Goal

Lead research and discovery with an enhanced national and international reputation.

Strategy 1

Enhance our capability to lead and collaborate on major research projects and support creativity in research.

Critical Tasks:

• Hire new faculty and research staff in strategic research areas.
• Maintain and enhance critical engineering staff.
• Maintain and advance faculty laboratories, department machine and electrical assembly shops and department research facilities such as the MBE facility.
• Provide robust support for IT needs of our research effort.
• Enhance support for proposal preparation including pre-proposal work and administrative support for proposals, grants and contracts.
• Maintain a high level of participation in research by our graduate and undergraduate students.

Strategy 2

Build and enhance destination programs in space science and in quantum information science.

Critical Tasks:

• Dedicate resources, including some faculty hires, to this area while also maintaining critical faculty and infrastructure support for other research areas in the department.
• Seek additional financial support for initiatives via university and federal funding initiatives.

Strategy 3

Increase connections of our research across the University, State, Region and Nation.

Critical Tasks:

• Increase collaborations with researchers in other departments and colleges within the University.
• Encourage the use by other departments in the University of our engineering and administrative staff to support collaborative research projects.
• Broaden the use of departmental research infrastructure, including machine and electrical assembly shops and the MBE facility, by researchers outside of the department.

Performance Indicators

Proposal submission and external funding, publication and citation rates and other evidence of national and international visibility, success in hiring in strategic research areas, increased use of departmental research infrastructure and personnel both within the department and by researchers outside of the department.

Goal

Enhance student engagement in the classroom and in research.

Strategy 1

Update the curriculum and facilities for laboratory courses.

Critical Tasks:

• Revise introductory laboratory courses, to prepare physics and astronomy majors for upper level laboratory courses.
• Explore ways to incorporate inquiry-guided experiments in activities, with enhanced TA training to facilitate student groups.
• Redesign curriculum of intermediate and advanced lab courses.
• Assess infrastructure needs for redesigned curriculum.

Strategy 2

Improve and enhance students’ ability to analyze and visualize data and physical models.

Critical Tasks:

• Improved data visualization component in laboratory courses.
• Assess and improve the undergraduate programming course.
• Assess students’ ability to interpret data and develop components to courses, where appropriate, to strengthen student skills in this area.

Strategy 3

Sustain and enhance the research experience for undergraduate majors.

Critical Tasks:

• Develop a means to track undergraduate involvement in research.
• Increase the percentage of undergraduate majors who engage in faculty-supervised research.
• Provide opportunities for students to learn skills for presenting their research in writing and in oral presentations.
• Enhance visibility of student research activities.

Goal

Increase the number of undergraduate physics and astronomy majors with a diverse group of students with a variety of career goals.

Strategy

Improve advising for our undergraduate majors and undecided majors.

Critical Tasks:

• Understand better our student outcomes.
• Coordinate more consistently with academic advisors inside and outside of the department.
• Develop better recruitment strategies for students already at the UI and for high school students.

Performance Indicators

Evidence of improved student lab and computer skills; increase in the number of students doing research and participation in research events; improved student tracking; feedback from students through student groups (SPS) and exit interviews; increase in the number of undergraduate majors.

Goal

Improve course consistency and relevance for the curricular needs of enrolled students.

Strategy 1

Improve coordination across courses and devote more resources to these efforts.

Critical Tasks:

• Offer a more consistent experience for undergraduates in discussion sections and laboratories for introductory courses.
• Support more TILE-lite classrooms with easy access to lecture-demonstration equipment.
• Enhance and expand our Physics Help Center, including more formal communication between faculty instructors and TAs, and TA training.
• Evaluate ways to encourage more students to seek support from the Physics Help Center and with other study resources on campus, e.g., supplemental instruction.

Strategy 2

Develop a better understanding of the role of our courses in the curricula of other majors.

Critical Tasks:

• Develop a consistent line of communication with relevant departments and programs.
• Maintain active communication with Academic Advising/CLAS Professional Advising.

