Spring 2018 Idaho Utah Section report
The annual meeting of the Idaho-Utah Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers was held February Friday/Saturday 23-24 2018 at the BYU-I campus in Rexburg, ID. The local organizer and current president was Matt Zachreson, and the meeting was wonderful, although sparsely attended mainly due to some weather concerns (we had a fairly significant winterstorm come through the area both during the week before and the weekend of the conference). A no-host dinner Friday evening at a local pizza and pasta buffet was followed by the ever popular demo show, where several attendees showed off their favorite physics demos.
Saturday morning a light breakfast led to a morning session of talks and presentations, followed by a mid-morning snack and student poster session. A second session of contributed talks got us through to the luncheon and business meeting, where A spate of elections and announcements were on the agenda. The announcements included a reminder of all the programs and benefits available through AAPT and a reminder that the National Meeting will be held in our section next year, the first one since 2005. The Summer meeting will be held in Provo in 2019. Initial plans were made about garnering section help for the various responsibilities associated with hosting a national meeting. We also made plans for updating the mailing list and encouraging more younger faculty to be involved with the section. Then two important elections resulted in Brian Pyper from BYUI being reelected as the Idaho-Utah Section Representative, and Daryl Macomb from Boise State being elected as president-elect. That means the current list of section officers stands as follows:
Past President: Adam Beehler – UofU
President: Matt Zachreson – BYUI
Vice President: James Coburn – USU
President Elect: Daryl Macomb – BSU
Section Rep: Brian Pyper – BYUI
The section meeting next year will be hosted by USU with James Coburn as the local organizer, and two years from now at BSU with Daryl Macomb as the local organizer.
After lunch there were a few more talks and a handful of short workshops, and the day finished with a planetarium show. Matt Zachreson did a fine job with the meeting and everyone who came had a great time.
