The First CPDL Workshop

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March 15, 1998

The APS Committee on Careers and Professional Development sponsored the first workshop to kickoff a Career and Professional Development Liaison (CPDL) Program on March 15, 1998 at the APS meeting in Los Angeles. Over 50 participants attended the inaugural workshop, including representatives from 35 academic physics departments plus several industries and government laboratories. The purpose of the workshop was to initiate the CPD Liaison Program and to initiate a dialog with a small group of interested departments on how such an APS program could be most useful. Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, University of Nebraska, and Barrett Ripin, Associate Executive Officer of the APS organized the Workshop.

Motivation

Assist faculty members by providing:

good career/employment information
a resource of 'good practices' that have proven useful in other departments
suggestions on how to set up student internships and foster closer ties with physics related industry

and developing other ways that physics departments could help prepare students for a diversity of career options.

Facts and Figures

Roman Czujko (AIP) provided the current statistics on employment among physics graduates

Sherrie Preische(APS), who summarized the findings of a recent e-mail survey of APS junior members regarding their hopes and experiences with the job market (see February 1998 APS News).

Panel on Internships

Panel members described programs that provide students with an opportunity to work closely with industry as part of their graduate experience. Speakers described the programs, discussed the mechanics of establishing internships and answered questions from the audience.

Peter Wolff (MIT)
Len Brillson (Ohio State, formerly Xerox Corp)
Mark Holtz (Texas Tech)

Graduate Student Perspectives

Peter Abbamonte (graduate student from UIUC) provided a graduate student perspective with his description of the student-initiated career programs at the University of Illinois.

Carol Livermore and Philip Fisher, physics graduate students at Harvard University, offered additional suggestions on how students can take matters into their own hands.

Curriculum Changes

Brian Schwartz of Brooklyn College discussed offering course work on job preparedness. Schwarz also described a NSF-funded program to develop courses that teach students about resume writing, interview preparedness and researching the job market.

Help for Faculty Advising Students About Non-Academic Career Paths

Len Brillson offered his perspective on the differences between academia and industry based on his career at Xerox prior to becoming a faculty member at The Ohio State University.
John Lowell of Applied Materials, Inc. provided a similar perspective as he discussed his perception of differences between industry and academia.
Robert C. Hilborn of Amherst College discussed the differences between applying for jobs at research universities and applying for positions at teaching-intensive universities.

The final part of the workshop, led by Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, was a discussion of future activities for the CPDL program and APS's role in providing information, communication and resources. A number of suggestions were made by participants, including:

Provide departments with accurate and timely career and employment information and statistics.
Produce career-oriented materials such as CD-ROMs, presentations, etc. for faculty to customize and use for students.
Put information on internships/externships on the web: where they are, and how students can participate.
Establishing a CPDL website to provide information to CPDL participants. The workshop presentations will be made available to Liaisons as PowerPoint files so that participants can adapt the information in the presentations to their particular circumstances.
Facilitate a threaded web-based discussion group to allow sharing of ideas, problems and solutions
Plan a larger-scale CPDL meeting.

The APS is in the process of setting up a web-site and discussion group for the exclusive use of participating department Liaisons. Departments participating in the Liaison Program will receive priority in a compilation of a resource of best practices, eligibility for possible career site visits, and other physics career related information. The Workshop and the planned future activities of the CPDL program were met with overwhelmingly positive evaluations from participants.