Patrick Whippey is a professor in the department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Western Ontario, where he is the Chair of Undergraduate Affairs. Currently vice-chair of the OAPT, he has long ben involved with outreach activities, notably the Science Olympics and Science Fairs, where he is the Past National Judge in Chief.

This is a rare opportunity for faculty and staff involved in teaching in first year university and college physics courses to share information about our programs, and the way in which we are all dealing with the issues of his new century, such as the double cohort, insufficient resources, and how we are using the results of Physics Education research in our programs. Physics as a discipline is under intense pressure from a variety of directions:

• not enough students find physics attractive.
• there are many disciplines that are currently more popular than physics
• it is a challenging discipline and difficult to teach.
• in three innings, a good baseball pitcher earns the same amount of money as a new PhD in Physics earns in a year.