Effective Practices
Develop a comprehensive and collaborative recruiting plan and review it regularly
- Collaboratively engage and involve as many members of your program as possible in recruiting activities. Include full- and part-time faculty at all ranks, staff, students, and alumni.
- Partner with your administration and campus offices (e.g., admissions, institutional research, and marketing) that can contribute to and support the plan, and agree on common goals, strategies, and messaging.
- Identify, recruit, and support champions who can be strong advocates for and drivers of the plan.
- Ensure that participation in recruiting efforts is formally recognized and/or compensated, for example, with a service award for students and official recognition of faculty time as service.
- Support members of your program to participate in the plan in ways that most effectively use their strengths and interests, e.g., developing a large-scale vision, leveraging connections to local high schools and/or community colleges, reaching out to students in introductory courses, and/or leading lab tours.
- Involve student groups (e.g., chapters, student chapters of national organizations for students of color, local clubs for women or students of color in physics, study groups, and other student social networks) in planning and carrying out recruiting activities.
- Create and regularly update an easily accessible collection of recruiting materials such as talking points for admissions staff, emails to prospective students, and presentations in class, to make it easier for all members of your department to get involved and build on each other’s work.
- Ensure that your program delivers on your recruiting messages.
- See the section of Retention of Undergraduate Physics Majors for details about creating a comprehensive retention plan.
- See the section on Departmental Culture and Climate for details about creating a departmental climate that students are enthusiastic to join.
- Ensure that everyone in your department recognizes that many different kinds of students can succeed in physics and that your plan focuses on supporting all students who want to study physics, rather than recruiting only the “right” students. For example, don’t focus recruiting efforts exclusively on students with an interest in graduate study in physics.
- Use appropriate campus resources (e.g., your office of equity, diversity, and inclusion; or your human resources office) or see the section on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for details on how to implement the strategies below.
- Recognize that strategies (i.e., treating everyone the same regardless of race or ethnicity) do not explicitly address the needs of students from and are insufficient to support and retain these students.
- Create a program in which students from will have a positive experience, so that you are recruiting them into an environment where they can be happy and successful.
- Consider using cohort recruiting, i.e., recruiting a group of students from the same at the same time.
- Ensure faculty and staff are given appropriate training and support to effectively work with students from diverse backgrounds.
- Ensure your department has strong participation in institutional or regional programs for recruiting and/or supporting students from , e.g., bridge programs, high school research experiences, and college visit days.
- Ensure your department is aware of, makes use of, and informs prospective students about campus resources for students from , e.g., scholarships and funds for undergraduate research.
- Use data to diagnose problems in your current recruiting situation that your recruiting plan should address. Questions you may want to ask yourself include: Do prospective students know about your program? Do they think it's only for students who want to go to graduate school? What do they think the courses are like? What do teachers and advisors at high schools and community colleges think about your program? Would they recommend it to their students? Do prospective students who express interest in physics choose to major in physics at the same rate across all demographics?
- Use data to prioritize which recruiting mechanisms, timescales, and audiences will most effectively support your recruiting goals. For example, working with students who have been admitted to your institution but not yet made their decision to attend may be easier and yield results more quickly than working with high school students who may not even be planning to apply to your institution.
- See Programmatic Assessments below for examples of other relevant data to collect.
- Identify metrics and goals that are measurable and realistic, e.g., numbers of inquiries, applicants, and open house attendees.
- Develop effective mechanisms to collect, store, and share information about your physics graduates for use in recruiting materials and your website, e.g., alumni spotlights and statistics on their employment. Collect persistent contact information (email addresses, phone numbers, and professional social media accounts) and career placement information for all graduates before they leave campus, and follow up to track them through their careers.
- Share recruiting data with all faculty, perhaps in a department meeting dedicated to discussing your recruiting plan.
- Discuss the plan, along with a review of its effectiveness, with members of your department, including faculty, staff, and focus groups of current students and alumni; with your administration; and with supporting campus offices.
- Compare your recruiting plan with your institutional mission statement to ensure alignment. For example, check whether your program is focused on recruiting students mainly to pursue certain career paths such as going to graduate school when additional paths might be better aligned with an institutional mission of community service.
- Ask for an outside analysis of the plan during your program or when updating the plan. See the section on How to Undertake an Undergraduate Program Review for details.
Create and promote flexible pathways for students to major or minor in physics
- See the sections on Degree Tracks and Dual-Degree Programs for further ideas.
- Increase the flexibility of your major and minor requirements (e.g., by allowing courses in other disciplines to count toward the degree and mapping out alternate entry pathways) or create alternative degree tracks.
- Be mindful of how your institution values and counts double majors, minors, and degree tracks when allocating resources, e.g., whether a secondary major counts as much as a primary major, whether minors are valued, and whether each track is counted separately.
