It is important to the health of the Department of Physics Graduate Program, to the CMPS College and to the University to compete effectively for high quality graduate students. We are a highly ranked, visible Department and must continue to advance as a significant component of the efforts of the Universitythe continued advancement of our graduate program is essential if the University is to achieve "top ten status". We believe that the Department’sOur recruitment efforts have been successful in the past but would like to do even better.recently been substantially improved, but we seek to strengthen them further.

Our goals are to become even more competitive with our peer institutions, to improve diversity and to start to compete for students with the most elite institutions in the country. We must both improve our applicant pool and improve our yield.

Our plan has been developed with input from both faculty and graduate students and includes two initiatives for which we request partial funding. In addition, we list components of our overall plan that will be completely funded by departmental sources.

1. Competition with Peers - Increases in stipends and fellowships

In 1998, comparisons made with some of our peer institutions showed that Department of Physics Teaching Assistantship salaries were approximately $1,600 lower than several of our competitors. We, therefore, undertook a pilot program, usingresidual Department DRIF funds, to increase entering TA and Fellowship stipends by $2,375 and to make equivalent increases in RA support. It is important to note that this decision was strongly supported by our faculty who agreed to make the corresponding increases in all RA salaries despite the substantial cost to their research budgets and the reduced availability of DRIF funds for research initiatives.

In addition to the above salary raises, we added $90,000 to our $50,000 in Block Grant fellowship funds in order to support a total of 10 Department Fellowships divided roughly equally between first and second year students. In addition, we augmented all our Graduate School Fellowships with a ½ TA or ½ RA position.

Results of the pilot program were as follows:

• The yield (acceptances/offers) of U.S. TA’s and Fellows increased from 26% to approximately 30%
• There was no associated loss in quality - grade point averages improved from an average of 3.6 to 3.7.
• The fraction of entering U.S. students increased from ~49% to ~67%.
• More fellows accepted our offers (up from 30% to 39%).
• The 1998 class achieved a slightly higher success rate on the 08/99 Qualifier Examination (up from 57% to 62%). We were pleased to note that the number of students who passed at least one part of the exam increased from 75% in August 1999 to 90% in January 2000.
• We also introduced a requirement that all TA’s pass the Maryland English Institute test within one year. There was a slight reduction in acceptances by International students but a higher MEI pass rate. As a result fewer TA’s were restricted to grading-only assignments.

The Department’s past investment in the pilot program is summarized below.

In view of the positive results outlined above and the potential crisis that would result from salary cuts, we request funds to continue this program at the level of approximately $2,500 plus associated benefits. We believe that these funds areWe are requesting funds so that we can continue to offer competitive salaries and fellowships. We believe that this is essential in order to compete effectively with our peers, and to have some hope of advancing to compete with elite top ten institutions.

institutions. As indicated above, the total cost to the Department of Physics is approximately $240,000 per year, which we cannot continue to support from our existing budget.

Our request consists of two components:

1. Fellowships

Using Indefinite Block Grant funds we will be able to offer only one or two fellowships to prospective students. We request $80,000 for added fellowship support that will enable us to offer a total of 7 new fellowships. This is approximately the same number of fellowships as in the previous two academic years. The requested funds will be combined with 2000/2001 Indefinite Block Grant Program funds, which include both Block Grant and Graduate School Fellowship components.

2. TA and RA salaries

In addition, we will make matching increases in RA salaries. Details are given below. It is important to note that, by increasing RA salaries, we generate approximately $80,160 annually in overhead funds. Thus, a substantial fraction of the funds requested above are already provided to the University.

1. Improving Yield - Student Weekend Open House

Each year we make approximately 140 offers to prospective graduate students. Approximately 30% of these students accept. In some cases we are competing with excellent departments generally regarded as comparable to our own. In other cases, we find ourselves competing with the most elite institutions in the country. Our long-term goal is to increase the yield of the very best students in these and other categories.

