Notes on the Second Biennial Meeting of Department and Program Chairs in Astronomy Bruce Partridge, Haverford College Personnel Changes at NSF/AST We discussed personnel changes in the AST Division at NSF, especially the recent resignation of Hugh Van Horn as Director. First, we very much hope that the new AST Director will be a person with excellent leadership and political skills as well as a person with well-established scientific credentials. We were reminded to urge well qualified candidates to apply [NOTE: the application deadline has been moved back to October 31]. The important role that members of the community can play as rotators in both NSF and NASA was emphasized; it would be desirable for NSF to make service as a rotator both more interesting and easier to apply for. It was also the strong view of this group that AST needs a standing advisory group of some sort. If the NSF itself cannot arrange for such a group, could the AAS play a role? AST staffers need to get out into the community (including to AAS meetings) more. Graduate Education Led by Joel Tohline, we reviewed the AEPB Report on Graduate Education in Astronomy (Bulletin AAS, 29, 1426, 1997), and departmental responses to its recommendations. Several participants reported on changes in the structure of graduate education in their departments. We also discussed the need to "modernize" the traditional graduate curriculum, for instance by including material on handling large data bases. Undergraduate Education For undergraduate majors intending to go on to graduate school, the stress should be placed on a strong physics background, even at the expense of additional astronomy courses or even undergraduate research. On the other hand, many astronomy departments are experimenting with astronomy majors for students not intending to go on to physics or astronomy graduate programs. The idea is to construct a major that has rigor and logical coherence, but is accessible without the usual framework of physics and mathematics courses. Other departments are experimenting with an astronomy minor to be attached to a Humanities or Social Science degree. In addition, some departments without formal majors or minors for non-science students offer a range of courses that go beyond the traditional "Astronomy 101" survey courses. The University of Virginia, for instance, offers several such courses, and on average every student at the university takes more than one astronomy course. In most departments, the bulk of the enrollments fall in courses we will generically call "Astro 101." These are frequently very large courses (Are the students best served in lecture mode?) with large content (Should we try to "cover it all" or instead either hit the highlights or break the material into several courses?). Led by Debbie Elmegreen, we spent some time discussing the aims of such a course, whether it should or should not include mathematics, and so on. These issues will arise again in the NSF and AAS sponsored workshops on "Astro 101" to be held this spring. Two thirds of the departments represented enroll between 20% and 40% of their student body in Astronomy 101 or similar courses. About half reported an increase in enrollment in such courses; about half indicated no substantial change. Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee Several hours were spent in a discussion of the recent Astronomy and Astrophysics Survey Committee report. That report, and the processes leading to it, were laid out by Joe Taylor, one of the co-chairs of the Survey Committee. He explained how the Committee itself was assembled, how it worked with its panels, and the schedule for the publication of the final results (which should by now be available). Questions arose concerning the costs stated for various major programs. The costs were not constructed by the Committee, but were instead gathered from the responsible funding agency. In the case of ground-based facilities, they include funds for supporting research, providing instrumentation and maintaining the facility, all calculated for a period of five years. When asked, in effect, whether a differently constituted Committee would have reached the same list of priorities, both Joe Taylor and other members of the Survey Committee agreed that the list of priorities was reached clearly and consensually, and would have been very much the same even if the composition of the Committee had been different. On the other hand, many of the recommendations brought to the Committee by its Education and Policy Panel were more controversial, so that not all of them appeared in the final report. Those that did had the backing of the Committee. Astronomy as a GANN Astronomy is not now included in the fields of science eligible for GANN graduate scholarship funding. (The GANN program provides funds to departments to support graduate students in areas of national need). It was agreed that we think astronomy should be covered. Jon Arons will draft and circulate a letter making this argument on behalf of the community to be signed by Anneila Sargent, AAS President. Future Meetings We agreed to try to continue these meetings, probably on an every-other-year basis. One long day at a convenient airport hotel might suffice. Bob Milkey noted that it was unlikely that the AAS would continue to underwrite the meetings to the extent it had in 1998 and 2000, but it could help logistically and perhaps provide some funding. An organizing committee for the next meeting was established. Bob Rood (Univ. of Virginia) as convener, Lancelot Kao (City College of San Francisco) and Peter Shull (Oklahoma State).