Upgrading the Lab Experience for Physics Majors

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9452227 Joyner Hampden-Sydney College, a four-year liberal arts college in Virginia, offers baccalaureate programs in the natural sciences in biology, chemistry, physics, and interdisciplinary areas. The physics department maintains an unusually large enrollment in physics with more than 30% of the student body enrolled in a physics course, due in large part to an aggressive laboratory program at all levels. This project will upgrade the laboratories in four courses which follow the introductory course. The areas selected are nuclear, low temperature, and X-ray fluorescence. The use of the requested equipment in these four courses is expected to increase our retention of majors among students coming out of the introductory course. We also expect a measurable impact on the number of majors coming out of these introductory courses: a goal of 5% physics majors in a graduating class does not seem unreasonable, given our present 3% ratio. (At 5%, our major productivity would be ten times the national average of one-half percent.) The requested equipment will also be available to students in our two local high schools and in the local community college, on a late-afternoon basis.