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School of Physical Sciences
Strategic Plan April, 2007Mission and StructureThe mission of the School of Physical Sciences is to carry out discovery based research that will lead to further understanding of the laws of the natural world, and to educate the next generation of scientists who will impact the future of science and technology. The School is comprised of four Departments: Chemistry, Earth System Science, Mathematics, and Physics and Astronomy. US News and World Report ranks the Department of Chemistry in the top 20 in the nation, and the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the top 30. Atmospheric Science, which has components in both Chemistry and in Earth System Science, has recently been ranked number one in the nation. As a result of research activities in the Departments of Earth System Science and Chemistry, UCI is recognized by the Institute for Scientific Information as among the top four US research universities for impact on geosciences. The Department of Mathematics, ranked in the top 50 Departments in the country has made a large number of recent impressive faculty hirings and is now within reach of being regarded as a top 20 research department by 2015. As described below each of the Departments needs to grow substantially to accomplish its research and teaching missions. The numerics of the current status of each of the Departments is provided here for comparison in the following discussions:
Research Agenda:Present Status of School Wide Research Agenda:The forefront topics of research are often at the boundaries of established disciplines. As a result there is a high degree of research collaboration between the Departments within the School of Physical Sciences. This happens both through formal and informal interactions. School of Physical Sciences faculty are active in a number of formal “Centers” and “Institutes”. The ones that are housed predominantly in the School of Physical Sciences are: The Institute for Surface and Interface Science (ISIS, involvement of Physics, Chemistry, Enginnering) Faculty in the School are also actively involved in inter-school institutes and activities, including:
Planned Developments for School Wide Research AgendaWe anticipate the development of a few additional collaborative research institutes. Among these are: Institute for Energy and Global Environmental Change The most important human activity that drives environmental impact is our use of non-sustainable energy sources. This is the underlying driver of global climate change, pollution and the subsequent impact on the environment and the ecology of the planet. We need to develop the fundamental scientific and engineering understanding that will allow us to invent viable approaches to environmentally neutral and sustainable energy sources such as solar, biofuels, hydrogen, nuclear, wind, hydro, etc. Our recent very positive experience with fund raising to support the Physical Sciences Center for Solar Energy gives us hope that external donors can be found to provide substantial funding for such a campus wide institute. Mathematical and Computational Biology program Center for Nanophotonics Chemistry
Earth System Science
Mathematics
Physics and Astronomy
FacultyIndicators of Excellence:There are a number of indicators of the excellence of the Departments and programs within the School of Physical Sciences. National Departmental rankings have been cited in the descriptions of the Departments given previously. The Nobel Prizes received by Professors Frederick Reines (Physics) and F. Sherwood Rowland (Chemistry) in 1995 are indicators of the international leadership stature of the research programs in particle physics and atmospheric chemistry which continues today (as noted previously, Atmospheric Science at UCI is recognized as the number one program in the country). Other marks of distinction of the faculty of the school include:
Physical Sciences faculty have received numerous prestigious honors, including:
The faculty of the School continue to be very successful at obtaining extramural research funding from federal and state agencies. Extramural funding of research in the School is nearing $40million dollars per year—(an average annual funding in excess of $280,000 per faculty member). The faculty have been extremely successful at winning competitions for major multiple principle investigator project competitions from federal agencies. As examples: A group of faculty from Chemistry and Physics and Astronomy Departments was awarded funding from the National Science Foundation to establish a Chemical Bonding Center to study “Chemistry at the Space/Time Limit”. This is one of only four Chemical Bonding Centers established by the NSF. Faculty DiversityThe School of Physical Sciences is committed to the development of a diverse faculty, staff and student body. Historically, women have been underrepresented in science faculty across the nation. The School is committed to hiring women and underrepresented minorities in all of the Departments. In recent years we have been successful at hiring a number of women faculty at both entry and more senior levels. In 2006-07 the percentage of women among the faculty has risen to 16.3% as compared to 9% in 2002-03. The