THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE
FACULTY SENATE

Senate Document Number 1003S

Date of Senate Approval 01/30/03

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Statement of Faculty Senate Action:

APC Document 5: Addition of Computer Competency in Physics; Elimination of Physics GRE requirement

Effective Date: Fall 2003

1. Delete: On pg 181, under Concentration in Preparation for Graduate School, part III:

Special departmental requirements--A departmental competency examination and the Physics Graduate Record Examination. Oral competency is demonstrated by successful completion of the oral presentation requirements in PHYS 331 and 332.

Add: On pg 181, in place of deleted entry:

Other departmental requirements - Senior demonstration of competency is satisfied by a departmental competency examination. Oral competency is demonstrated by successful completion of the oral presentation requirements in PHYS 331 and 332. Computer competency is demonstrated in PHYS 331 and 332 during oral presentations judged to be satisfactory by the department faculty.

2. Delete: On pg 181, under Concentration in Applied Physics, part III:

Other departmental requirements--A departmental competency examination and the Physics Graduate Record Examination. Oral competency is demonstrated by successful completion of the oral presentation requirements in PHYS 331 and 332.

Add: On pg 181, in place of deleted entry:

3. Delete: On pg 182, under Physics with Teacher Licensure, part III:

Add: On pg 182, in place of deleted entry:

Impact: No impact on other departments or programs anticipated. No impact on future staffing needs and course offerings anticipated.

Rationale: We are proposing to drop the requirement that our Physics majors take the Physics GRE exam in order to graduate from UNCA. The cost of this exam has been climbing steeply over the past few years, and it now costs $150 for a student to take this exam. We no longer feel it necessary for our Physics majors to take this exam since no minimum score was required in the past. We feel that passing our departmental competency exam is sufficient for graduation from UNCA. Students majoring in the Applied Physics Track and the Physics with Teacher Licensure Track will not be going on to graduate school in Physics and so there is no need to force them to take the Physics GRE. Students in the Preparation for Graduate School Track will most likely be taking the General GRE Exam and the Physics GRE Exam to get into graduate school, so dropping the Physics GRE requirement will have little effect on them.

The addition of demonstration of computer competency is mandated by the 2001-2002 SACS Review. However, beyond conformity to the SACS requirement, it is clear today that all students graduating from college must be computer-competent in their field. Many traditional-aged students today bring a high level of computer competency with them from high school, mostly in the area of word-processing skills. In order to graduate from UNCA with a degree in Physics, students will learn other computer skills in many of their Physics courses. These enhanced skills currently include a working knowledge of Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations, Mathematica and Maple symbolic-logic software for solving mathematical equations, Fortran, C++, just to name a few. We in Physics are aware that as computer hardware and software advance over the coming years, that some of these skills and programs used will change. However, the Department of Physics is committed to the use of computers in our courses.

This commitment was started 16 years ago and will continue on into the future. By the time our Physics majors graduate, they will have gained the skills through our Physics curriculum needed to enable them to be computer competent in our field.

In order to assess the successful completion of our computer competency requirement, the assembled faculty of the Physics department will observe the oral presentations required in Physics 331 and Physics 332, Experimental Physics I and II. A certain level of computer competency will be expected in these presentations, for example, by the use of Powerpoint to give their presentations, or by the use of graphs and tables of data using Excel spreadsheets, or by the presentation of computer code used to analyze and acquire data. The assembled faculty of the department will meet after these talks to assess and give written feedback (if necessary) to the students on the use of computer skills, akin to the procedure we now use to assess and give written feedback to the students on the use of their oral communication skills. The assembled faculty of the department will agree on whether the computer competency requirement is satisfied or not satisfied for each student. The feedback given at the end of PHYS 331 is expected to produce more enhanced skills during the PHYS 332 presentations.