The first physics meeting I ever attended, while still an undergraduate at Emory, was the Fall 1960 SESAPS gathering in Louisville, KY. Giving a talk there in the SPS session began to expose me to the challenges of communicating my ideas well to (as best I recall) a friendly audience. It also gave me the opportunity to meet other physicists and learn about their work, thus helping convince me that going on to graduate school and pursuing a career in physics would likely be an interesting and stimulating option.

Flash forward now to the Fall 2006 meeting in Williamsburg. I was extremely gratified there to see the very large number of students attending…146 registered, 81 of them undergraduates. In one Saturday morning session of contributed talks on physics teaching methods, there were at one point 30+ students from Francis Marion University alone!! Many stood along the meeting room walls because there were no more seats.

These experiences emphasize for me one of the most important roles of SESAPS. Our annual meetings, still of modest size, provide both a stimulating mix of presentations by experts in a wide range of physics subfields, and the opportunity for students to present their first talks and share their earliest research experiences. This tradition has forged an enviable legacy for SESAPS, one which is looked to by physicists in other APS regions as they seek to grow similar physics community interest in their programs.

We owe thanks in abundance to our Fall 2006 meeting co-hosts at the College of William & Mary and the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab). Marc Sher, the local arrangements chair, and the meeting support staff from JLab (Marty Hightower, Ruth Bizot, and Cynthia Lockwood) arranged a very convenient meeting venue in downtown Williamsburg and made sure that everything ran smoothly. Behind the scenes, we again this year benefited from the highly skilled and efficient help of Leilanie Merrill in formatting and arranging the printing of our meeting Bulletin. Working with these folks to organize the SESAPS06 meeting was a pleasure. Unusual for us was the cancellation there of all talks on Friday afternoon to allow meeting attendees time to tour JLab’s accelerator facilities. Linda Ware was instrumental in coordinating the tour with those guiding the laboratory’s tight experimental schedule. She facilitated our seeing first hand the size and complexity of one of the world’s most prominent accelerator labs, which is located right here in the Southeast! Again, I’m sure it will be most memorable for the many students who wandered wide-eyed through the labyrinthine accelerator tunnels and vast target rooms.

Please note below the report from Brad Cox, our hard-working Membership Coordinator. He has been very successful in this role. I join him in urging you to help us recruit new SESAPS members, particularly students. For anyone already in the APS, joining SESAPS costs nothing extra. In return, the great benefit for us is that $4 of each SESAPS member’s annual APS dues is provided to SESAPS to subsidize our activities. Most of this income goes to support our annual meetings, e.g. preparing and printing the Bulletin, and subsidizing a growing number of travel grants for students who are presenting talks. But again last fall, requests for such travel support far exceeded the funds which SESAPS could provide.

Next, and very importantly, I alert you to Larry Cain’s announced intention to retire next fall after serving loyally and wisely for 15 years as SESAPS Treasurer. As the longest serving member of the Executive Committee, Larry also provides our best institutional memory. We greatly appreciate his long years of service, and will certainly miss his careful attention to our financial bottom line. He will leave SESAPS in strong financial position. This announcement motivates my appeal now for your support in finding candidates to run for the Treasurer slot in next fall’s election. Please think hard about talented colleagues in the region who might be willing to serve SESAPS in this role. You can submit names of possible candidates by going to http://www.phy.davidson.edu/sesaps/execcommnom.html, or by sending them either to our Secretary, Stanley R Deans, or to me at the addresses listed below.

While you are thinking, we invite and welcome your suggestions too for other openings on the Executive Committee. Each fall we seek nominees for the position of Vice-Chair and for one at-large member. The annual Executive Committee rotation saw Calvin Howell step down in December 2006 from the position of Past Chair, and Paul Avery leave the position of Chair. I thank them here publicly for their dedicated service. They have overseen substantial changes in how SESAPS operates. For example, we no longer rely on the APS to print our annual meeting Bulletin. That provided considerable savings, which were directed toward more student travel support.

Looking ahead, our Fall 2007 meeting is scheduled for November 8-10 at the Scarritt-Bennett Center in Nashville, and will be co-hosted by Fisk and Vanderbilt Universities. Please mark these dates on your calendar now. Our local arrangements coordinators at these institutions are, respectively, Steve Morgan and David Ernst. David Haase of NC State is the Program Chair for SESAPS07. He is already working with Steve and David to plan the meeting, so your suggestions to him now for session topics and possible speakers would be both timely and welcomed.

It is not too early to invite SESAPS to your own institution for a future meeting. Hosting such a meeting provides an excellent opportunity to display your local facilities and program prominently to others from the region. I am pleased to announce that NC State will host our Fall 2008 meeting in Raleigh, and I would welcome your invitations and/or suggestions for meeting sites in later years. The Executive Committee eagerly seeks opportunities to move the annual fall meeting around the Southeast, thereby providing occasional convenient access to more of the region’s physics community.

