A stargazing event held by SPS during the semester.
REBECCA COGLIANESE/COURTESY
By Angelina Persaud, Managing Editor
Manhattan College’s Society of Physics Students (SPS) chapter received the Outstanding Chapter Award from the national organization, placing them in the top 10-15% of chapters with the distinction.
This marks the second time in four years that the chapter has earned national recognition for its efforts.
According to manhattan.edu, the criteria for the award fall into three broad categories, “participation in national SPS events, outreach programs for youth, community service and increasing student recruitment efforts.”
The website also mentions that the SPS is the “social hub and informal advising network” related to the physics honor society Sigma Pi Sigma.
One of the biggest achievements the chapter gained recognition for was participating in the STEM Outreach Day hosted by the college last year. The chapter played a significant role in planning the event as well as coordinating with the college community to immerse children from grades K-12 in a variety of STEM experiments.
Rebecca Coglianese, a physics major and current vice president of the club, spoke about her involvement and how she found the club after switching her major to physics.
“I was inspired to join in my freshman year, after I changed my major to physics, to find a community with interests similar to mine and to get an introduction to the professional world of physics,” Coglianese wrote in an email to The Quadrangle.
She also spoke about the involvement SPS has with other societies and clubs on campus to further promote STEM outreach and engage the community.
“SPS loves to collaborate with other clubs!” Coglianese wrote. “We collaborated with Pi Mu Epsilon, the Mathematics Society, for STEM Outreach Day in April 2023, serving underrepresented communities in the Bronx. Many activities were conducted bilingually in English and Spanish.”
She also noted that the Pi Mu Epsilon event gained the chapter further recognition as the co-president at the time, Sarah Rosen ‘23, and Kate Cappabianca ‘23 from the math society were both named “New Yorkers of the Week” by NY1 Spectrum News.
Bart Horn, Ph.D., is a physics professor and has been the advisor for the SPS since 2018 and assists students with various chapter activities.
“I’m very proud of them,” Horn said. “It’s nice to have all their hard work recognized. We’ve been named a distinguished chapter several times in the last few years and we’ve gotten an outstanding chapter only a few times.”
Horn also emphasized the diversity among majors when it comes to enrollment in the club. He noted that the chapter is not exclusive to physics majors and that having multiple backgrounds contributes to the variety of events they host.
“That also includes folks in related majors, such as mathematics, adolescent education…it’s brought in a number of people together and not just physics majors.”
Currently, SPS is in the process of planning their upcoming events for the spring semester with hopes of traveling to Buffalo to watch the solar eclipse.
“SPS officers are scheming heavily, about how we’re going to try to observe the total solar eclipse in April, because these happen every couple of years,” Horn said. “They’re pretty rare. This one is going to go through the western and northern part of New York State. And here in New York City, it’ll be 89% covered. So we’re trying to see if we can do some kind of expedition.”
Horn encouraged students interested in joining the club to contact him via email at bhorn01@manhattan.edu.