Our Mission

The TCNJ Department of Physics promotes a culture of intellectual engagement centered on the natural sciences. This culture is shared by a community of undergraduate students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The faculty members are teacher-scholars who are dedicated to excellence in teaching and are deeply engaged in the production and dissemination of new knowledge. Using modern pedagogy in the classroom and collaborations between students and faculty in research, the faculty instill in all students a sense of scientific inquiry that employs systematic, experimental, mathematical, and computational approaches to answering questions about the natural world. The current community of faculty and students study phenomena on scales ranging from nanometers to the size of the universe. They conduct research in materials science, optics, plasma physics, atmospheric science, biophysics, physics education, seismology, astronomy, astrophysics, and cosmology. Through these endeavors the faculty members strive to challenge students and foster critical thinking. By developing intellectual ability, technical knowledge, quantitative reasoning, logical thinking, communications skills, and ethical standards for practicing modern science, the ultimate mission of the faculty is to prepare students to excel in a wide array of careers and to be informed and engaged citizens.