increase in successful recruitment of women faculty is due to a number of things—foremost is a commitment by the senior leadership of the School and each Department to recruit broadly and to aggressively pursue excellent candidates once they are identified. We have been aggressively active in the ADVANCE program. The equity advisors are an integral part of the faculty recruiting team for the School. The equity advisor meets with every faculty search committee prior to the down-selection process for candidate selection. They also attend and are an active participant in monthly meetings of the School leadership (Dean, Associate Dean, Assistant Dean, Department Chairs, School personnel manager, and Development Officer). It is gratifying to note that each of the Departments in the School does have women among the senior faculty ranks—some at the highest levels. However, it is also very clear that the representation of women and underrepresented minorities on the faculty of the School is well below critical mass. Recruitment of women and underrepresented minorities will remain an extremely high priority for the School. The School has submitted an FTE proposal to the “diversity” call for FTE proposals [submitted by Tammy Smecker-Hane (equity advisor), Ellen Druffel (ADVANCE Chair), Chuu-Lian Terng (ADVANCE Chair), and A. Richard Chamberlin (former equity advisor)]. The School has strongly endorsed that proposal and we hope that it will be given high priority. It is not only important to recruit new faculty from underrepresented groups, it is also essential that we work to try to guarantee their success. This is particularly important for new junior faculty especially given the high expectations for tenure within the School. To this end we have an active mentoring program for all newly hired junior faculty. In the future, the School is interested in extending this to more senior faculty to help guarantee the continued success of faculty to rapidly move to promotion to Full Professor and Full Professor, Step VI. Student Faculty Ratios and Workload Numbers.The Departments of Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics provide large service courses at the lower division undergraduate level for the campus. Problems associated with this large service teaching commitment are particularly acute for the Departments of Chemistry and Mathematics. Even though these Departments have aggressively recruited new faculty in recent years, the faculty size has not kept up with the enrollment growth. The ramp up of the new programs in Nursing and Public Health are expected to add to this problem. As will be discussed later, this has also generated a major space problem—especially for the Department of Chemistry where teaching lab space is over-saturated. The bar graph shown below shows the Student FTE/Faculty FTE ratios for the academic years 2002-03 through 2006-07.
The bar graph shows that both Chemistry and Mathematics are highly impacted. While the numbers fluctuate somewhat for Mathematics, the trend for Chemistry is undeniable and very troubling. The Student-Faculty FTE ratio for Chemistry for the 2006-07 academic year is 41.7 and the ratio for Mathematics is 38.8. The Student/Faculty FTE ratios for Physics trend slightly upward, but are still in the “acceptable” range near 20. The numbers for ESS are indicative of the fact that the Department is new and the undergraduate major has just started. Given the widespread interest in issues of Global Change we anticipate that the growth in the Student FTE in ESS is likely to grow substantially over the next 7-10 year period. While the Student/Faculty ratio for ESS is low now we anticipate having to carefully manage this in the near future. Historically, the Departments of Chemistry and Mathematics have adhered to a policy of finding ways to service all students who need their lower division courses, and yet to provide these courses in a quality and safe manner. However, the numbers are becoming overwhelming and there is substantial concern that the additional demand that will occur from students in the new programs in nursing and in public health will make it very difficult to continue with the “take all comers” policy. New faculty hiring for next two years in the School of Physical Sciences.The strategic plan based new faculty hiring that is proposed for the next two years in the School of Physical Sciences has two components: (1) continuing to address workload issues in the Departments of Chemistry and Mathematics, and (2) strategically planned hiring aimed at (a) a campus wide initiative in Energy and Global Environmental Change, (b) retaining excellence in our best programs, and (c) taking advantage of opportunities to move additional programs into positions of international preeminence. The workload issues driving item (1) have been presented above. The specific positions requested will be described in the sections below associated with Chemistry and Mathematics The campus is strategically well positioned to develop a broad based, world-class effort in Energy and Global Environmental Change. The Schools of Physical Sciences, Biological Sciences and the Henry Samueli School of Engineering have been undergoing a planning process related to collaborations on a major initiative in this area. With the