*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 1 Issue 4 July 28, 1993 An electronically distributed digest for discussions of the issues of concern to mathematicians at the beginning of their careers. Subscriptions to date: 270 PLEASE FORWARD TO ANY POTENTIALLY INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS Table of Contents Item # Title ------ ----- 1 Editorial 2 News and notes 3 A Report from the SIAM Meeting about funding in mathematics 4 On job postings in YMN 5 The AMS Employment Services mailing 6 Revamping the Employment Register 7 A reprint for those who missed the first issue. To submit an item for publication in August kalin@math.psu.edu Miscellaneous questions should be directed to the same address for now. Starting August 1st, send subscription requests to Charles Yeomans at cyeomans@s.ms.uky.edu Editor for the month of July was Mark Winstead, (mww8f@virginia.edu). The editor for August is Kalin Godev (kalin@math.psu.edu) Next issue: next month. Publication will be weekly for now, and increase when appropriate. A good guess would be biweekly by mid-September and three or more times a week by mid-October or so. This projection from a member of a group who expected 200 subscriptions by the end of July and we are already there. ________________________________________________________________________ Item 1 Editorial I have put before myself a tightrope. Time to walk it. Concern of those who have volunteered to this point has been the survival of our young organization and newsletter. Thus all energies have been focused on the immediate future. Starting this issue, we see that our focus is now being directed further into the future, e.g. the proposal planned to do something at the winter joint meeting. Now I wish to ponder one issue which affects our long range future. Currently, our organization seems to be an "adminstrative board", which oversees this publication and handles information inquiries and subscriptions, in addition to serving to expediate certain matters such as what to do at the winter meeting. But I see potential problems with the way the board is currently constructed. Currently the board seems heavy with individuals of similar backgrounds. It needs not only more volunteers, but volunteers who will bring different backgrounds and personal situations, and with them sensitivity to certain problems. If YMN is to help the young mathematicians help themselves, I feel that those who adminstrate it will need to have a certain diversity. Diversity of backgrounds will help insure that certain needs get met. For example, there are currently no graduate students helping out in an active way. It is one thing to remember the problems they will face their first time on the market, it is another to be living it. Having grad students active behind the scenes can be useful in seeing that certain types of articles get published at least once each year, even if they are reprints. I should also note that we also have no women active behind the scenes. On the other hand, I do not believe that we should prohibit someone from volunteering just because one is a male Ivy league graduate with a tenure track position and at the time the board has "enough" of those. I do not believe in quotas. I just want to encourage those with backgrounds different than whoever is currently on the board to volunteer, and I wish that those recruiting for the board keep diversity in mind when they recruit volunteers. So that you can see what the board has and what it is missing, I got some of those currently listed as adminstating this thing to submit mini-bios: Edward Aboufadel, PhD from Rutgers University 1992, BS from Michigan State University 1986. Assistant Professor (tenure-track), Southern Connecticut State University. American born and raised. Single. Specialty: Ordinary Differential Equations. Curtis Bennett, PhD from the University of Chicago 1990, Research Instructor at Michigan State University 1990-1992, NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Ohio State University, 1992-1993. Assistant Professor (tenure-track), Bowling Green State University. Married, 1.9 children (1 expected any day). Specialty: Groups and Geometries. (Editor's note: The second child was born on July 27th, according to a note I received) Neil Calkin, PhD from University of Waterloo, 1988, Visiting assistant professor, Carnegie Mellon University 1988-1991, (tenure track) assistant professor Georgia Institute of Technology, 1991 - current. Unmarried, no kids, (no dog, no cat, no car, etc). Fields of interest; Combinatorics, number theory, probabilistic methods applied to these areas. On the board until August 1st: Mark Winstead, PhD from the University of Virginia, 1993 BS and MS from Florida State University, 1986 and 1988 respectively. Post doctoral grant from Mittag-Leffler for the fall, currently unemployed in the spring. Married without children. Speciality: Algebraic topology There are two others involved actively. I do not think they will mind if I mention the following about them. They are male, have PhDs and last I knew, neither has a tenure track position (at least one of them was still looking for a position the last time he spoke about his situation.) I wish to emphasize that these are my views, especially this time. Mark ----------------------------- Item 