Certainly I will enjoy working with many of you on SESAPS activities in the coming year, and I look forward indeed to meeting many more of you next November in Nashville. Please do plan to join us there!

Sincerely,

Tom Clegg

V. Lee Bounds Professor of Physics

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dear SESAPS Members:

In my capacity as membership coordinator of the Southeastern Section, I am asking all SESAPS members to encourage students and fellow members of the APS, who are not yet members of SESAPS, to consider joining us seriously. I ask that you discuss the issue of SESAPS membership with your undergraduate and graduate students, and in one of your departmental faculty meetings, to publicize SESAPS more widely.

Undergraduate students who join the Society of Physics Students (SPS) at http://www.spsnational.org/about/benefits.htm are entitled, for as long as they are undergraduates, to free membership in one member society of the American Institute of Physics. Please encourage your students to join the SPS, and then to pick the APS as their AIP member society. Graduate students who join the APS obtain free membership for their first year, and membership at reduced cost for later years as long as they are a student.

Then, any undergraduate, graduate student, or faculty member, who is or becomes a member of the APS, can immediately join the SESAPS at no additional cost. This is easy to do; simply follow the link to the membership application form http://www.aps.org/memb/joinaps.cfm. There are several advantages to becoming a member of SESAPS, and no disadvantages. Membership is a way to become more actively involved in issues which affect everyone in our region.

There were 2544 SESAPS members on January 1, 2007, up by 5.5% in the past year. Ours continues to be the APS section with the largest membership, and it is also growing fastest. Please encourage your colleagues to join us.

Brad Cox

University of Virginia

Membership Coordinator, SESAPS

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2007 SESAPS MEETING

The 74th Annual Meeting of the Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society (SESAPS) will be held November 8-10, 2007 (Thursday-Saturday) at the Scarritt Bennett Center in Nashville, TN <http://www.scarrittbennett.org/>. Fisk University and Vanderbilt University are the co-hosts. The local arrangements committee is chaired by Dr. Steven H. Morgan, Department of Physics, Fisk University (Ph: 615-329-8621; smorgan@fisk.edu) and Dr. David J. Ernst, Department of Physics, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (Ph: 615-343-0483; david.j.ernst@vanderbilt.edu.) The Program Committee is chaired by Dr. David G. Haase, Dept. of Physics, North Carolina State University (Ph: 919-515-6118; david_haase@ncsu.edu.) Information about the meeting will be posted on the SESAPS website: http://www.phy.davidson.edu/sesaps as soon as it is available. 

SESAPS will use electronically submitted abstracts. All abstracts of contributed papers must be prepared in the standard APS format as specified in recent issues of the APS News. The abstract deadline is 5 PM on Friday, August 17. The program will be available electronically, and printed copies will be available at the meeting for all who register.

The scheduled time for your presentation must be obtained from the bulletin which will be available electronically on the web. Meeting rooms will have an overhead projector and facilities for projections from a computer. To request other audio-visual aids, including chalkboards or 35 mm projectors, please make your request in writing by typing it in the special instructions box of the abstract template. Any questions about the program should be directed to Dr. Haase.

CONTRIBUTED/INVITED PAPERS: Invited papers at this meeting, as in all APS meetings, are given by experts in areas selected by the Program Committee, and these talks are usually of thirty minutes duration. Contributed papers, however, are on topics of the author's choice and are ten minutes in length. On the day following the abstract deadline, all papers are organized into sessions and the sessions into the program of the meeting. Some of the contributed abstracts are of such interest that the committee will invite the authors to give a special paper of twenty minutes duration on the topic of their abstract at the beginning of the contributed paper session to which their talk is assigned. There will only be a few such papers selected. The invitations will be listed in the printed program of the meeting and will be verified promptly by electronic or regular mail to the authors. If the author(s) would like to be considered for such an invitation, they are asked to type the following statement in the special instructions box: If invited to do so, the author is willing to expand the talk for the above abstract to twenty minutes.

A MEETING OF THE SOCIETY OF PHYSICS STUDENTS will be held in conjunction with the SESAPS meeting and will include a student paper session where the Marsh W. White Award will be presented for the best paper given at that session. More information will be provided in the Summer Newsletter.

TRAVEL SUPPORT WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR STUDENTS THIS YEAR: Students will be pleased to learn that modest travel grants will again be available for those presenting research papers at the SESAPS sessions. Students giving papers in the SPS sessions only are not eligible for travel support. An application is included in this newsletter and is also available on the SESAPS website.

SUGGESTED NOMINATIONS FOR SECTION OFFICERS should be sent to the Secretary at the address given at the end of this newsletter. All suggestions will be considered seriously by the Nominating Committee, which is composed of the members of the Executive Committee. Please give particular thought this year to candidates for the position of SESAPS Treasurer, to replace Larry Cain. The person elected to that position next November will serve for a 5-year term. This year we will also be selecting the next Vice-Chair and one new member of the Executive Committee.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FALL 2006 ELECTION WINNER. The new SESAPS Vice-Chair is David Ernst of Vanderbilt University. Dave will advance to the roles of Chair-Elect in 2008 and Chair in 2009.