strengths in Atmospheric Science in Chemistry, Global Change in Earth System Science, and Alternative energy in Chemistry (Solar Energy Center) and Physics and Astronomy (plasma fusion science), the School of Physical Sciences is well placed to develop a major new collaborative initiative in Energy and Global Environmental Change. We are requesting four new faculty FTE, two at the most senior level and one at the Associate Professor level and one Assistant Professor level. These positions will be held at the School level and recruitment will be carried out by a collaborative search committee. The planning process for the campus campaign has identified Energy and Global Environmental Change as one of the major “big theme” topics for donor fundraising. Our recent experiences with fundraising for the Physical Sciences Center for Solar Energy gives us hope that fundraising for activities in this area is likely to be very successful. The plans for strategic plan based hiring within the specific Departments is described for each Department in the following. Strategic Plan Based Hiring in Chemistry 2007-08 and 2008-09Three additional faculty FTE are requested at the Assistant Professor, Step III level to address the workload issue illustrated in Figure 1 of this document. These are to be filled in any area of Chemistry that will impact the undergraduate lower division teaching workload. One of these positions may be used to hire an additional Lecturer with Potential for Security of Employment (L-PSOE). The Chemistry Department has historically found that PSOE and SOE lecturers not only help to address the lower division teaching load issues, but they also add to the intellectual development of the Department in areas of teaching method development and outreach to the community. Two additional strategic plan based faculty FTE are requested in Chemistry. One is requested at the junior level in the area of analytical/physical chemistry, the second, at the senior level is requested in Inorganic chemistry. Research in analytical chemistry leads to the invention and development of new instruments for the highly sensitive detection and identification of molecules. This capability is central to all of chemistry. The Chemistry Department has a small, highly interdisciplinary group of faculty in the area of analytical chemistry. The faculty working in this area are all internationally known. However, the number of faculty in analytical chemistry is only just at critical mass. An additional junior hire in this area would allow the development of a core group of international prominence. Inorganic chemistry is one of the core disciplines of Chemistry (along with Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, and Analytical Chemistry). We have a number of individually very well known faculty working in this area (including national prize winners), however, the group of faculty working in this area is below critical mass. Adding another senior faculty in this area would have a large impact on their ability to recruit high quality graduate students. Strategic Plan Based Hiring in Earth System Science 2007-08 and 2008-09Two additional junior faculty FTE are requested for the Department of Earth System Science. While the student FTE numbers for ESS are still small, we anticipate that this will increase rapidly over the next few years. As ESS is a new Department it is critical that they continue to hire strategically to develop the research portfolio that is envisioned for the Department. The areas that will be targeted for these new hires are in Polar systems, and in the impact of Clouds and Climate, both of which have been described earlier in this document as emerging areas in ESS. Strategic Plan Based Hiring in Mathematics, 2007-08 and 2008-09Two additional faculty FTE are requested at the Assistant Professor, Step III level to address the workload issue illustrated in Figure 1 of this document. These are to be filled in any area of Mathematics that will impact the undergraduate lower division teaching workload. One additional faculty FTE is requested at the Assistant Professor, Step III level in one of the areas of pure mathematics. Strategic Plan Based Hiring in Physics and Astronomy, 2007-08 and 2008-09Two additional faculty FTE are requested for the Department of Physics and Astronomy, one at the Full Professor level and one at the Assistant Professor level. The Physics Department has developed an outstanding program in cosmology, based on a cluster of recent hires at the junior level. To really develop a leadership position in this area nationally a senior faculty hire is required. We are additionally requesting an Assistant Professor level FTE in the area of biological physics. Biophysics is an emerging area of great importance in Physics Departments nationally. The Department of Physics and Astronomy has a small group of outstanding faculty working in this area. Additional faculty are required in this area to develop a program that has sufficient critical mass to have a national impact. New Strategic Plan Based Faculty Hiring in Physical Sciences 2009—2015The projected faculty growth numbers for each of the Departments is listed in the first section of this document. The projected faculty numbers in 2015 are repeated here for convenience.