- If relevant and possible, negotiate with your administration to ensure that secondary majors and minors are valued and counted. Highlight the benefit to students of obtaining a second major or minor in physics, e.g., that a physics minor can be sufficient preparation for teaching certification in physics.
- Offer a minor to build course enrollments and your program, particularly if you don’t have enough faculty or classes to offer a major. A compelling minor program can be fertile ground for recruiting majors and a launch pad for developing a major if your program does not have one.
- Adapt your calculus-based introductory physics sequence to make calculus a corequisite rather than a prerequisite, so students can see how math is used in physics early on, and so that they can be exposed to physics earlier and have the opportunity to consider a physics major or minor. This may require altering the course content so that students who are taking calculus concurrently can still be successful.
- If feasible, offer each course in the introductory sequence every term (including the summer), to allow more students to transition into the major and give off-sequence students the flexibility they need to catch up.
- Ensure that there are double-major pathways available for students who are already majoring in disciplines such engineering and mathematics and who take calculus-based introductory physics courses in their first year.
- Ensure that there are degree pathways for students recruited from algebra-based introductory courses to become physics majors. Consider, e.g., allowing the algebra-based course to count towards the physics major with permission, allowing students to serve as instructional assistants in the calculus-based course to supplement the instruction they received in the algebra-based course, and/or encouraging life sciences majors to take required physics courses in their first year.
- Ensure that there are degree pathways for students recruited from non-STEM-major physics courses to become physics majors, to attract students who might not otherwise consider physics. Consider, e.g., offering these courses in the fall to give students the opportunity to start a physics major sooner, allowing students to substitute these courses for other courses required for a major, and/or creating alternate pathways for entering the major later in a student’s career.
- Create pathways for students to minor in physics if they become interested in physics too late in their academic careers to complete all required courses for a major in a reasonable period of time.
Connect with students in introductory and, if appropriate, service courses
- Assign effective, inspiring, and enthusiastic instructors to classes in which students are still choosing their majors or can easily change majors or add second majors, particularly the introductory physics courses.
- Use the guidelines in the section on Implementing Research-Based Instructional Practices to create engaging classes that draw students in and allow all students to be successful.
- Highlight physicists, physics discoveries, and how physics makes a difference in the world, including diverse identities, careers, and types of research.
- Use the guidelines in the section on Career Preparation to showcase a wide variety of career paths that are possible with a physics degree.
- Emphasize the collaborative nature of physics, both by ensuring that classes engage students in collaborative work, and by explicitly discussing examples of how the work that physicists do is collaborative, in order to give an accurate picture of physics and broaden the pool of students who may be interested in it.
- Encourage instructors to view struggling students as needing support to reach their full potential, rather than as inherently lacking the intelligence or math preparation needed to pursue physics.
- See the sections on Introductory Courses for STEM Majors, Introductory Courses for Life Science Majors, and Courses for Non-STEM Majors for details.
- Encourage course instructors to explicitly and repeatedly discuss in class majoring and minoring in physics; make sure they have talking points to get students interested and involved, and know how to help students take the next steps.
- Encourage course instructors to make personal connections with students and to encourage them individually to consider further pursuing physics (e.g., by offering to speak to them after class or sending a personalized letter), to follow up with students at appropriate intervals to demonstrate personal interest in their success, and to invite students to engage further (e.g., by touring a lab or talking to advanced physics majors).
- Recognize that instructors, like all people, have implicit bias, and that they should confront this bias to avoid recruiting only students who are similar to themselves.
- Establish a or other program for undergraduate instructional assistants as a way to induct students into a physics teaching career and/or a physics major. See the section on Undergraduate Instructional Assistants for more details.
Connect with prospective students and other students at your institution using existing infrastructure
- Meet regularly with admission counselors, tour guides, and advisors to incoming students to make sure they appreciate the features, strengths, excitement, and inclusivity of the physics program and the wide range of career options and high degree of employability available to physics graduates. Encourage people in these roles to promote the physics program to all students who may be interested. Provide explicit talking points and recruiting materials, including sample pathways through your program, transfer equivalencies, data on careers for physics graduates, etc.
- Work with advisors of incoming students to ensure that all students with interest in physical science or engineering take the introductory physics sequence in their first year; this can also be extended to any life sciences majors who see a connection to physics, e.g., physical therapy and bioengineering majors.
- Ensure that your program is represented at all major recruiting events scheduled by your admissions office, including orientations, information sessions, and “open campus” events. Hold departmental information sessions and/or select effective communicators to attend institution-wide events and communicate the benefits of a major in physics, including the wide range of career opportunities.
- Send postcards to all incoming students expressing an interest in majoring in STEM fields to encourage them to register for the introductory physics sequence as a stepping stone to many careers, e.g., careers in the health professions, engineering, and law.