Goal

Improve student learning in introductory labs.

Strategy

Redesign teaching methodology of introductory laboratory experiments.

Critical Tasks:

• Pilot individual redesigned laboratory experiments.
• Explore ways to incorporate inquiry-guided experiments in activities, with enhanced TA training to facilitate student groups.

Performance Indicators

Regularly scheduled meetings of instructors and shared teaching resources; course assessments of Help Center usage; regularly scheduled meetings of academic advising, professional advising and relevant departments; regular TA training on leading inquiry-guided activities; reduction of DFW rates in courses for non-majors; student feedback.

Goal

Foster student success through academic and professional development. 

Strategy 1

Improve professional development of graduate students in physics and astronomy.

Critical Tasks:

• Update and introduce new advanced/graduate courses to meet changes in science and technology. 
• Develop and institute a procedure for annual reviews of graduate student progress and performance.
• Create a 1 sh careers course to assist students with navigating through the myriad of career choices.

Strategy 2

Create an inclusive and collaborative approach to graduate education.

Critical Tasks:

• Increase graduate student participation in departmental decision-making.
• Increase collaborative opportunities for students in new research areas.

Performance Indicators

Reduced time-to-degree; earlier student identification of research advisors; student feedback through student committees (GSAC) and exit interviews.

Goal

Enhance and expand community engagement activities.

Strategy

Work to reach a broader geographical community and a more diverse community both inside and outside of the University.

Critical Tasks:

• Continue to support STEM community engagement and outreach activities through funding and equipment, with an articulated connection to the development of professional skills by student presenters, when appropriate.
• Enhance material that describes departmental research activities and how our academic program can enhance the experience of students who major in other departments.

Performance Indicators

Maintain annual contact numbers; student feedback through student committees and exit interviews.

Goal

Develop a more inclusive culture in the department for faculty, staff, and students.

Strategy 1

Build camaraderie and collaboration among our students.

Critical Task:

• Identify and use opportunities to promote collaboration and camaraderie among graduate students, making sure to include women, American ethnic minorities and international students.

Strategy 2

Plan for on-going departmental conversations on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Critical Tasks:

• Work with faculty instructors and graduate student TAs who are primarily assigned to large-enrollment introductory courses on DEI best practices in teaching.
• Plan regular, formal opportunities for discussions of DEI among faculty, students and staff.
• Develop better advising and mentoring practices and apply them consistently.
• Examine student data (e.g., DFW rates, time to degree, graduation rates) and faculty/staff surveys (e.g., Working at Iowa) for our department to understand, and if necessary, remediate inequities. 

Strategy 3

Expand our communication and consultation in department.

Critical Task:

• Identify opportunities where students and staff can regularly provide input to faculty decision-making. 

Goal

Address challenges to ADA compliance for our work and educational environment.

Strategy

Work with relevant groups for ADA compliance in our work and educational environment.

Critical Task:

• Catalog classroom & research areas and curricula that are challenges to ADA compliance, and work to eliminate those challenges.

Goal

Increase the diversity of our students, faculty and staff.

Strategy 1

Enhance practices that promote diverse applicant pools for new faculty and research staff searches.

Critical Tasks:

• Document successes and challenges in recruiting a diverse applicant pool after each search, and share with the search committee for future searches.
• Ensure that each member of a search committee has implicit bias training. 

Strategy 2

Develop better student recruitment strategies to attract a more diverse student body.

Critical Tasks:

• Improve the department’s material used for Hawkeye Visit Days and at regional high schools to attract a more diverse group of students to the department.
• To reach new students, identify and communicate where flexibility exists in our curriculum, so that students understand entry points to the major after the fall semester of their first year.

Performance Indicators

Regularly scheduled DEI training and discussions for students, faculty and staff members; a more diverse department membership; assessment and tracking that shows that climate issues are being addressed and improved; meet ADA accessibility goals; feedback through student committees and exit interviews.