2 News and notes Winter Meeting: Ed Aboufadel has inquired about organizing a session for the YMN at the Cincinnati meeting. We have been invited to submit a proposal. Ed is handling this on our behalf. Two options are to conduct a formal panel discussion or to hold an informal get-together and see that it is placed on the schedule. Please contact Ed with any comments by Friday, the deadline for the proposal is early next week. (aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu) Publicity: It appears we were mentioned in something called "Siam Forum". I have heard from an editor of UME TRENDS, who said we may possibly get a mention in an upcoming issue. All of this is in addition to the upcoming mention in NOTICES. Additionally, many senior mathematicians have told me that they intend to encourage students in their departments to join. I have already seen letters and subscription requests from many who have apparently responded to such encouragement. Let me share with you a portion of a letter I received from the chair of a major university in the Pacific Northwest. He can claim it as its own in a future issue if he doesn't mind the publicity: Thanks for the information about the YMN and for the copies of your newsletters. (deleted comment about insuring his own subscription) Incidentally, I circulated to all members of this department a notice concerning your organization that included a copy of your document "About The Young Mathematicians' Network". You might be interested in the following two paragraphs from my notice: I contacted one of the group and received a brief one page description of the YMN (a copy of which is attached) and copies of their first three newsletters. {\sl I am very favorably impressed and would encourage all new or nearly new Ph.D.s to consider seriously subscribing to their newsletter.} [Editor's note to non-latex'ers: \sl indicates that his notice was a latex document and he wished to emphasis the sentence that follows it by slanting it.] I am convinced that we all do have to acknowledge that the (honestly) expected boom in mathematics has not materialized. There is some compelling evidence that the employment prospects for young mathematicians is far less rosy than many of us genuinely predicted. Thus, on that score alone, I believe a group like the YMN has a very important role to play. The mechanisms we now use to match young Ph.D.s to jobs is completely out of sync with the realities of the day, so maybe an operation like the YMN can serve as a catalyst for significant changes. Even if it should come up short on that front, it could be a very valuable support group for all young mathematicians during what promises to be an extremely trying few years. (His signature here) End of news and notes __________________________________________________________ Item 3 From: "Sue J. Worden" worden@emx.cc.utexas.edu Subject: A Report from the SIAM Meeting I attended the SIAM Annual Meeting last week (12-16 June), at which there were several special sessions dealing with research funding. My interpretation of the discussions is that federal and private funding are both expected to continue decreasing. In fact, one of the panelists expressed the fear that, in the current atmosphere of deficit reduction by an administration committed to social spending, federal funding of NSF programs might be severely curtailed. The courses of action recommended to the audiences at these sessions revolved around three centers: 1. Demonstrating social benefits from research 2. Cooperative research with industry, focusing on developing solutions to specific problems 3. Contacting elected representatives, preferably in person in Washington, to voice support for and to argue in favor of continued funding I must say that I came away from these sessions somewhat shaken by the depth of concern shown by the senior researchers, NSF program directors, and such on the panels. They have direct access to the Congressional committees that control funding, and they are scared. I consider myself an optimist, but now I think that the situation must be even shakier than we junior people have realized. Sue Worden (worden@emx.cc.utexas.edu) engineer, computational mathematician, combinatoricist-in-training :-) _____________________________________________ Item 4 jobs postings in YMN I agree with Curtis Bennett that jobs postings should be kept out of the Newsletter. But, how about creating a separate, optional mailing list of job openings ? I believe Edward Aboufadel's and other contributor's ideas, concerning what information people want in the ads, and the so much needed updating, could easily come true this way. [ {other stuff} in any case, I'd like it to be anonymous ]. _______________________________________________________________ Item 5 The AMS Employment Services mailing Many of you by now have received from the AMS a piece of "junk mail" (not necessarily in the sense that it is trash) about the AMS Employment Services. It is a rather generic piece of mail, probably sent out to everyone it knows may be on the market or have an open position to advertise. Since many of you are new to the market, I thought it would be useful to you if someone made some non-judgemental comments on the services. Rather than reprint the whole thing here, find a copy. If it wasn't sent to