The numbers presented here are based on well developed arguments in terms of (1) student FTE, (2) strategic plans for research activities, (3) comparisons with “top 10” Departments across the nation. A few comments about each Department seems appropriate. Chemistry Earth System Science Mathematics Educational ProgramsDue to space limitations we will not describe the School’s educational programs here. Details can be obtained from the School and Department’s websites. We will however, give a short description of the impact of some unique collaborative research programs that have had a significant impact in the School. Chemistry and Materials Physics (ChaMP)The ChaMP program was jointly developed by the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Physics and Astronomy as a concentration at the graduate level. It is a collaborative effort between the Physical Chemistry group and the Condensed Matter Physics group. The ChaMP program has a number of unique aspects. In particular, students are accepted into the program within the individual Departments. A common set of courses have been agreed upon by the two Departments. Students who are admitted to the ChaMP program can choose a ChaMP research advisor from either Department, independent of which Department the student is officially enrolled in. The ChaMP program has a formal summer program that the students go through during the summer prior to the fall quarter of their first year in the program. The summer program is aimed at giving the Physics students sufficient background in chemistry and the Chemistry students sufficient background in physics so that they can be successful in the program. In addition, the summer program includes a laboratory skills training and development course that provides the students with exposure to modern state of the art methods of experiment and theory that they will need for their subsequent research careers. In addition to cementing the collaborative research between the two Departments, this program has proven to be an excellent recruitment device to recruit new graduate students to the two Departments. The School is committed to increasing the number of graduate students in the program. Special programs such as ChaMP provide us with the ability to accomplish this important goal. Chemical BiologyThe Chemistry Department has developed a graduate level collaborative program with the School of Biological Sciences that has many of the same goals as the ChaMP program. The approach is similar with an appropriate set of courses identified for the students and lab rotations that expose the incoming students to a variety of research groups. The Chemical Biology program is also developing a summer program. Science and Math Initiative (SMI)Another major educational effort is the Science and Math Initiative (SMI). SMI is a UC wide program aimed at generating opportunities for undergraduate science and math majors to work towards a teaching credential that would allow them to teach science and math in middle and high schools in California. The stated goals of the SMI program is to generate 1000 credential eligible science graduates per year from the University of California within 10 years. The Dean of the School of Physical Sciences, John C. Hemminger is the campus lead for this program and the Associate Dean of Physical Sciences, Robert Doedens is the campus academic coordinator. This program is being carried forward in close collaboration with the Education Department at UCI. Outreach ActivitiesThere are a large number of outreach activities run at various levels within the School of Physical Sciences. The faculty in the School have won a number of NSF Career awards. Many of those awards involve outreach activities. AirUCI (a NSF funded environmental molecular sciences institute) has two major outreach activities each year. During the break between the winter and spring quarter, AirUCI runs a “community day”. Members of the community are invited to come to the university for a day and learn about the research activities of AirUCI. Talks are given by faculty and graduate students and graduate students run tours of the research laboratories with a number of demonstrations. This outreach activity has been quite popular—attended by over 50 members of the community each year. The 2007 AirUCI community day was also attended by representatives from the local media as well as local congressional staffers including those from Representative Nancy Polosi’s office. AirUCI runs a second outreach effort each summer. The summer program is a two week course for local middle and high school science teachers. This gives the teachers exposure to new issues in atmospheric chemistry and atmospheric pollution chemistry that they can take back to their students. This program also provides the teachers with great networking opportunities. The program has been extremely popular and there is always a waiting list of teachers wanting to enroll. There are a number of similar outreach activities within the School—the Collaborative Research in Chemistry program on Clathrates also does a summer outreach program. There are also outreach efforts by many of the faculty to the local high and middle schools. Many of the faculty are also actively involved in “media relations”. This is particularly the case for faculty in Earth System Science and in Atmospheric Chemistry. However, such external interactions are not limited to environmental issues. The activities of the Astronomy and Cosmology groups in the Department of Physics and Astronomy are of great interest to the public. Indeed, the Department of Physics and Astronomy runs open houses regularly at the campus observatory. These observatory open houses routinely attract 1000 visitors to campus. StaffThis is an area of most serious concern. Overall our staff are stretched to their limits. Increasing use of technology and increased oversight from state and federal agencies has stressed the system. We assume that this is not merely a School of