In Brief

At its April meeting, the APS Council voted to establish the Hans A. Bethe Prize and the Joseph F. Keithley Award for Advances in Measurement Science. Announcements soliciting nominees for both the Bethe Prize and the Keithley Award will appear in APS News, on the APS home page on the World Wide Web, and other venues early in 1997 It is expected that the first recipients will be announced at the Society's general meetings in 1998. The Bethe Prize was named to honor Hans A. Bethe for his outstanding and numerous accomplishments in both astrophysics and nuclear physics. Consisting of $7,500, it is to be awarded annually for outstanding work in theory, experiment or observation in the areas of astrophysics, nuclear physics, nuclear astrophysics, or closely related fields. The intention is to recognize outstanding achievements in one of these areas by a scientist. The prize is endowed by donations from members of the Divisions of Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics, as well as friends of Hans Bethe. The Bethe Prize was announced at Han's Bethe's 90th birthday celebration at Cornell on July 2.

The John Keithley Award is intended to recognize physicists who have been instrumental in the development of measurement techniques or equipment that have impact on the physics community by enabling new physics advances through new or significantly improved measurements, many of whom are in the industrial and applied sector. The award is named after Joseph F. Keithley, founder of Keithley Instruments Inc., who is noted for contributions to instrument development. Consisting of $5,000, it is anticipated that it will be awarded annually. The award is being endowed by Keithley Instruments, Inc. and the APS Instrument and Measurement Science Topical Group.At its April Meeting, the APS Executive Board approved allocation of funds for an expansion of the Society's editorial offices, located in Ridge, New York. According to Cindy Rice, former Director of Editorial Office Services, the expansion is long overdue. The present facility is stretched beyond capacity, and there is still a need to accommodate an expanded Journal Information Systems Department, some of whose members are currently located in rented quarters at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Preparation of architects' plans for the expansion have been completed, and construction is expected to commence later this year. The total capital outlay for the expansion is estimated at between $2 and $2.5 million, to be depreciated over 20 years. Other capital improvements at Ridge, particularly the provision of more parking spaces, will require additional expenditures in FY 1997.

A new report on 1994 physics bachelor degree recipients in the United States was released by the statistics division of the AIP. Among the highlights of the report are the following: the annual number of degrees continues to decline slightly; more fresh graduates are looking for jobs rather than heading for graduate school; for those going on in their studies, 89 percent receive financial support; women constitute 17 percent of the degree recipients; and the median starting salary was $27,000. Those interested in obtaining further information or copies of the report in its entirety should contact Patrick Mulvey at 301-209-3076 or via email pmulvey@aip.org.

The APS has received a $10,000 bequest from the estate of Dr. Frank Evens Myers and Mrs. Ionemary Myers, which will be applied to the Minorities Scholarship initiative of the APS/AAPT Campaign for Physics. Dr. Myers was a physicist whose research interests and achievements were in electron scattering and polarization, nuclear physics, and ballistics. He also had a distinguished career in teaching and university administration. He was born in 1906, graduated from Reed College and received his Ph.D. from NYU. He taught at NYU for many years and at Lehigh, serving as dean of the graduate school there. The culmination of his career was as Associate Director of Argonne National Laboratory, from which he retired in 1970. He served as editor of the Journal of Applied Physics and Applied Physics Letters. He was a elected fellow of APS in 1941.