Provost's Blog

One thing I love to do in this blog is brag about the great programs and faculty at Eastern Michigan University. Today I get to brag about our Department of Physics and Astronomy. Lots of universities talk about their commiitment to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Eastern Michigan University was recently recognized as one of the top producers of bachelors degrees in physics in the United States by the American Institute of Physics in their 2010 report: “Physics Undergraduate Enrollments and Degrees.”

During 2005-07, Eastern Michigan University produced an average of 7 physics majors per year compared to the national average of 5.7.  Overall. Eastern Michigan University ranked 14th (tied) in the nation of 63 universities in our category. For a copy of the report click here.

Dr. James Carroll, Department Head of Physics and Astronomy at Eastern Michigan University, reveals some information about the accomplishment that should cause us all to take note.

This distinction is more impressive when one considers our low number of faculty (half the national average for the number of degrees we produce), we are successfully competing with nationally ranked phys doctoral-granting institutions (Michigan is #12 and MSU is #33 among the 180 universities ranked), we do not have a college of engineering as a recruiting tool, we do not have a fancy building and EMU is renown for producing teachers, not scientists (these data do not include physics teachers produced in the major and minor programs).

Please join me in congratulating rhe faculty, staff, and students of the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 9:53 am and is filed under Daily Blog Entries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.