Physical Sciences issue, but rather is a campus issue. We recommend that a campuswide task force be established that would take a close look at this situation, make recommendations and act on those recommendations quickly. There is little that we can do other than to state emphatically that as a School we are tremendously understaffed. In spite of this, we should also state that the staff within the School are for the most part highly dedicated and loyal to the School. During the last two years a number of faculty who require substantial computer resources for their research have been hired in Chemistry, Earth System Science and Physics. As these faculty develop large cluster computer systems, the School will have to re-evaluate how we manage large numbers of such systems—which require heavily air conditioned rooms and professional management. This is likely to require an expansion of our computer support services. Support Services and FacilitiesThe School of Physical Sciences is facing a number of crises situations with regard to support services and facilities. Chief among these problems is the question of space. Even with the completion of the additional space associated with the earthquake retrofit of Rowland Hall, the School will have completely filled its present space within the next year. Particularly problematic is the issue of laboratory space—both for teaching and for new experimental research groups. The space issue will have a tremendous impact on the teaching programs of the Departments of Chemistry and Mathematics. The Department of Chemistry has no additional laboratory space to commit to the expansion of introductory chemistry courses that will be required by the anticipated increase in enrollments. In the short term the Department has decided to start the 3 quarter introductory chemistry course every quarter and thus have 3 sequences rotated throughout the year. This will allow students who do not get into the course in the Fall quarter to begin the 3 quarter sequence in the winter or the spring. Unfortunately, for many students who are majors of other Schools, this may cause problems with respect to getting in to other courses that they have to take for their major. More importantly, this is only a stop-gap measure which will not handle the anticipated enrollment growth in Chemistry laboratory courses. We will continue to try to offer these lower division courses to all students who need them, but in the end this problem can only be solved by additional laboratory space and TA resources. Laboratory space for synthetic chemistry research groups is also in critically short supply. Such laboratories have specialized air handling requirements that make it such that renovation of existing buildings to accommodate new synthetic chemistry labs would be difficult or impossible even if the funds for renovations were available. It is imperative that planning for a new laboratory building for the School be put on a fast track immediately. The strong research groups in the School in the areas of environmental science need an environmental/analytical chemistry laboratory facility. Such a facility would house instrumentation that would be utilized by both research and teaching programs in Chemistry and in Earth System Science, as well as programs in Engineering such as the Urban Water Research Center. It is possible that this could be a popular project for significant donor funding. Campus LifeThe School is involved in campus life in a number of ways. The Departments of Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics and Astronomy have active undergraduate organizations that are supported by the faculty. Faculty in Chemistry have routinely been involved in undergraduate housing programs. There is an undergraduate chemistry house and faculty act as house advisors. One of the Chemistry faculty lives in the international house as a house advisor. Graduate student housing continues to be a major issue. The recent ability to guarantee graduate students on campus housing has been a tremendous recruitment tool, but the options for advanced students are limited. Expansion of the availability of day care centers on campus would greatly improve the retention of women graduate students, and the success of tenure track faculty. The waiting lists for such services is extraordinarily long. Public RoleAs discussed previously, the School has a number of outreach programs to K-12 education and to the public. The COSMOS program (a one month residential summer program taught by our senate faculty for the most gifted and talented California high school students) has been extremely successful and we plan to continue to be actively involved. Faculty research is routinely the subject of media reports—particularly in the areas of Atmospheric Science, environmental science, cosmology, and astronomy. The School is continuing a breakfast lecture series. Four times during the academic year we host a public lecture over breakfast given by one of the faculty. This has proven to be a very good venue for us to stay in touch with local supporters and to cultivate new supporters. ResourcesThe School will continue to require extensive set-up funds for its new faculty as well as significant investment in shared research facilities. To support anticipated growth in both teaching and research new laboratory buildings are desperately needed. We have a critical need for additional teaching assistant support in the Department of Chemistry. As the enrollment in laboratory classes increases the need for additional TA’s has outstripped our budget significantly. We can not continue the present level of lower division chemistry courses in a safe manner without substantial increases in TA funding. |
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University of California, Irvine • Irvine, CA 92697 (949) 824-5011 © 2006 The Regents of the University of California. All Rights Reserved. Last Updated: June 27, 2007 |
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