ODU CHAPTER OF THE SOCIETY OF PHYSICS WINS NATIONAL AWARD

The Old Dominion University chapter of the Society of Physics Students (SPS), which has Charles Hyde-Wright as its faculty adviser, has been named
an Outstanding Chapter for 2006 by the national SPS organization.

The chapter, which has about 20 members, was cited for its outreach to school children and high school students, its campus activities that draw attention to physics and its service to science students at ODU.

Chapter members organize the popular Halloween pumpkin drop on campus each year, and they also participated in 2006 in an Earth Day Open House attended by hundreds of Hampton Roads public school students. They took field trips to research facilities such as the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Newport News and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenbank, W.Va., and helped to staff the physics department's Learning Center.

Peter Bradshaw has been president of the chapter since fall 2005. Other officers during the citation period included James McGhee, Brian Wieland, Kevin Brannick and Charles Yommer in physics; Rebecca Clark in mathematics; and Paul Dearman in psychology.

Gail Dodge, chair of the physics department, sent congratulatory notes to the chapter, as well as to Hyde-Wright and Paul Ulmer, professor of physics, who also works with the student group.