Dr. Karen Williams honored with Worth Seagondollar Award
Reprinted with permission of the Ada Evening News, Ada, OK
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| Dr. Karen Williams, left, professor of physics at East Central University, receives the Worth Seagondollar Service Award from Dr. George Miner at the Sigma Pi Sigma Quadrennial Congress in Batavia, Ill. |
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ADA, OKLAHOMA — Dr. Karen Williams, professor of physics at East Central University, has been awarded The Worth Seagondollar Service Award in recognition of her extraordinary level of service and commitment to Sigma Pi Sigma and the Society of Physics Students.
The Society of Physics Students is a national physics professional organization for students and their mentors. Williams served two terms as president of the National Council from 2001-2005. Sigma Pi Sigma is a national physics honor society under SPS.
Williams received the award at the 2008 Sigma Pi Sigma Quadrennial Congress held at Fermilab in Batavia, Ill. It recognizes her “service as a chapter adviser, zone councilor and president of the Society of Physics Students, overseeing a great expansion of the role of president and the precedent-setting 2004 Sigma Pi Sigma Congress.”
Also attending the Congress with Williams, who is the current zone councilor for Oklahoma-Kansas-Missouri Zone 12, were associate Zone 12 councilor Kristen Thompson and Jessica Ferguson, both ECU medical physics majors, and Dr. Carl Rutledge, chair of ECU’s physics department.
The Worth Seagondollar award was instituted at the Society of Physics Students National Council Meeting in 1996 and Seagondollar was the first recipient. Seagondollar is a former Sigma Pi Sigma president who was well known as one of the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project that produced the first man-made nuclear explosion.
Williams is only the fourth recipient of the prestigious award. The Sigma Pi Sigma Congress meets every four years for lifetime members to vote on statements to be recommended to the SPS Council. The council voted in 2004 to recommend that ethics education be conducted in all physics programs.
“Therefore, I and Dr. Rutledge have created an ethics course taught in workshop style that will be conducted each year at ECU,” Williams said. “Practical suggestions come out of the Sigma Pi Sigma Congress.”
ECU has won the Outstanding SPS Chapter Award in its zone for 10 years from 1997-1998 to 2001-2002 and from 2002-2003 to 2007-2008.
During the award ceremony, presenters mentioned how Williams manages to do so much with ECU’s SPS chapter with little resources.
“Our students have won national scholarships five times. They can compete with those at other universities in the U.S. but it takes effort on their part,” she said.
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