Recently, the Society of Physics Students of RPI was recognized as an Outstanding Chapter, which only the top 10 percent of all SPS clubs receive nationally. James Basham ’06, the president of RPI’s SPS, believes the Rensselaer chapter received this award because of their active community service.
SPS at Rensselaer is a part of a national organization coordinated by the American Institute of Physics which has chapters throughout the country and world. Although anyone can join SPS, its members tend to be physics majors.
The purpose of this organization is two-fold. It is primarly there to serve the RPI physics students by giving these individuals a sense of community. Toward this end, the members of SPS created intramural soccer and hockey teams, making them not just colleagues but friends. SPS also helps physics majors to network with professors and assisting them in finding undergraduate research projects (a physics degree requires a semester of research). Basham said that one major event that has been held to help with this was bringing in physics professors to present summaries of their particular area of research for SPS.
The second purpose of this society is community outreach. While they are involved on campus in holding lunches and recruiting events for the Accepted Students and Medalist Days, their work takes them off campus as well. Through their many outreach programs, they hope to get students interested in physics and science at an early age. SPS has volunteered at the Junior Museum, Troy High School, Shaker High School and Shaker Junior High. They also team up with the RPI’s electrical engineering honor society, Eta Kappa Nu, for several of their volunteer projects. They believe this is the way to get children interested because the national physics honor society Sigma Pi Sigma, reports that nine out of 10 people do not believe that science is “for them.”
“We want them to realize it could be for them and hopefully have them see that at a young age,” Basham said.
Currently, SPS is not a Union-sponsored club and receives their funding through the Department of Physics, Applied Physics and Astronomy. The physics department provides them with necessary equipment and financial support—which mainly goes to pizza for various events. Basham believes that SPS is important for physics majors because it is able to help with URPs, because older students can advise younger physics majors on classes and graduate schools, and to have a better idea of what is going on in their department.
For everyone else, the Society encourages students to get involved with their own major. Academic clubs such as this are there to help students.
Presently, SPS meets in J-ROWL 1C13 conference room every Wednesday at 6 pm. Basham noted that every Wednesday from 5-6 pm in the same room, SPS students are available for walk-in tutoring mainly for physics classes.