- Invite physics-oriented prospective students who plan to visit campus to tour your department, meet with faculty and students, attend a class, and tour research labs and student spaces such as the physics club room. Design the visit to ensure positive interactions with department members. Enlist counselors and staff in your admissions office to promote these opportunities to prospective students.
- Ask for a list of admitted students, including transfer students, who have expressed interest in a physics major, and send each of them a personal email from the chair, an advisor, or a current major. Include a personal offer to speak with the student about any questions they have, offer to put them in touch with current students, and invite them to your departmental recruiting events (see 6.D for details).
- Follow up on each visit from a prospective student with an email or phone call.
- Connect potential students with each other and with students currently in your program, especially those with shared identities. Match potential students with current students during campus visits and recruiting events.
- Work with your development or fundraising office to establish scholarships earmarked for physics majors and promote these to prospective students.
- Support faculty who serve as advisors and mentors to learn how to support students using the strategies in the section on Advising and Mentoring of Students.
- If your institution has opportunities for faculty to serve as advisors or mentors to students who have not yet declared a major, encourage physics faculty to serve in these roles.
- If your institutional structure doesn't allow for faculty members to serve as academic advisors, set up informal structures and/or consider working with your administration to change that structure.
- Reach out personally to students who have not declared a major, emphasizing the distinctive features of your program and the diverse career options available to physics majors.
- Advertise introductory physics courses to first-year students who are taking introductory calculus (but not physics) in the fall. Advertise first during summer registration, and then by asking to make one-minute plugs in calculus classes. Offer to speak directly to any student interested in exploring physics.
Connect with high schools and/or community colleges to recruit for your program
- Work with high schools and community colleges that serve many students from , to reach out to a population of prospective physics students that is growing due to national demographic shifts.
- Identify the high schools and community colleges that send many students to your institution, and work with them to ensure that their students know about your program.
- Share information with guidance counselors, advising staff, and faculty at appropriate high schools and community colleges about your program. Include information about multiple pathways to a physics major, e.g., pathways through community college, pathways based on varying levels of preparation, and interdisciplinary pathways.
- Ask the chairs of physics or physical sciences at community colleges that feed or that could feed into your program about their student populations, cultures, and requirements, so that you can better understand and support your transfer students and appreciate the strengths they bring to your program.
- Create a culture of supporting transfer students to succeed in your program, by, e.g., identifying a member of your department who is familiar with articulation agreements and can clearly delineate in positive ways how transfer students can be successful, and ensuring that your program is structured such that students who transfer with two-year degrees and having completed introductory physics and calculus have a pathway to graduate with a physics degree in only two additional years. Connect directly with faculty at community colleges to ensure that they know about this culture.
- Collaborate with community colleges to ensure both programs' curricula and requirements align to facilitate transfer students’ transitions. One way to do this is to enable a block transfer of credits for an approved associate's degree through which certain required major courses are waived and students can start at a common place in the curriculum. Another possibility is to work with state-level higher education groups to establish common syllabi for STEM courses to simplify moving between institutions in the state.
- Develop, regularly update, and disseminate program documents for community colleges and their students, including course equivalences, sample two-year schedules, and course offering schedules.
- Track the interactions you have with high school and/or community college administration, faculty, and students to ensure you are distributing your efforts appropriately.
- Work with existing programs that reach students from , e.g., STEM pipeline programs, early immersive research experience programs, and lab visit days.
- Work with existing out-of-school programs (e.g., robotics or maker clubs and science festivals) to increase your program's visibility among students with an interest in STEM.
- Regularly inform high school and community college faculty about your program, its achievements, and the accomplishments of their former students in your program, via newsletters, announcements, letters to high school and community college administrations, your departmental website, etc.
- Hold regular open houses for high school and community college faculty and students, with opportunities to, for example, meet current students and faculty, tour labs, visit classes, participate in hands-on physics activities, and attend accessible physics talks.
- Offer professional development opportunities for high school and community college faculty based on their needs, feedback, and requests. These could include teaching workshops, “make and take” or equipment loan programs, and/or research experiences.
- Provide high school and community college faculty with lessons for their students on representation and diversity in physics, e.g., using the STEP UP curriculum, the Underrepresentation Curriculum, or the Teaching Guides and Educational Games on the History of the Physical Sciences.
- Provide high school and community college faculty with resources (e.g., posters) on the benefits of physics preparation (e.g., problem-solving skills relevant to future careers, high scores of physics majors, and salaries earned with physics degrees) and the different careers that physics majors pursue.
- Guest lecture in high school and community college classes, preferably with a student from your program who can talk about their experiences. Talk about your work, what it is like to be a physicist, and the different careers that physics majors pursue.
- Support and encourage department members to participate in your local section and attend regional and national AAPT meetings, and consider partnering with area AAPT members in support of some of the activities noted above.
