the diverse research needs of the Department we need to maintain excellent computer support as well as excellent machine and electronic shops; we must also strengthen technical support in new areas such as advanced instrumentation and microfabrication - increasingly important tools for a variety of current and projected experimental research programs at UBC. A number of technical support positions have been lost due to budget cuts over the past 15 years.

2.

We plan to work with our neighbour, the Department of Chemistry, wherever feasible to maximize the effectiveness of our technical facilities and technical staff. For example, the Department will provide a limited number of Chemistry graduate students with access to our student machine shop.

3.

To support the changing teaching needs of the Department and new learning technologies, we need to strengthen current computer, laboratory and demonstration support that has been cut back in recent years.

4.

The Department encourages staff to take relevant, cost-effective training courses to update their technical skills and learn new ones.

1.0.11 Computer Infrastructure

A continuing investment in computer hardware, software and networking facilities is essential to the learning and research environment of the Department.

1.0.12 Interaction with Other Units

1.

Many of the faculty members who do research at TRIUMF will be retiring in the near future. We need to rebuild our relationship with TRIUMF, an important laboratory whose research mission has been evolving since the commissioning of the new ISAC facility. One possible avenue for collaboration in the future would be through joint appointments.

2.

The Department plans to use faculty positions associated with CRC clusters as a new basis for interdisciplinary collaborations with other units.

3.

We would like to continue our productive links with the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR) by hiring people who qualify for participation in their programs where possible.