摘要:

The Physics Manpower Panel is an ad hoc committee of the American Physical Society charged with describing long‐term trends in the supply and demand for doctoral physicists, discerning potential improvements which should be made in their training, and recommending appropriate actions to the APS Council. This paper introduces the studies being performed concerning career paths and supply and demand, which are detailed in the following four papers. It also describes briefly the current status of work on regional academia‐industry conferences, quality indicators for graduate physics education.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31095

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

Data about non‐PhD physicists from the NSF‐sponsored 1974 National Survey of Scientists and Engineers were analyzed. Use of this survey partially resolves the difficulties of defining non‐PhD physicists and of finding an unbiased population group to sample, which were present in earlier studies such as the 1973 AIP‐APS Register of Physicists and Related Scientists and the National Register Surveys.Only 13% of the 16,000 who hold only a baccalaureate degree in physics are employed in physics, 61% are in engineering and 9% in other sciences. These numbers are 28%, 39% and 13% for master’s degree holders. Almost everyone employed as a physicist has earned his highest degree in physics, regardless of the level of his degree.Non‐PhDs are employed predominantly by business and industry and, to a lesser extent, research institutes. Less than 2% of baccalaureates teach, and 50% of masters who teach are not employed for four‐year colleges and universities.Non‐PhDs are heavily involved in administration, design and development, and other primary work activities.The salaries of non‐PhD physicists are roughly comparable to those of PHDs, probably because the types of jobs held by non‐PhDs tend to be higher paying (at a fixed degree level) than those held by PhDs.The foreign‐born component is 3% for bachelor’s degree holders, 10% for master’s and 23% for PhDs.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31124

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

Our studies indicate that many physicists employed outside academe are reporting just as favorable attitudes toward professional challenge, research facilities, congruence between career goals and nonacademic work, time for research, research funding, and other dimensions of the work situation as they reported for prior academic employment. On most of these dimensions they reported more favorable evaluations of their nonacademic employemnt than they reported for prior academic employment. To some respondents in our studies this realization came as a surprise. Despite this, however, respondents over‐whelmingly indicated at the time they left their faculty position that they preferred academic employment over other types of employment and many never even considered a nonacademic job option when looking for a position to follow their academic employment. This paper analyzes this apparently incongruous result. Evidence suggest that inappropriate stereotyping of nonacademic employment and professional norms concerning ’’acceptable’’forms of employment play a key role in determining whether a physicist will even consider nonacademic employment. In a time of current and projected increases in retrenchment in higher education, these stereotypes and values will become increasingly self‐defeating and and maladaptive for those who are serious about doing physics.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31116

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

In the past several years many young physicists have held and then left academic positions as top U.S. research universities. These physicists of the 1970’s have been thrust into quite a different world than their colleagues in the halycon days of the 1960’s. Facing limited opportunities for stable academic research careers, they have followed a broad variety of career paths ranging from small colleges to industrial corporations. Some paths have led out of physics completely. A series of APS studies conducted in 1976‐1977 delved into the experiences of many of these physicists, examining both the difficulties encountered and the new avenues they have explored. The studies indicate that the search for stable positions has frequently proven hard and misdirected, leaving for some a lingering bitterness. Yet the same studies show that most of these physicists have found or created exciting and stimulating new roles and positions for themselves.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31122

