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| Helping the Program | ||
| Basics
The success of any academic program is a strong function
of the resources available to it in the form of faculty, staff, students,
equipment, and financial support. The Astronomy program at KU is no exception.
With 4 full-time faculty in Astronomy, 2 in Cosmology, 1 in Astrobiology, and 2 in Plasma
Astrophysics, the astrophysically-oriented faculty has increased by a factor of three over the last 25 years, coupled to a steady increase
in the quality and quantity of students expressing an interest in astrophysics
as a career. Despite the successes of the program, until recently, two
primary areas of weakness remained: our ability to provide financial support
for junior-senior majors during the academic year and the summer, and
unrestricted access to research-quality instrumentation for astronomical
research. In the following paragraphs, we describe a variety of areas
where the support of alumni and friends of the program has been instrumental
in the past and where future support would prove invaluable to aid us
in our goal of providing our students with the best education possible
while permitting them to achieve their full potential. If you have any
interest in contributing to the future of the program in any way and at
any level, please don't hesitate to contact us via e-mail at: Student Financial Aid Some progress has been made in the area of student financial aid through the establishment of two funds, the Tombaugh Fund and the Harriet Johnson Fund. Our ultimate goal would be to supply some financial aid to every qualified junior-senior major in the program. With the rising cost of tuition and room and board at KU, the expense of an additional year of education, common for a majority of our students who double-major in Physics and Astronomy, is an increasingly significant burden for our students. Clyde Tombaugh Observatory With the removal of the Clyde Tombaugh Observatory from the roof of Lindley Hall and the dismantling of the Pitt telescope, on-campus observing at KU has now been totally transferred to the Observing Station at Memorial Stadium. Though this site is adequate for undergraduate labs and occasional open houses for the public, the sky conditions and use of tripod mounts make it an untenable location for even simple research programs and deep sky observing. To overcome these problems, the Astronomy Progam has begun a collaborative project with the Astronomy Program at San Diego State University to install a remote-controlled 1.25 M telescope on Mt. Laguna, 45 miles east of San Diego. Details on this plan can be found at this site. Pitt 27 inch Mirror Though the Pitt Telescope is no more, the 27-in mirror survives. It has been made available on permanent loan to the NorthEast Kansas Amateur Astronomer's League (NEKAAL). This exceptional club in Topeka has had a long history of promoting astronomy to the public within the region while developing observing facilities capable of carrying out reasonably sophisticated amateur research programs, exemplified by their success in recent years in identifying near-Earth asteroids, as well as the first comet found via observations made in Kansas, Comet Hug-Bell. NEKAAL has developed a compact design for the new telescope built around the Pitt mirror. A Research Telescope Ultimately, any viable observational astronomy program can only compete
in today's environment with guaranteed access to a research-quality telescope
of 1-meter class or larger. For a program of the size found at KU, the pricetag
on such equipment requires sharing the costs of construction and maintenance
within the context of a larger consortium. Thanks to the support of the
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, KUCR,
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The University of Kansas Physics and Astronomy Lawrence, KS 66045 |
Copyright © 2008 by The University of Kansas |