As noted above, we have made some progress by improving our financial offers. Also our faculty members assist actively in recruiting efforts by calling prospective students and by freely meeting with individual student visitors. In addition, our current graduate students assist by meeting with visitors, participating in lunch outings and providing a "students-eye-view" of the Department.

In addition to these and other activities, for the past two years we have brought prospective graduate students together to visit the Department for a weekend open house. By means of lectures, laboratory visits, discussions with faculty and with current graduate students, we can generate excitement for our research activities and programs. We also believe that prospective students appreciate the opportunity to meet some of their future classmates and start to build a sense of community.

We believe that that our open house is a valuable recruiting activity. All students who receive an offer are invited to attend the open house and are offered up to $500 in travel assistance. In 1999, 25 students attended this open house and of those students, 64% chose Maryland. In addition, 10 students were given up to $500 in travel assistance to visit at other times and 30% accepted. For the remaining students who received offers but did not visit, 20% accepted.

Overall our acceptances are higher after instituting the open house. This year we feel that it is necessary to raise the level of travel support to $600 so that more students can attend. We also plan to expand the activities we offer them (including dinner with selected faculty at the Chair's house). Assuming a modest increase in numbers attending we expect that this will cost about $24,000. We propose splitting this cost equally between the Department and the College.

Proposal - 2000/20001
Department Contribution	20 students x $600	$12,000
Request from College	20 students x $600	$12,000

2. Improving the Applicant Pool - Promotional Materials

• Brochure.
  We will prepare a new, attractive brochure describing our Graduate program to prospective students. More detailed information will also be made available using our existing fact sheets on the Department and the individual research group activities.
• Poster.
  An updated poster will be prepared with reply cards sent periodically to other institutions. This will replace the existing outdated poster.
• Web Site.

• Visits.

The Department Contribution to these activities includes a portion of the salary support for our Communication and Outreach Coordinator and our new Webmaster. No College contribution is requested.

1. Improving Diversity

Currently, African American, Hispanics and Women are under-represented in the field of Physics. While similar to many others in the field, our Department has not achieved the level of diversity for which the University as a whole is noted. We plan to make an aggressive effort to change this situation. Our faculty now includes one African American and four women who will bring a valuable perspective to the graduate recruitment process.

In order to improve the diversity of our graduate student body, we must first improve our applicant pool. Specifically, we will target academically talented students from under-represented groups. It is our feeling that, if we can build a reputation as a Department with strong support for graduate students from under-represented groups, then many of these students will chose Maryland instead of our competitors. Several steps are required to make this happen.

In order to improve our applicant pool, we will aggressively seek out under-represented students. We will ask our alumni who are faculty members at other institutions to identify talented students from this pool. In addition, we will solicit visiting speakers and other contacts for the names of talented students. We will pursue students such as those from the National Science Consortium Graduate Fellowship Program. As in the past, we will also utilize mailings to students identified from lists provided by the Graduate School. In all cases, in order to more effectively encourage strong students in these groups to apply, we propose to follow mailings with telephone calls by faculty, where possible and appropriate from the same under-represented group.

We will also target specific schools with large pools of talented students from under-represented groups. In the past we have made only limited efforts in visiting and creating links with institutions such as the historically black colleges. These efforts will be expanded and the Department will provide travel funds for faculty to make special recruiting visits. Other targets would include schools such as Bryn Mawr, a women’s college with a strong science department.

Clearly, if we succeed in increasing the numbers from under-represented groups in our applicant pool, it will require unusual efforts to attract the strongest students to Maryland. In these cases we will find ourselves competing with the top public and private institutions in the country. As already noted, we are willing to commit travel funds for both students and faculty. In general, we would plan financial offers specially tailored to each individual’s needs. For example, minority students meeting our admission standards who hold external fellowships will be offered additional support (1/2 TA’s or RA’s) so that there is a real financial incentive to come to Maryland.

