*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 1 Issue 15 October 13, 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 Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu , editor for the month of October. Next issue: Wednesday, October 20 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 and other information are available via anonymous FTP to ftp.ms.uky.edu, in pub3/mailing.lists/ymn-list. This includes a file containing successful NSF postdoc proposals in Grants.info. Editor for the month of August was Kalin Godev (kalin@math.psu.edu). Editor for the month of September was Ed Aboufadel (aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu) Publication will be weekly for now, and increase when appropriate. Table of Contents Item # Title ------ ----- 1 Editor's notes 2 News and notes 3 Catherine Roberts: National Meeting Panel 4 Mark Winstead: Overhead 5 Curtis Bennett: NSF funding fewer mathematicians 6 Mark Winstead: Early Application Deadlines 7 Nicolas Robidoux: Response to #9b of Vol 1, (14) 8 Lynn Kiaer: Response to #9a of Vol 1, (14) 9 Brian Borchers: Response to #9a of Vol 1, (14) 10 The Chalk Talk Room a) Curtis Bennett 11 Closing Credits _______________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editor's notes: Last week I announced the availability of successful NSF postdoc proposals by anonymous ftp. There seems to have been a SNAFU in the system at the time and several of you were unable to get the files. I apologize for the difficulty, and the files should be available now. Some of you may have noticed that I submitted something last week (and this week) in addition to the Editor's notes. I am doing this because I wish to reserve this space for myself speaking as an editor, not as a member. We are always looking for volunteers to help administer the YMN, but because we are all unelected volunteers, none of the administrators has any standing to speak for the YMN. Curtis Bennett Bowling Green State University cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #2 News and notes We will have members as invited participants of several panel discussions at the Cincinnati meetings. I will be participating in the "AMS-MAA-SIAM Committee on Employment Opportunities-Young Mathematicians Network Panel Discussion" on Friday January 14 from 5:00-6:15 pm. Mark Winstead will also be participating on an Association for Women in Mathematics panel titled: "Are women getting all the jobs?". This discussion will be held on Wednesday at 3:20 pm. In addition, member Catherine Roberts (see #3) will be a panelist on Saturday. I personally encourage members to show up at these discussion groups. For my own benefit, at the *end* of the month, I will begin asking for members to send their concerns to me so that I can prepare my presentation. Additionally, I will be trying to get a general survey of our membership for my presentation. Finally, the response, so far, on the need for a research "singles" network is small. If you have an opinion, please let us know. Several good questions have been raised concerning research issues in general, and in a week or two, I will summarize them all. _______________________________________________________________ Item #3 Catherine Roberts: National Meeting Panel I've been asked to serve on a panel during the January Joint Meetings in Cincinnati which will discuss the future of AMS-MAA National Meetings. I've been asked to represent the views of those of us who are new to the mathematics community. This being the case, I welcome any insights or suggestions you have regarding the question: "How can the National Meetings address the issues, concerns and interests of the newest members of the mathematics community more effectively?" Feel free to send your ideas to me directly or to show up at the panel discussion on Saturday January 15 at 2:15 to air your own views. Thanks. Catherine Roberts Asst. Prof. at University of Rhode Island Ph.D. from Northwestern University 1992 roberts@cs.uri.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #4 Mark Winstead: Overhead I recently participated in a conversation about the role of the NSF in funding, and I found the views of one participant, lets call him "Jim", very enlighting. My memory being what it is, much of this is probably paraphrased. Jim: Those of us receiving NSF grants say we would do the research anyway without the grants. Fine, let's do and put the money where it would do more good, with more postdocs and with funding conferences. The NSF would pay all traveling and lodging expenses to these conferences. Understand that Jim is a tenured professor and has benefited from NSF grants for more than a decade. He received his degree in 1978. Again, Jim: The real reason that the flat rate funding proposal failed was that the top ten schools in the country think that the purpose of the NSF is to fund the top ten schools in the country. (Directing his comments at me, now) Mark, I hope that someone proposes the flat rate again and now that there is a more unified voice for young mathematicians, I believe it would be adopted. Jim, for your information, is not at a top ten school. One last comment from Jim: I would like to see the NSF or the AMS review the grant proposals of young people, and if we can't fund them, let's at least give them so sort of formal pat on the back. Perhaps such approval would help those working on hard problems who don't yet have a lot to publish. (Earlier in the conversation, we discussed the fact that attacking a very hard problem which may take years to resolve can be career damaging to a young mathematician at places that want to see publications before granting tenure.) Mark Winstead _______________________________________________________________ Item #5 Curtis Bennett NSF funding fewer mathematicians! I have heard from unnamed sources that Congress is pushing the NSF to fund fewer mathematicians with more money. I see this as something we may want to think about addressing. In particular, we could start a letter writing campaign or a petition to members of Congress. Let me outline a few of the reasons I feel we should be concerned. 1) This will decrease the likelihood of any young mathematician getting an NSF grant. If grants are going to only a few mathematicians, we are not likely to get them. This in turn will hurt the tenure chances of any mathematician at a university requiring a record of NSF funding for tenure. 