The idea seemed strange at first, however, our experience and interactions with thousands STEM undergrad and graduate students, early career faculty, and senior administration officials continued to point to a relationship between the physics of ‘the unseen’ and the unusual dynamics of institutions of higher education…
Engineering Dean of The Citadel Refers to Black Holes in the Department
Following the presentation of the “Dark Matters” paper on June 27, 2016, the Dean of Engineering at The Citadel, Dr. Ronald Welch, picked up on the metaphor of black holes within academic departments, and used it within his presentation. Dr. Welch offered solutions based on programs that have been recently implemented at The Citadel, and he…
Summer 2016: The “Dark Matters Paper” Presented at ASEE 2016
The paper linking social science, social justice, and physics, was presented to the public on June 27, 2016
Academic Orbits and Orbital Drag
When an institution admits a student to their program or hires a new faculty member, they are inviting these individuals into the orbit of that program. Every institution has orbital dynamics that must be skillfully navigated in order to be successful at that institution. Opposing forces…
Finding a Black Hole
Black holes are found everywhere in the universe. There is a super-massive black hole at the center of our galaxy. It is strange. Our central black hole is (only) 26,000 light years away and about 4 million times the mass of our sun and yet we cannot see it directly. There are an enormous number…
Academic Gravity
In his theory of general relativity, Albert Einstein proposed that the mass of an object warps space-time producing what we know to be the force of gravity. The greater the mass of the object, the more space-time is distorted. The greater the space-time distortion the higher the magnitude and extent the gravitational force the object…