Re: [Phys-l] Sir, Can We Do Something Easier?

[Bernard Cleyet <bernardcleyet@redshift.com>]

Sadness followed by shock.

I visited Keele early in July and was saddened by the change.  It has 
become quasi privatized w/ its mission to directly serve industry w/ 
conferences, etc.  I think this may had been in reaction to Thatch's 
attempt to close Keele when she was Minister of Ed.  The building, new 
at the time, where I had my office and did my research was locked.  It 
was open 24/7 in the 60's.

Then:

"University departments of unpopular sciences keep closing, ...  the 
physics departments at the University of Newcastle and Keele University; 
mathematics at the University of Hull and civil engineering at Aston 
University. The Institute of Physics states that, since 2001, 30% of 
university physics departments have either merged or closed. Only 
biology is safe and, as everybody knows, biology is science for girls."

Thanks, but no thanks, Donald.

bc



Polvani, Donald G. wrote:

> The list may be interested in this UK article.  Here is a summary; the
> URL at the end gives the full article.
>
> "Sir, Can We Do Something Easier?
> from the Guardian (UK)
>
> It is presumably never easy being a physics teacher, what with physics
> being, you know, hard, unlike geography or needlework. But it must be
> particularly difficult being a physics teacher today, on A-level results
> day, when the dwindling number of pupils choosing to study the subject
> provokes yet another round of where-will-it-all-endery.
>
> This week the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said it thinks it
> will end in a downturn in British business; the House of Commons select
> committee thinks it will end in damage to the British economy; A-level
> students who did media studies think it will end in a more fulfilling
> life, and physics teachers, on whom much of the blame is unfairly laid,
> think that it will end in unemployment. No one else thinks about it at
> all. That's the problem.
>
> And so the embattled science lobby - the Institute of Physics, the
> British Association for the Advancement of Science etc - regroups once
> again to try to reverse the trend."
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1852106,00.html
>
>
> Don Polvani
> Northrop Grumman Corp.
> Undersea Systems
> Annapolis, MD
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>