Help give youth an early start in physics and give physics majors the benefits of the premier undergraduate physics program in the nation.

America needs to turn more youth on to science and produce more engaged and qualified college graduates in the sciences in order to compete in the discovery marketplace and solve society’s problems.

Your gift can help the JMU Department of Physics play a leading role in that effort and also help make it the premier undergraduate physics program in the nation. It’s already respected as one of the largest and best.

The world-class faculty of the JMU Department of Physics makes this demanding science eye-opening and fun for youth and deeply meaningful and engaging for top undergraduates who seek to make a difference in the world.

Your gift to the physics department supports one of the most extraordinary and engaged physics outreach programs in the nation. Community/K-12 offerings include the John C. Wells Planetarium, the JMU Meteorite Collection, Star Parties, Robotics, Materials and Nanotechnology, Children’s Museum and Physics is Phun. Read more here.

More importantly, your gift also provides the full educational experience for the top undergraduate physics majors who choose to attend JMU from across the nation.

These physics majors study with JMU’s world-class physics professors. They participate in research in materials science, nuclear/particle physics, soft condensed matter, and astronomy and astrophysics and present their findings at national professional conferences. Your gift also gives those students access to sophisticated instrumentation usually reserved for graduate students at most universities.

At the same time, our students are getting the strong liberal arts foundation that will provide societal context for the decisions they will be making as future science leaders. Not least, these physics majors have an unprecedented opportunity to help deliver the aforementioned physics outreach program, teaching them about the vital role science plays in society.

The department also counts on your support to provide for physics’ other critical day-to-day academic needs. Your hardworking, go-to dollars …

• ensure that students receive one-on-one time with expert and engaged professors
• ensure that students have hands-on research opportunities
• send undergraduates to present their findings at national research conferences
• send faculty mentors to conferences along with undergraduates
• ensure that students have access to sophisticated instrumentation that students at most universities don't get to use until graduate school
• offer undergraduate research stipends for the summer
• support a vast program of physics and astronomy K-12 outreach
• purchase small specialty equipment
• pay for emergency repairs for lab equipment
• maintain and replace sophisticated instrumentation
• bring in speakers and encourage student and alumni networking
• build out curriculum and programs
• send faculty mentors to research conferences
• offer faculty research stipends for the summer

When you give to physics, you will help more youth gain entre into the sciences, help give high-achieving physics students the most a Madison education has to offer and help make the JMU Department of Physics the premier undergraduate program in the nation.

Together, by combining our vision and talents, we can give students the early start that qualifies them ahead of the research curve to enter graduate school, research labs, the teaching profession, the workforce or anywhere else they seek to go to boost America's culture of innovation and discovery.

That’s how the national model of the Engaged University operates. Your gift makes it possible.