Opportunity to Help Teach an Important Physics Course

Professors Matthias Grosse Perdekamp and Frederick Lamb are looking for grad students to serve as teaching assistants in Physics/Global Studies 280: Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear War, and Arms Control, for the Spring 2012 semester.

This introductory course deals with interesting physics and its implications for public policy questions of urgent importance. The course is designed to help the undergraduate students who take it make informed judgments about nuclear armaments and arms control. It generally attracts talented and enthusiastic students from across the campus, and past TAs have found teaching it very rewarding.

Topics that will be taught this spring include the physics of nuclear weapons and weapon effects, the nature of terrorism and how it can be countered, the threats posed by nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism and how they can be reduced, ballistic missiles and anti-missile systems, and approaches to nuclear arms control. The course is taught as an advanced composition (intensive writing) course.

Teaching assistants will work together as a team with Professors Matthias Grosse Perdekamp (Physics) and Frederick Lamb (Physics and Astronomy and Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security). Duties will include attending lectures, grading four short essays and one 6-page research paper, and grading one midterm and one final exam, assisted by the senior staff. TAs will meet with small groups of students each Monday in two one-hour "Writing Labs" that will focus on the principles of good writing and help students improve their essays. Candidate TAs should have an interest in the subject matter of the course and writing experience.

Information about the spring 2011 version of the course may be found at http://online.physics.uiuc.edu/courses/phys280/Spring11/.

If you are interested, please contact Professor Lamb (fkl@illinois.edu) as soon as possible, as decisions about the teaching staff for the spring 2012 semester are being made now.