*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 1 Issue 16 October 20, 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 27 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@ms.uky.edu Back issues and other information are available via anonymous FTP to ftp.ms.uky.edu, in pub3/mailing.lists/ymn-list. 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 Sharon Pedersen: More thoughts on the job market 4 Sharon Pedersen: Thoughts on the Job Register 5 Stephen Penrice: Early Deadlines: A Response 6 Heidi Burgiel: Early Deadlines: A Response 7 Edward Aboufadel: Industrial Research Fellowships 8 Sharon Pedersen: A Clarification 9 Edward Aboufadel: Draft of a Letter to Congress 10 The Chalk Talk Room 11 Closing Credits _______________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editor's notes: I would like to first thank all of you out there who have made submissions to the YMN. I think in general, the submissions have been very good. I have received several comments by email mentioning that people have found the submissions about how hiring is conducted at various universities has been particularly helpful. Another comment to be made is that I have received by personal communication a note to the effect that at least one major research university has changed its job advertizement because of the YMN! The change was minimal but positive. Because of departmental politics, the faculty was unable to restrict the areas mentioned in the ad, but they have made it possible to find out what are the research areas of current faculty members by email. A side comment here, is that I have been informed by another friend that listing a specific faculty member that you would work with is "EXTREMELY HELPFUL" to your application at his university. The reasons given were 1) It showed you did your homework thus showing that your application was not part of the "shotgun approach", and 2) In his experience, he has had applications dropped in his lap that he might never have seen otherwise. My personal experience is that this will help keep your application from being misfiled. My first year out at several universities my application ended up in a topology folder instead of the algebra/group theory folder where it belonged. I am still looking for opinions on the establishment of a research network. I realize that for most people this is not of an immediate concern though. As always, I would like to encourage members to send in submissions. While the editors have solicited articles, the majority of articles are unsolicited, and frequently these are the best articles in any issue. Curtis Bennett Bowling Green State University cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #2 News and notes Stephen Kennedy and I are currently working on several petitions. The first will ask the societies to come out against departments offering positions that exploit young mathematicians. In particular, the 1-year positions that have high teaching loads, low pay and no chance of continued employment. The second will ask the societies to look into creating a sabbatical pool, where nearby schools can pool sabbatical positions (on different years) to create multiple year positions for new Ph.D.s. We (I?) are considering a third asking the societies to look into establishing an employment pool for people looking for one- or two-year positions late in the campaign. A rough outline would be to have something like the internship program assign positions in late April or June. I don't have the details quite worked out on this yet, and would appreciate any ideas. In fact, if any members want to help us with the petitions, please send me email. (cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu) Also, I have been informed that the Chronicle of Higher Education, (Oct.6 issue, p. B-25) has a three college ad directed to "Academic Couples" with math positions at two of the schools. I have not yet checked this out, but I wanted to pass the information along. _______________________________________________________________ Item #3 Sharon Pedersen: More thoughts on the job market Some other thoughts on the academic job market, culled from my own and friends' mistakes and successes: Almost all of the 11 campus interviews I've had (spread over 2 seasons: 1988 and 1991) could be traced to a personal connection of some sort. Either I knew someone at the school in my field, or I'd met a professor at the AMS winter meeting, or the school had hired several people from my graduate school before. Thus I believe in networking as the talisman for getting campus interviews. **** Find out about the schools you apply to, and give them the information they'll need. Your advisor should be able to help you identify which schools care mostly about your research, which care about research but also need a clear statement of teaching goals and abilities, and which care mostly about your teaching. Try to get your references to write different letters for different types of schools. A letter that raves about your research and concludes with the one-liner "I understand X is a good teacher too" won't make a good impression at a teaching school. You might even use different references for different schools. **** For the Job Register, don't wear blue jeans and T-shirts. Most interviewees actually dress quite formally (for academics): jackets & ties for men, nice "office" dresses or suits for women. I don't know if such a formal look is necessary, but then again, Bowdoin is the only campus interview to which I wore a jacket, and look who gave me a job. Don't sell yourself short in interviews, and show an interest in the department. But don't be obnoxiously critical. If they have a high teaching load and little regard for your research, be polite. The time for demands is *after* you have a job offer. **** Get hold of Keith Devlin's column (in MAA Focus a year or so ago? Ed Aboufadel, can you give a better citation?) on what departments want from your application. Try to give them that. (Devlin discussed *focussing* your applications, and not applying to every school in the phone book. I think the more you can do to focus your applications, the better, but I don't yet see a *penalty* to applicants for *also* sending out a stack of "random inquiry" applications to schools they haven't been able to find out much about, given the existence of word processors and the relative cheapness of postage.) **** Before going to a campus interview, or having a phone interview, find out about the school. Guides to graduate schools and colleges can give you a snapshot of the