2) Fewer Universities will have faculty with NSF funding. This in turn decreases the value of the math department to the university. NSF overhead money makes a department more valuable to the university, and as a result leads to more positions. A decrease in overhead money is likely to lead to a decrease in positions. At present, faculty at many different research universities receive grants. A decrease in the number is not good. 3) This is bad for mathematical research in general. It is very hard to determine what mathematical research will prove valuable in the future. Hardy claimed that number theory would never find a use in warfare. Coding theory proved him wrong. We should strive to fund many people with a little money rather than a few people with a lot of money. This is not a question of should mathematical and scientific research should be funded, nor is it a question of should the NSF pay overhead costs to universities, which I am not sure it should. It is rather a question of how this funding should be distributed amongst the mathematical research community. On that question, I think Congress is wrong and should be informed as to the reasons why. Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #6 Mark Winstead: Early Application Deadlines At first I thought it was my imagination, but I no longer believe so. This year there is a definite increase in early deadlines for applications. This increase though seems to be limited to non-Ivies and other top schools for the most part. I wonder if it is the case that some schools are exploiting the market by rushing to get out offers to candidates that might not otherwise be available to them if they waited, thus they put the candidate who receives the offer in a interesting dilemma: He/she expects that better offers are coming, but nothing's guaranteed. The department that does this thus increases the quality of its hirees. Just another sign that reform is needed in the hiring process? Or is it still my imagination? Last year I mailed out applications in mid- November and only missed one deadline that I would have liked to have made, this year doing the same thing will result in missing a half dozen or more deadlines. Anyone want to defend the early deadliners? Mark Winstead _______________________________________________________________ Item #7 Nicolas Robidoux: Response to 9b Pat Knupp asked whether the rumors about some engineering departments hiring mathematicians are true. I do not know about any present hiring, but a few years back a former classmate of mine with a PhD in numerical analysis got a position at the largest engineering "department" in Canada, l'Ecole Polytechnique de l'Universite' de Montre'al. There, if I am not mistaken, most of the mathematics classes are taught by people on the payroll of the Ecole and not the university mathematics department. Note that this school is yet another example of imperialistic French speaking people requiring classes to be taught in their mother tongue. Nicolas Robidoux ______________________________________________________________ Item #8 Lynn Kiaer: Response to #9a Anonymous Question of 6 October I received my Ph.D. (in applied math) in June 1992, a couple of months before my 38th birthday, so I suspect that I am in a similar situation to that of the anonymous questioner. I suspect that the lack of response I received from research institutions may have had something to do with my age, but then, there just aren't that many of those positions out there, so maybe that was not a factor. I do know that at several schools that emphasize undergraduate teaching, my age was viewed as a positive, and in many ways I think that continues to be the case after a year. I seem to be accepted along with my age peers rather than my experience peers. Everyone is different, but I suspect that as long as you have a positive attitude about your age, so will most other people. We did a search last year, and this year I am on the committee for the search for a new chair. My impression is that we would be unlikely to read a date of birth on the transcript unless we had already decided to interview the candidate. We read the candidate's letter first - and with most interest - and then the letters of recommendation. The transcript is mostly just to determine additional areas of possible expertise. Lynn Kiaer Assistant Professor of Mathematics Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology Terre Haute, IN 47802 kiaer@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu ______________________________________________________________ Item #9 Brian Borchers: A reply to item #9a in volume 1, issue 14. In response to item #9a in volume 1, issue 14... Having spent a year on a search committee, I can say that we did look at the transcripts of all of the new PhD's that we considered interviewing. However, I doubt that I would have noticed an applicants birth date. In any case, the age of the applicants simply wasn't an issue. Furthermore, there are federal laws that forbid discrimination against persons who are over 40 years old. Having said that, I've heard of cases in which applicants for an academic position sued the institution on the grounds of age discrimination. Brian Borchers borchers@nmt.edu Department of Mathematics 505-835-5813 New Mexico Tech Socorro, NM 87801 ______________________________________________________________ Item #10 The Chalk Talk Room Item #10a Curtis Bennett I have a question that is directed to many out there. How do you go about finding jobs not in academia? My first year out I started searching in industry until I finally got an offer at a university, but short of going to the University of Chicago's Career and Placement office I had no idea what to do. As a faculty member, I would like to be able to direct graduate students and help them search for jobs not just in academia, but also in industry. What suggestions do I give them? Curtis Bennett _______________________________________________________________ Item #11 Closing Credits The Young Mathematicians' Network is administered by: Charles Yeomans cyeomans@s.ms.uky.edu Mark Winstead winstead@ml.kva.se Franklin Mendivil mendivil@math.gatech.edu Stephen Kennedy kennedy@stolaf.edu Kalin Godev kalin@math.psu.edu Neil Calkin calkin@math.gatech.edu Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu Jeff Adams adams@bright.uoregon.edu Edward Aboufadel aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu _______________________________________________________________ End of Journal -- Next week: The Discussion Continues