Michigan State University's Physics-Astronomy Department will host the seventh National Conference of Black Physics Students (NCBPS) in February 1993. NCBPS'93 will be the continuation of a sequence of such annual conferences that began in 1987. The motivation for the NCBPS is to assist and encourage those African-American students who have shown interest and ability in physics to enter and complete Ph.D. programs, and to initiate research careers in Physics. The idea for this conference series came from African- American physics graduate students, and the conferences have been organized and executed by students, with faculty and staff assistance at the host institutions (Howard, MIT, Hampton, Southern University and Stanford hosted the conference in the past). The following data illustrates the level of participation by students from 1987 through 1992. 1987 MIT 34 1988 MIT 68 1989 Howard Univ. 124 1990 Southern Univ. 140 1991 Hampton Univ. 150 1992 Stanford Univ. 150* *(50 additional applicants were turned away due to lack of funds) The format of the conference includes lectures by distinguished physicists, research papers by current Black graduate and undergraduate students, and workshops on applying to and successfully completing a graduate program in physics. The primary audience for the conference are undergraduate students who are majoring in physics, or who have expressed an interest in physics. A principal goal of the conference is to permit these students, who are in the process of making career decisions that will shape the course of their working lives, to meet and interact with Black graduate students, and Black scientists who can serve as role models and mentors. The conference will be financed by grants from MSU, corporate gifts solicited by MSU's College of Natural Science Development Office, and grants which are being requested from NSF,NASA, DOE, and ONR. The organization and program of the conference will be arranged by the faculty, staff and graduate students, African-American and non- African-American, of the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Michigan State University with assistance from the National Executive Committee of Minorities in the Physical Sciences (MIPS).