The following procedures are relevant for the awards.

Winner and nominators are notified around the first of October.  The nominator is asked to introduce the nominee at the annual meeting when the award is bestowed.

The three awards presented by the Southeastern Section rely on member contributions to sustain them. Many members of the section have made previous donations for the Jesse Beams Award, the George Pegram Award, and the Francis Slack Award. If you would like to contribute to the Beams-Pegram Fund and/or the Slack Fund, please feel free to print this section and use it to make your contribution by sending it and your check made out to SESAPS to Dr. Laurence Cain, SESAPS Treasurer, Department of Physics, Box 6919, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035-6919. Dr. Cain will also accept contributions at the SESAPS meeting. Thank you for your continuing support of these awards.

Name ___________________________________

Beams-Pegram Award Fund Amount   __________

Slack Award Fund Amount                  __________

Total Contribution                                __________

Minutes of the Executive Committee Meeting of SESAPS
Friday, November 10, 2006.  Williamsburg, VA

Members attending:  P. Avery, T. Clegg, D. Haase, C. Howell, S. Deans, L. Cain
                               B. Cox, K. Whatley, B. Jones

1.  Opening remarks by P. Avery:   Thanks to:
        (a) College of W&M and JLab for organizing meeting
        (b) Marc Sher, chair of local organizing committee
        (c) Staff of W&M and JLab
        (d) Tom Clegg, chair of Program committee
        (e) Program committee members

2.  S. Deans reported on awards, newsletters, and deadlines.
     The Secretary will remind EC members of deadlines during the year as needed.

3. B. Cox reported on membership.  The efforts are resulting in a steady increase.
    Items of interest:
         (a)  $4/member to SESAPS from APS
         (b) SESAPS membership 2496 (Sept 2006).
              This is 5.5% of APS, and ~50% of all APS in Southeast
         (c) Continuous years of rapid growth:
              The best of all APS sections
              Letter to all APS members living in Southeast
              Letter to 165 physics department chairs
     The EC gives many thanks to B. Cox

4.  P. Avery discussed the need for the EC to work on finding a replacement for the Treasurer (L. Cain) after 2007.  An  announcement will go in the Winter newsletter.

5. P. Avery asked for ideas to justify asking for an increase of APS dues returned to SESAPS for each member.  Several were given and T. Clegg and P. Avery will work on a report to be presented at a later date.

6.  D. Haase gave a report on the status of the upcoming election of a new Vice Chair.

7.  (a) T. Clegg reported on statistics of the current meeting:
          253 registrants, 173 abstracts, 35 invited talks
     (b) Information on student travel awards was given by C. Howell
          The deadline for application for these awards was moved to September 30.
     (c) D. Haase announced the SESAPS award winners:
               Beams:  Akunuri V. Ramayya (Vanderbilt)
               Pegram:  Robert Beichner (NCSU)
               Slack:  Jerry Draayer (LSU and SURA)
      (d) The list of Awards Committees for 2007 will be established by T. Clegg.
            (Current winners often serve on the selection committees.)

8.  Future SESAPS Meetings:
         November 8-11, 2007 -- Nashville, TN (Hosted by Fisk and Vanderbilt)
         2008 North Carolina State University
         2009 Several possibilities being explored

9.  Summary of SESAPS finances were given by L. Cain. The 2007-2008 budget was adopted:
     Chair                                           $100
     Secretary                                     $200
     Treasurer                                     $100
     Speakers: banquet and invited    $1000
     Bulletin APS online                    $2500
     Student travel                            $4500
     Meeting support                          $500
     Printed bulletin for meeting         $2000
     White SPS Award                      $200
     Miscellaneous                             $300
                                      Total     $11400

10.  The EC agreed on the final deadlines:
         August 15  --  Award nominations
         August 17  --  Abstract deadlines
         September 30 --  Student travel deadline

The meeting adjourned at noon.

Stanley R. Deans, Secretary SESAPS

The student must be a presenter at a SESAPS session

NAME: ____________________________________________________________

ADDRESS: _________________________________________________________

CITY: _______________________________________ STATE: _______________

ZIP: ___________ EMAIL: _______________________________________

SCHOOL: ___________________________________________________________________

UNDERGRADUATE/CLASS: __________________________________________________

GRADUATE/CLASS: _________________________________________________________

ABSTRACT TITLE: __________________________________________________________

ABSTRACT AUTHORS: ______________________________________________________

AMOUNT REQUESTED ($250 MAX) ___________________________________________

PURPOSE OF REQUESTED FUNDS: ____________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________________

CERTIFICATION OF RESEARCH ADVISOR (Please have your research advisor sign this line certifying that you are presenting this paper and send an email to Dr. Avery.)

____________________________________________________________________________

RETURN BY September 30th TO: