*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 1 Issue 10 September 8, 1993 An electronically distributed digest for discussions of the issues of concern to mathematicians at the beginning of their careers. PLEASE FORWARD TO ANY POTENTIALLY INTERESTED INDIVIDUALS Please, direct submissions and questions to Edward Aboufadel aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu , editor for the month of September. Next issue: Wednesday, September 15 Editor for October: Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu Editor for November: Steve Kennedy kennedy@math.stolaf.edu To subscribe: Send mail to Charles Yeomans at cyeomans@s.ms.uky.edu Back issues are available via anonymous ftp to speedway.net in /pub/ymn Editor for the month of July was Mark Winstead (mww8f@virginia.edu). Editor for the month of August was Kalin Godev (kalin@math.psu.edu). Publication will be weekly for now, and increase when appropriate. A good guess would be biweekly by late September. Table of Contents Item # Title ------ ----- 1 EDitorial 2 News and notes: AWM, YMN growth, email problems 3 Eighteen years ago ... 4 Response to S. Kennedy #1: Annalisa Crannell 5 More information on the JCEO 6 Response to S. Kennedy #2: Jerome A. Goldstein 7 Response to S. Kennedy #3: Milton Lopes 8 Response to S. Kennedy #4: Martin Hildebrand 9 Response to S. Kennedy #5: Heidi Burgiel 10 The Chalk Talk Room _______________________________________________________________ Item #1 EDitorial: Cincinnati It is beginning to look to me that the Joint Meetings in Cincinnati will be the "coming-out" party for the Young Mathematicians' Network. At this time, we have two YMN-related activities planned, and I would like to suggest a third. First is a panel discussion devoted the job market and other concerns of young mathematicians. Curt Bennett has volunteered to be a speaker on that panel. During panel discussions, each panelist speaks for ten minutes or so, and then the audience asks questions of the panel. Some of Curt's time will be used to summarize our discussions in this Digest, so keep your submissions coming. After the panel discussion, there will be a reception for YMN members. In Allyn Jackson's excellent articles in the Notices, Stephen Kennedy suggests creating a position paper on ethical hiring practices to be distributed to all mathematics departments. I'd like to suggest something a little less ambitious: a document called The Perfect Rejection Letter. To be distributed in Cincinnati, this document would begin with something like, "This year you will send out hundreds of rejection letters. Since this is usually the only communication that you have with applicants, it is important to write something worthwhile. Here are suggestions to do that, along with a sample rejection letter." As Mark Purtill wrote in issue #3, what I want, and I think you want, is a more *informative* letter. If you are interested in contributing to The Perfect Rejection Letter, send a note to aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu. We'll work via email, make a few copies each, and bring them to Cincinnati. It should be a good week in Ohio. Edward Aboufadel Southern Connecticut State University _______________________________________________________________ Item #2 News and Notes The AMS elections are coming up. Statements by candidates can be found in the Notices and in the AWM Newsletter. (AWM = Association for Women in Mathematics). In the 1992 elections, there were 4579 valid ballots, which is 18% of the membership. Meanwhile, membership in YMN is growing. Recent publicity in the Notices has led to, "a lot of requests for info and subscriptions," according to Charles Yeomans, who is handling the mailing of YMN to everyone. He'll have a number for us next week. We still haven't pinned down these email problems, but it seems that for a few of you, receiving this Digest is connected to the creation of a file in your account called .newmail, which is the source of the problem. Keep us informed! _______________________________________________________________ Item #3 Eighteen years ago ... Given the recent discussions about the Employment Register in the YMN, I thought you might be interested in the following letter that was published in the Notices 1975 (22) p75: (text of letter) Since the American Mathematical Society plays a major role in the Mathematical Sciences Employment Register, the Society should encourage the use of the Employment Register at the Annual Meetings. The need for this action was apparent at the San Francisco Meeting. Many people attended the meeting in order to find jobs, but there were only about 50 employers who used the register. The officers of the Society should encourage their own departments to use the Register at the Annual meetings whenever their departments have a job opening. ______________ (end of letter) A dissenting opinion was published on the same page of this 1975 edition of the Notices by the then President of the AMS. It is unfortunate that the situation with respect to the Employment Register has not significantly improved. I believe that part of the problem is that its role in the employment process is not well defined. I wish that I could close this letter with some encouraging words, but I am not at all optimistic about the current employment crisis in Mathematics. Sincerely, Harriet Lord Math. Dept. Cal Poly, Pomona Pomona, CA 91784 e-mail: HLord@CSUPomona.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #4 Response to S. Kennedy #1: Annalisa Crannell on the JCEO I'd like to respond to "Comments from Stephen Kennedy about the Mathematics Profession". I'm Annalisa Crannell; I got my PhD from Brown in '92, and am now a "Special Consultant to the Joint Committee on Employment Opportunities". Both as a recent graduate and also as someone with access to "those with power", I'd like to assure Stephen (and every one else out there) that most mathematicians are concerned--very concerned--about the job market. We read the *Notices* and see the recent hiring data (ick). So your (our) joining en masse to lament/advertise the plight of new PhD's would add emphasis rather than information to the struggle. (This may in fact be exactly what you want to do). About one year ago, the Joint Committee on Employment Opportunities (JCEO) -- which has members from SIAM, AMS, and MAA, from industry, universities, two-year colleges, and four-year colleges -- decided to invite the participation of a recent graduate and a member of a master's-granting institution. Because of paperwork questions (getting all three societies to change a constitution is tough) [see item #5 -- ED.], these two new folk are "Special Consultants" on paper and equivalent to the other members in practice, except that both have two-year terms. The JCEO chose me as the recent graduate, probably because of an article I wrote for the July/August 1992 *Notices*, "Applying for Jobs: Advice from the Front" (check it out!). This upcoming January (or June, if we meet then), my term expires. I'll no longer be new enough, and so they'll go grab one of you. Stephen suggests, "We should ask that a quota be established and that x% of [JCEO] be persons who are now or have in the recent past been looking for employment. I'm sure that there was a conscious effort made to place women on the Committee on the Status of Women, and minorities on the Committee on Minority Representation in Math -- shouldn't jobseekers be represented on the committee handling employment issues?" The JCEO is not a policy-making board (neither are the others mentioned above, I think). We are responsible for running the annual Employment Register, publishing EIMS and job listings on e-math, and disseminating information. To be quite frank, this kind of grunge work would detract from the jobseeker's ability to find work (most of the members aren't compensated for their time). That and, as I said before, changing the constitution of three societies will be difficult. What we do welcome, and solicit even, are suggestions and comments from our constituency -- jobseekers and employers alike. The JCEO subscribes to YMN, actually. Stephen also suggests that we "Ask SAM to pass a resolution condemning the practice of hiring new/recent Ph.Ds into one-year positions." Here I'm replying as myself, not as a consultant or committee member: Most (not all, but most) departments hate advertising one-year positions, both from a philanthropic viewpoint (it's bad for the applicant) and from a selfish viewpoint (reading all those applications *every* year is a pain). It is often the administration that forces the issue, fearing that enrollment won't support the need for additional faculty that long. So a resolution of this sort might enable departments to force the issue. On the other hand, not all one-year positions are alike. A one-year post doc at MSRI (which can't realistically grant more than that because the topic of interest switches at least yearly) is a great job to get; a one-year instructorship teaching four classes is not. One alternative that Stephen suggests is: "Moreover, SAM could easily put some teeth in such a resolution. SAM controls almost all advertising for academic mathematics hiring. Forbid advertisements for one-year positions in all their publications. (I don't think we could ever get that, so alternatively: not permit such ads until after April 1, thus putting such advertisers at a recruiting disadvantage, and financially penalize this anti-social behavior by charging a premium for such ads and tossing the money into the post-doc fund of item 1 above. Also, SAM could monitor one-year hiring and publicly censure institutions which make a habit of it.)" The EIMS, put out by the JCEO, contains most (pure) math advertising, but I'd hardly say we "control" it. Moreover, that "easily" in your first sentence is misleading . . . getting three societies to agree on such a drastic step--and it is drastic--would be a lot tougher than you'd think. But the idea has merits, if it could be finagled a little. hmmmm . . . Annalisa Crannell Franklin & Marshall College _______________________________________________________________ Item #5 More information on the JCEO Annalisa Crannell explained the problem as follows: "The constitutions state that the JCEO shall be made up of x members (I think x=6), x/3 of whom shall come from each society, and each of whom shall have terms of (4?) years. The problem with adding *me*, for example, is not that I'm a recent PhD but rather that I increase the number of people on the committee." We also have the following information from Jim Maxwell jwm@math.ams.org , via Mark Winstead: There are two representatives on JCEO from each of the three sponsoring organizations, AMS, MAA, and SIAM. The AMS reps are Stanley Benkoski, a partner in Wagner Associates, an old line, very mathematical consulting firm; and Frank Demeyer, Department of Math, Colorado State University. The MAA reps are Ronald Davis, chief of Academic Affairs, Anoka-Ramsey Community college, Coon Rapids, Minn; and Brent Morris, National Security Agency. The SIAM reps are Lee Seitelman, Pratt & Whitney Aircraft; and Ivar Stakgold, Dept. of Mathematical Sciences, Univ. of Delaware. There are also two individuals who are currently special consultants to the committee, for lack of a better term. These are Annalisa Crannell, Dept. of Math, Franklin and Marshall College; and Duane Anderson, Math and Stat. Dept., Univ. of Minn.-Duluth. Any public listing of the committee should include Annalisa and Duane, and they should be listed as "consultants" for now. Annalisa is a recent PhD and Duane is head of a four year college, areas not represented by the members of the committee. I am working to get the committee enlarged by two members-at-large, presumably these two individuals. The September issue of NOTICES has an updated list of members of various AMS committees which you might find useful. _______________________________________________________________ Item #6 Response to S. Kennedy #2: Jerome A. Goldstein Steve Kennedy raised an issue that concerns many mathematicians, including middle-aged ones like myself. I refer to the policy of hiring temporary faculty at unusually low salaries with unusually high teaching loads. This is a problem that has plagued Math Depts for many decades. Math Depts (especially at large state universities) teach a lot of students a variety of courses at the precalculus level. When money is tight, this is a place where Deans can save money. Why invest money in a scholar to teach high school algebra? (So they reason.) The Dean tells the Math Dept chair to hire a high school teacher or someone with a masters degree to teach a 12 hour load for $20,000. The chair may either cooperate or else (1) increase average class size noticeably, or (2) increase the teaching load of tenured faculty. Choice (1) may be unacceptable to the Dean (or possibly all classrooms are already filled up), while (2) may be unacceptable to the chair (not to mention others). The current financial crisis (one often exists) makes the Dean inflexible -- he (or she) demands an extra 16 courses taught this year and will come up with no more than $40,000. The chair has two choices: hire someone with an MS degree who will be easy to fire, or hire a promising researcher who may benefit from being in an active research department. What is the chair to do? Either choice will certainly lead to much criticism. What do young researchers think? Should these jobs go to good PhDs, or to masters degree folks while the chair continues the unsuccessful battle to get the position upgraded. It seems to me that "chair of mathematics" is an inappropriate term to describe a dept head. "Stool of mathematics" is better. With best wishes, Jerry Goldstein LSU goldstei@marais.math.lsu.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #7 Response to S. Kennedy #3: Milton Lopes About what to suggest to SAM on the job problem, There is one idea that might improve matters somewhat. It would be to try to unify the whole process of job application and hiring, having everybody searching for a non-permanent, recent-PhD position do a single job application, maybe a standard video-taped interview and all interested institutions with jobs to offer to fill their positions through application to this central place. Both the institutions and the applicants would give lists of priorities on the other side and some fair rule would determine the outcome ( there is a certain amount of theory in game theory concerned exactly with this kind of issue, in the so called "marriage problem"). Of course this would not increase the amount of jobs available, but it might have several advantages: 1) It might make the whole job application problem a lot faster, with a month between the deadline for submission of applications and the final decisions concerning job distribution. This would cut down misery considerably. 2) It could make the job of the hiring committees a lot less painful, reducing the resistence to implementing such a system. 3) It would automatically punish people offering 1-year post-docs with a very low level of preference among job applicants. 4) It could be implemented using the already existent structure of the job application meeting and making it more comprehensive. It could be payed for, at least in part by user fees, moderately large ones per position being filled on the job offer side, and small user fees for applicants. 5) It would make the whole process more transparent, and more sensitive to public scrutiny. I think that something much along these lines exists for residence position applications for medical school graduates, but this is only distant hearsay. Anyways, it would seem to me to be a sensible initial reinvidication, that would benefit all parts involved on this issue. Milton Lopes-Filho mlopes@ime.unicamp.br _______________________________________________________________ Item #8 Response to S. Kennedy #4: Martin Hildebrand I wish to respond to Steve Kennedy's ideas in the September 1 YMN newsletter. One of his points was to get SAM (SIAM, the American Mathematical Society, and the Mathematical Association of America) to condemn the hiring of new/recent Ph.D.'s in one-year positions. While I agree that most of these positions are not good for new/recent Ph.D.'s, I think it should be noted that there are a few relatively good one-year positions. In particular, there are some one-year research positions for post-doc's with research interests related to a special year program at places like the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) or MSRI, and these should not be placed in the same category as the one-year teaching positions. I am in such a research position at the IMA, and while even from day one there is some concern about what will happen with the next job search, I am grateful to have a somewhat unusual research opportunity and feel that condemnation of one-year positions should take these opportunities into consideration. I am concerned that his suggestions for excluding ads for one-year positions won't fly and wish to make a milder suggestion: put ads for the one-year teaching positions in a separate section. Here's another suggestion to push SAM and the powers that be. There is considerable discussion about the quality of undergraduate education and problems such as very large introductory classes. Thus I would urge SAM to urge efforts be made to reduce the size of introductory classes like calculus and hire some of the new/recent Ph.D.'s to teach additional sections of that class as part of their duties. I also have one further urge for the AMS; in several issues of the AMS Notices around 1975, there were published accounts of mathematicians with jobs outside academia. A similar but current account would help mathematicians considering non-academic employment understand their options better and possibly give them a better idea of where to find such positions. Martin Hildebrand IMA hildebra@ima.umn.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #9 Response to S. Kennedy #5: Heidi Burgiel [Note: this was forwarded from Stephen Kennedy.] Hi! I recently joined the YMN, and I'm not yet sure how (or if) I am expected to respond to articles in it. If it's appropriate, please forward this message to the YMN or to other interested parties. I read your article (#4 in Issue 9), and I agree that something needs to be done to improve the lot of young mathematicians. You list of suggestions convinced me (despite my initial incredulity) that we can probably get something done, by working together. I would like to comment on the methods you proposed, and suggest some more problems that need addressing. Your first suggestion was to build our membership and circulate a petition. I agree that a large group will have more clout than a small one, but I'm not sure anyone will be impressed by a list of names on a petition. Perhaps gathering some statistics would be more convincing. Your second suggestion was to ask the NSF for funds for young mathematicians. I think that is an excellent idea. We should encourage *all* organizations who fund mathematicians to consider the benefits of supplying several (relatively) small sums of money to beginning mathematicians in place of one large sum for an established mathematician. Your suggestions for trimming current costs seem overly simplistic. For instance, we can not expect a professor with a house and family in Princeton to be content living on the same summer salary as that of a young single mathematician in Seattle. You're correct that we will need to do some research to understand what is currently happening and what reactions we will get to different proposals before we submit our proposal. Your suggestion of discouraging universities from hiring people into one year positions is a good one. Again, I think we will need to carefully examine possible reactions to any proposal we may make. Having mathematicians looking for employment serve on the Committee on Employment and Opportunities is a good idea in principle, but it may not be feasible to serve on such a committee, look for a job, and carry out teaching and research projects all at the same time. At lest, we can (and should) compile a list of suggestions through the YMN and submit them to this committee. I would now like to add two problems for consideration. First, I believe it is true that for each job opening there are hundreds of applications received by the hiring committee. Clearly, there is no good way to process this information. Perhaps the system could be improved by compiling a database of mathematicians looking for jobs, their fields of interest, and descriptions of the types of jobs they're seeking. Perhaps there are other, better, improvements possible. Secondly, I am concerned at the lack of freedom inherent in pursuing a career in research mathematics. From the time we enter graduate school, it seems that we are expected to devote our entire lives to this task. Is it true that if we take a few years off to work as a computer programmer or to start a family, we will not be able to re-enter the career track? Are we really expected to devote all of our energy to publishing papers and writing job applications until we get tenure (or despair of ever doing so) while juggling an increasing load of teaching duties? My graduate student's perspective on the problems of employment in academia is quite a depressing one. I hope that the YMN and its members can somehow alleviate the problems I see ahead. Heidi Burgiel Math Dept. GN-50 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 burgiel@math.washington.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #10 The Chalk Talk Room [ED's Note: the purpose of this part of the Digest is for people to ask and answer questions. Last week, Andrew Price asked some questions. Now, here is Mark Winstead with some more questions. I hope readers will either send their thoughts, either to the people asking questions, or to this Digest.] My situation on the surface seems a bit unique, but I imagine that I am wrong. I will be applying for jobs for next year from Sweden, though I will be in the U.S. for a job which starts in January. I was wondering if anyone has gone through this before and can warn of mistakes I might make if I am not careful. I certainly plan to say that all future correspondence should be sent to me at my new school address, and in the next few days I will see if I can get a e-mail account at my new job site ahead of my arrival. Anything else I should be doing out of the ordinary? Mark Winstead winstead@ml.kva.se ------------------------- End of Journal Next week: Your comments and submissions.