Trials and Tribulations

Well, I'm beginning to make preparations for Singapore to talk to people about my paper Lessons Learned in Massive Video Production (MVP) for University Alumni Outreach on the yearlong trials of using Massive Video Production we created at ExecProducer to encourage alumni participation through produced video by students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the department.

Working with the Physics Department of the University of California at Berkeley, ExecProducer created an entirely new mechanism to subscribe, process, and approve up to 2,500 video productions viewable via the web internationally on a custom website, with links to news and information on endowments and donations. The trials were launched as part of former Chancellor Berndahl's rejuvenation of the department after an official report critical of the future of the department was released.

Among it's findings were that building a stronger alumni presence would assist the department in maintaining it's "luster" as one of the most prestigious physics departments in the world. If you can't guess, I'm an alumna.

The reason I'm thinking about this today is that I got my SPS newsletter online, and this quote caught my eye: "The general public's awareness of physics and its importance in our daily life is decreasing. The number of physics students has declined dramatically. Action must be taken by the international physics community to share its visions and convictions about physics with politicians and the public at large."

As I've come to the end of the Berkeley physics alumni site, having served it's purpose culminating in the paper and reunion dinner of last fall (where the department was also kind enough to surprise me with a plaque for my work, which was a very great honor), I still was struck by how difficult it is to encourage students to study such a difficult and time-consuming discipline. Hopefully, projects like this will allow the greater number of students who major in physics and then go off into industry to maintain a "connectedness" with their department. After all, like the song goes, "We're all bothers and sisters in arms".