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

An extrapolation of trends in doctoral supply leads to the conclusion that the number of new entrants into the physics/astronomy labor force (estimated to be 19,000 in 1975) will drop slowly from its present value of about 950 to about 750 in 1986. The components of demand are estimated separately: The number of positions resulting from death and retirement in the labor force is now about 1% of the total (180 positions); the percentage will increase to 1.6% (320 positions) by 1986.* The number of openings resulting from mobility out of the field by those in secure positions being attracted to other fields is estimated to be not less than 150 per year. The number of positions in traditional physics vacated by non‐PhDs and filled by PhDs is expected to decline slowly from an estimated 200‐300 in 1976 to 150‐200 in 1986. The growth of the field is estimated to have been 1 to 1.5% per year in recent years and to continued growth of 1% per year is projected.We conclude that the demand in traditional physics and astronomy will about match the supply of new entrants into the labor force by the mid‐1980s. However, throughout the coming decade there will continue to be imbalances between supply and demand in specific sub‐fields and employment sectors. And the physics community will continue to age. In particular:The number of tenure openings per year in the 200 PhD‐granting physics/astronomy departments is expected to be no greater than 100 in 1986; thus only about 15% of the new entrants into the physics labor force in the early 1980s are expected to attain permanent positions in doctoral‐granting departments.The demand for those who work in theoretical physics is expected to remain well below the supply of new entrants trained as theorists.The demand for those who work in theoretical physics is expected to remain well below the supply of new entrants trained as theorists.The average age of the physics community is now increasing at from 0.35 to 0.5 year/year. The rate is expected to decline slowly to 0.1 to 0.2 year/year by 1985.The yearly output of experimental neclear and particle physicists is dropping so sharply that the yearly demand may exceed the number of new entrants by the early 1980s.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31123

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

A series of surveys conducted Indiana State University in 71‐73, results of which were reported at the Aug. 74 Trandition and Change in Graduate Physics Education Conference, had been designed to assess physics manpower needs in non Ph.D. granting institutions in the midwest with particular interest in preparation for college physics instruction. Following these, three additional surveys were conducted in 1975 covering the same geographical area. One survey was designed as an update, the other two were sent to Ph.D. granting institutions and their placement bureaus respectively, to obtain Ph.D. placement information. The update survey confirms the overwhelming (2:1) preference for teaching experience and preparation over research interests expressed in earlier surveys. Placement statistics are somewhat more puzzling ‐ 31 of 46 institutions responded indicating that with 6002 students enrolled 304 Ph.D’s were awarded in 1975 of which 249 were placed in industry, education or as post doctoral fellows, with 20 not employed in physics related areas nor expecting to be. Only 21 of 46 placement bureaus responded indicating 50 out of 189 registrants placed in employment.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31125

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

The demographic and technological reasons for the recent job shortage for Ph.D. physicists are reviewed. These factors are considered as they apply to students now starting or considering a physics education. It is concluded that there is no valid economic reason for advising students against training for a career in Physics.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31126

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

During the 1960’s synergism between academic research, expansion of undergraduate and graduate enrollments, and consequent expansion of faculty created an unusually favorable situation. There was a pronounced shift of job opportunities for non‐academic to academic, especially in physics. Simultaneously the spectacular growth of the Ph.D. in engineering met a need in industry and government which had previously been filled by physics Ph.D.’s, a factor which was more or less unique to physics. The situation is unlikely to change soon.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31127

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

Although the military began after World War II with a liberal policy of supporting science more or less on its own terms, pressures from the Korean War, the Cold War, the Indochina War, and, later, shifting National priorities away from defense expenditures, acted in parallel with normal budgetary pressures to force the development of a hierarchial system for stimulating university research in areas of concern to the military. This process occurred slowly, with adequate time for the university scientists’ interests to develop in parallel. Problems developed when the exponential growth in funds available from the military ended.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31082

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP

摘要:

Some industrial perceptions of the academic physics community are presented. Concerns are expressed over the suitability of the academic environment in physics to prepare industiral scientists. While the scientific content of the curriculum appears satisfactory, the discipline is criticized for its inability to shape appropriate attitudes in students. The academic response function of the physics discipline to changes in curriculum content is complex, but the response to a stimulus to change attitudes of students is an even more interesting aspect of the evolutionary process. A hypothetical model is proposed in which the present, ’’where we are,’’ academic response is determined by the faculty assigning the highest personal priority to the attainment of both academic and personal security. Some possible changes in academic management and government policies, as well as student and faculty initiatives, could result in a desirable trend from an industrial perspective.

ISSN:0094-243X    

DOI:10.1063/1.31083

出版商:AIP    

年代:1978

数据来源: AIP