A `Research Experiences for Undergraduates` Site will be initiated at Oregon State University. Through a national recruitment process, 8 undergraduate students will be selected to be involved in a 10-week summer research program in physics. Fields of physics to be emphasized include AMO, computational, solid state, and nuclear. Students will be housed together in campus dormitories. Each REU student will work in a close mentoring relationship with one of the faculty in their research labs. In addition to the research experience, the participants will complete a special short summer course in interfacing computers to laboratory devices, a skill that is essential in many research programs, and they will also receive instruction in machine shop techniques. An informal `physics literary club` will meet weekly and will feature discussion of works of literature that have a significant physics content. A final `mini-conference` will give the students an opportunity to describe their research to their colleagues and to the faculty and students of the Physics Department. The program will be evaluated through written surveys as well as through oral interviews.