you, it was probably sent to your chairperson, or whoever handles the hiring. Do your fellow students a favor and insist that a copy be placed with the employment information/job openings information that your dept has. Assuming you now have a copy, turn to page one. The first service it mentions is the Employment Register. Ask around about this, since I said I was going to be non-judgemental. This may or may not be a useful service to you. Basically it is good if you are applying to the type(s) of schools which participate and you are the appropriate type of candidate. Ask around and locate a list of schools which participated last year before making plans to participate. Turn to page two. Here they advertise the *Employment Information in the Mathematical Sciences*. A very good resource, BUT DON'T SUBSCRIBE. Note that in the lower right column the directions for using e-MATH. The second sentence says that all job announcements submitted to EIMS are posted on e-MATH at no additional charge to advertisers of positions. This means that you can essentially read EIMS without you or your department subscribing. On page three, there is a mention of "Seeking Employment in the Mathematical Sciences". Never heard about it before. --Mark ___________________________________________________________ Item 6 Revamping the Employment Register I wanted to keep judgemental material out of the above, and what I am about to say could be considered judgemental by many. It seems that there is one problem with the ER. The only schools that participate seem to be mainly teaching-emphasis small colleges and a number of four year liberal arts colleges. Having seen the last two years list of participants, I don't recall seeing any major universities or other big state schools, and surely no schools with a lot of emphasis on research. These schools probably say that the type of candidates they are seeking don't participate in the ER, while those type of candidates don't participate because the type of schools they are seeking don't participate. It seems that some significant changes are needed in the ER if this cycle is to be broken. If any one has some ideas (I have a couple) of changes that could be made, especially those which could be done with a minimum amount of effort (the most likely to be implemented), write me. I will summarize would I receive and submit it for publication by mid-September. Mark mww8f@virginia.edu ______________________________________________________________ Item 7 For those who missed the first issue. I have updated a few items. To the members of the YMN: When I started in the efforts to establish something like this, it was with an attitude of ``someone should ..., and if not me, then who?''. I had an excuse not to do all of this, but I decided not to use it. It is now time to formally announce my resignation as whatever it is that I am to this confederacy of ours, effective August 1st, 1993. I have been proud to serve as ``point guard'' for this young organization (the basketball illiterate are welcome to write for explanation of the term). I am still willing to serve on any editoral or adminstrative board in the future, after some time away from it. Many of you knew that I would have to do this. I have a position for the fall only at Mittag-Leffler, which is in Sweden. ML is having an emphasis year in algebraic topology (fall) and algebraic k-theory (spring), and with the talent that will be there in the fall, I have to take the fullest advantage of the situation that I can. This requires that I minimize distractions, and I already have the distractions of being in Europe and having to find a job for both the spring and next year (94-95). I will of course make submissions to the journal and fully participate as a regular member during this time. All of this means that someone is needed immediately for each of the following tasks: 1) Coordinate Publicity - rewrite and distribute the little file I wrote which describes our purpose and form. Occasionally post notes in YSN and usernet detailing our status and inviting subscriptions. Handling the inquiries for information that follow these postings. Note: Curtis Bennett has already volunteered to be the liason with the *Notices*. I think Ed Aboufadel has agreed to do the same with *FOCUS*. Each can correct me if I am wrong. [Seems under control, though no one has formally said they will do this] 2) Handle the subscriptions and mailing lists - unless you can come up with a better system than I have, this could grow to be a big job quickly. [ Thanks to Charles Yeomans, this is under control for now] 3) Be the person who or on the committee that knows who's doing what - enough said. [I THINK this is under control] There are other tasks to be done, but either nobody is doing them yet or I have forgotten who volunteered. A special thanks to Ed Aboufadel, Curtis Bennett, Neil Calkin and Kalin Godev for their input and work towards this effort. I greatly regret if it seems that I am the only one who has put any significant amount of work into this project. It has been a pleasure to serve, Mark Winstead mww8f@virginia.edu [Additionally, thanks to Charles Yeomans for taking over subscription requests.] _______________________________________________________________ End of Journal Next time: Your comments and submissions.