- Develop a high school physics teacher preparation program to send teachers into your local community who are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about your program.
- Connect with high school students directly, e.g., through relationships with high school physics teachers and guidance counselors, or via other means. Send them personalized invitations to visit and your department’s brochure.
- Sponsor events for high school students, e.g., a “physicist for a day” program with hands-on activities and/or a day for local high school teachers to bring their physics students to visit your department and meet current majors.
- Motivate your faculty to integrate high school and community college students into summer research opportunities.
- Work with area high schools and your administration to allow seniors to enroll in courses offered by your program to receive college credit.
- Offer robust summer and intersession courses to make it easier for community college students to enroll in a degree program at your institution, given their other time commitments.
Promote the distinctive features of your program
- Listen to students and alumni to learn what features of your program made a difference for them.
- Identify and cultivate research areas, applications, or teaching strategies in which your program has or can develop strengths, e.g., a high school physics teacher preparation program, connections to local industries, an exceptionally supportive and caring environment, enhanced opportunities for undergraduate research or internships, and high-quality capstone experiences.
- See the section on How to Create and Use a Strategic Plan for details on how to build on these distinctive elements.
- Ensure that your public media presence includes a strong departmental website, social media accounts, and marketing materials.
- Hire a web designer and/or partner with offices, faculty, and students at your institution who understand website design to help you create and promote an effective, mobile-friendly, accessible, and up-to-date website.
- Develop and implement a plan to maintain, regularly update, and ensure self-consistency among your website and social media accounts.
- Hire a graphic designer and/or partner with administrative offices, faculty, and students at your institution who understand graphic design to help you design effective and up-to-date brochures, posters, and other marketing materials that include information on your department, physics careers, and research opportunities. Distribute these materials where prospective students are likely to see them and pick them up.
- Identify and highlight the distinctive features and strengths of your department. Include quotes from students.
- Highlight the diverse and successful careers of your alumni and the wide range of career opportunities available to physics graduates.
- Highlight opportunities for research, internships, and attending professional meetings.
- Highlight upcoming events and opportunities for prospective students to visit your department, attend a class, and talk with faculty members and current students.
- Highlight your faculty and their broader interests, including faculty-student research projects, publications, presentations, and awards.
- Regularly take photos and videos featuring students and faculty, for use in public media.
- Ensure that your website portrays a welcoming environment to a diverse group of students. For example, use photos that feature students and community-building activities and that display cultural, racial, and gender diversity.
- Highlight information on your website about how to apply to your program and how to reach appropriate department contacts and admission counselors.
- Determine how effective your public media are at promoting students’ choices to apply to and/or enroll in your program, e.g., by asking students and alumni how they found out about your program and what encouraged them to become physics majors.
- Form a committee of students and/or alumni to evaluate your public media, e.g., your website, social media presence, and marketing materials.
- Work with your admissions office to coordinate your events with other programs on campus, inform them about your events, and solicit their enthusiastic support, including promoting and possibly financially supporting your events.
- Encourage enthusiastic buy-in and participation from nearly all faculty members, e.g., by emphasizing the importance of faculty involvement and providing opportunities for each faculty member to choose or create activities based on their interests.
- Involve current students in organizing and supervising activities, including at least one social, get-acquainted activity.
- Encourage current students to talk about their experiences in your department and the impact your program has had on their education.
- Provide opportunities for small-group conversations among prospective students, faculty members, and current students.
- Include short, exciting hands-on activities that appeal to a diverse group of students, highlight components of your program, and engage participants in small groups.
- Have students lead tours of departmental facilities with areas stationed by both faculty members and physics students.
- Schedule events at times that allow participation by all groups of students. Avoid religious holidays and be aware of constraints imposed by work and family obligations.
- Solicit participant feedback at the end of each event.
- Follow up with all participants with emails or phone calls.
- Consider offering opportunities for first-year students to participate in undergraduate research and internships, in order to develop interest early.
- See the sections on Undergraduate Research and Internships for guidance on meaningfully engaging undergraduate students in research and internships.
- Publicize results and accomplishments of past student projects (e.g., awards, publications, and presentations at conferences), particularly in places where prospective students will encounter them, e.g., the departmental website, recruiting materials shared with your admissions office, and physical locations on campus.
- Maintain a database of alumni contact information and positions. See 1.D.v above.
- Create newsletters to keep alumni, employers, donors, and others informed of departmental accomplishments. Share these with appropriate offices at your institution.
- Invite alumni back to your department to talk with students and at recruiting events about exciting work they are doing.
- Highlight successful alumni, particularly those from .
- Develop personal relationships with people in these offices.
- Communicate to people in these offices about your program’s events, accomplishments, and strengths, and ask how you can help them promote your program.