Once students from these groups enter our graduate program, we will take several steps to assure their success. We will improve the support available to them with better advising and mentorship. We will also try to enhance the sensitivity of our faculty to specific issues these students face.

While the Department of Physics will fund and take responsibility for most of the activities discussed above, for some we favor a coordinated effort within CMPS. For example, a college-wide program of activities for specific under-represented groups might provide a better support group for such students from all units within CMPS.

2. Competing with the Elite – Super-Fellowships

Each year, 15 or so offers are made to students who have been identified as Zero Yield TA’s and Fellows. These are students of exceptional ability who are likely to receive an offer from a "top 5" institution. Despite generous Fellowship offers, frequently coupled with Research Assistantship offers, almost none of these students have ever accepted our offer. Instead they attend institutions such as Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley or Princeton.

We are planning to develop a small number of special enhanced offers for these students that will include funds for travel and conference expenses as well as a personal computer to be provided from donated funds. Possible options include a Fellowship coupled with a guaranteed ½ RA position or a guaranteed full-time RA position coupled with a ½ Fellowship.

Such offers enable students to become involved in research on arrival in the Department. We believe that generous offers, which permit early involvement in research and which do not involve TA obligations, are essential to have any chance of recruiting these students. As with the under-represented groups, we are willing to commit travel funds for both students and faculty to aid in the recruiting process. We would plan financial offers specially tailored to each individuals needs.

If the students can be identified clearly we would make a total of 6 enhanced Fellowship/RA offers. Clearly the total cost to the Department is unknown at this time. However, in the table below, we assume 2 acceptances. However, the Departmental financial exposure would be 6 x $20,000 = $120,000 for Fellowships.The cost of each full fellowship would be approximately $20,000 split between Fellowship and RA funds. In the table below, we assume that it will cost approximately $6,000 to enhance a normal Fellowship to this level.

In addition to the above group, we must also compete more aggressively with top 20 schools for our best graduate students. Again we believe that a mix of Fellowship and Research Assistantship offers provides the best chance of success. We are also exploring the possibility of ½ TA / ½ RA offers in which some students would be admitted with first semester RA’s and would switch to TA support in their second semester, returning to RA support in the summer and second fall semester and TA support (if needed) in the Spring semester of their second year. These possibilities depend upon availability of research funds. Some estimates are included in the following table.

Fellowship Enhancements & Special Offers
Department Contribution	Super Fellowship Enhancements 2 x $6,000	$12,0000
	Full Research Assistantships 2 x $16,000	$32,000
	½ RA (combined with ½ TA) 3 x $9,750	$29,250
	48% overhead	$29,400
	Total	$90,650
Request from College	No funds requested	$0

3. Measurable Objectives – over 3 years

• Improve applicant pool to double numbers from under-represented groups.
• Maintain the offer pool average physics gpa at 3.7 or better.
• Improve the quality of our offer pool by increasing
1. The low side U.S. student Physics gpa’s from 3.3 to 3.4.
2. The average Physics Subject GRE score to better than 65th percentile.
3. The average Quantitative GRE score to better than 90th percentile.
• Increasing overall % acceptances to 35% or better.

1. Summary

Our Graduate Student Recruitment Plan includes initiatives to increase TA and Fellowship offers, to continue and to improve an open house for students receiving offers. We argue that both are essential to remain competitive with other comparable departments. The total request for funding of these initiatives is $242,000. The Department will provide a matching amount of approximately $632,000 from departmental and research funds.

We plan to intensify efforts to recruit students from under-represented groups. We plan improvements in our promotional materials, most notably our web presence.

We are planning to introduce enhanced Fellowships and RA offers in order to improve our chances of competing with elite institutions. In addition, for our strongest applicants, we plan to offer more possibilities to become engaged in research at the beginning of their graduate careers.

Our objectives include an improvement in the diversity of our applicant pool, and an improvement in the gpa and GRE scores at the lower end of those students accepted.