Prize Talk: Jonathan F. Reichert and Barbara Wolff-Reichert AwardUpgrading and Enhancing Advanced Undergraduate Physics Laboratories

Over the past 12 years, many of the advanced undergraduate physics laboratories at Francis Marion University (FMU) have been substantially upgraded and enhanced. These improvements are largely the result of participation in three physics initiatives. First, participation in three of the four Beyond the First Year of Physics (BFY) conferences provided opportunities to participate in 12 forty-minute workshops on advanced undergraduate physics experiments at each conference, in addition to presentations and breakout sessions on various advanced lab topics. Second, participation in 14 Immersion Programs sponsored by the Advanced Laboratory Physics Association (ALPHA) provided in-depth two-to-three-day experiences, where faculty members were immersed in single advanced undergraduate physics experiments, to gain sufficient expertise to teach the experiments with confidence to their own students. Third, submission of ALPHA Immersion Equipment Grant proposals to the Jonathan F. Reichert Foundation enabled the purchase of advanced undergraduate physics equipment that would have otherwise been impossible to procure, especially for smaller institutions like FMU. This talk will explain these three opportunities with sufficient depth, so that other physics faculty can participate in them to upgrade and enhance their own advanced undergraduate physics laboratories.