department. The interview is partly for you to find out about the school and department, but I think it looks bad to show up on campus with little knowledge of a school beyond its name. Also, you can use the time so much better if you already know something and can dig for deeper information, than if you always have to be asking for basic background information. You can find out about research interests of people in the department using the AMS membership roster and Math Reviews. It really helps to have MR on CD-ROM for this, making it easy to get abstracts of all research articles written by a given person in the last 5 years. You can then browse the abstracts, and have an idea of someone's area. This way you don't embarrass yourself (as I did once) by being totally unaware that one of your interviewers is one of the top people in a fairly prominent field. You also buy good-will by showing you know about people's interests, and demonstrate a serious interest in the department. Good luck! --Sharon Pedersen pedersen@polar.bowdoin.edu Department of Mathematics, Adams Hall Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine 04011 _______________________________________________________________ Item #4 Sharon Pedersen: Thoughts on the Job Register Some thoughts for those still wondering whether to attend the AMS winter meeting in Cincinnati, and whether to sign up for the Job Register: Find out if schools you're interested in are going to form their short lists, entirely or in part, from applicants they meet at the Winter Meeting. If so, go to the winter meeting. If you are going to the winter meeting, say so in your cover letter when you apply for a job. I think the Job Register offers the opportunity to work on interviewing skills, which will be helpful whether or not you get a job from it. It's maybe not worth attending solely for that reason. However, I also think the Job Register and Winter Meeting provide lots of opportunities to meet people and make an impression. It's probably worth attending for this reason. You're not restricted to the 10 minute Job Register interviews. You can leave notes at the JR and also at the general meeting bulletin board for professors from schools you are particularly interested in and request a meeting. Even if a school is not participating in the Job Register, they may have representatives at the meetings anyway whom you can meet. Plus you can meet a lot of people just going to talks and introducing yourself to your neighbors. I've heard that Bryn Mawr College had 1100 (count them, ELEVEN HUNDRED) applications for one position last year. This either means word processing is cheaper, or the job market is worse, than 1991, when Bowdoin College had 800 applications for 2 positions. What these figures say to me is that simply sending a paper application to a school isn't enough---you need some kind of contact to get a job. --Sharon Pedersen pedersen@polar.bowdoin.edu Department of Mathematics, Adams Hall Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine 04011 _______________________________________________________________ Item #5 Stephen Penrice: Early Deadlines: A Response In the Oct. 13 issue of CYM, Mark Winstead raised the issue of early application deadlines, speculating that some schools are using them to take advantage of the glutted market and attempting to land candidates they normally wouldn't have a shot at. Now that I'm on the other end of the hiring process, I can see the balancing act departments have to do in order to have a successful candidate search. On the one hand, we want to be fair to applicants (and you can be sure that recently hired members of search committees are particularly sensitive to these issues), but we also have to deal with administrators who are eager to cut costs at every opportunity. What this means in terms of deadlines is that some departments may be using an early deadline as a pre-emptive strike against their administration: the longer a position remains unfilled, the greater the chances it will get the ax, or, to put it more positively, once it is filled, we have at least one more person who has gainful employment. The year before I was hired, SUNY-Cortland had two searches halted just before on-campus interviews were to take place, so the department had to limp along for another year at less than full strength. We are trying to avoid that this year. We want to find the best candidates possible, of course, but we don't want people accepting offers out of fear; anyone who does is likely to leave in a few years, and we risk losing yet another line. This is NOT an argument against reforming the hiring process. Indeed, the fact that both applicants and hiring departments are dissatisfied with (and even threatened by) the process shows the deep need for reform. Stephen Penrice penrices@snycorva.cortland.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #6 Heidi Burgiel: Early Deadlines: A Response If a College or University can attract better candidates by sending acceptance letters sooner (and therefore asking for applications earlier), I don't think they will change their policies to make life more convenient for us. In the current job market, there's not much we can do to stop them. Heidi Burgiel University of Washington, Seattle burgiel@math.washington.edu ______________________________________________________________ Item #7 Ed Aboufadel: Industrial Research Fellowships [Ed Aboufadel sent the following to me suggesting its inclusion in the newsletter -ed.] DMS ESTABLISHES INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM FOR POSTDOCS The NSF Division of Mathematical Sciences has recently announced a new program: University-Industry Postdoctoral Research Associateships in the Mathematical Sciences. The program will support 10-15 young (within five years of PhD) mathematical scientists who will each spend approximately half time engaged in research in an industrial setting and half time at a university. The awards are being made to provide opportunities for recent doctoral recipients to broaden their knowledge, experience, and perspectives by exposing them to industrial environments. Proposals are being solicited from university faculty who will serve as mentors to the postdocs. Matching funds from industrial cosponsors must be secured prior to submission of proposals. Proposals are due 13 December 1993. For more information, contact the DMS Office of Special Projects at 202-357-3453. Lisa A. Thompson, Assistant for Governmental Affairs Joint Policy Board for Mathematics, Washington, DC 202/234-9570, FAX 202/462-7877, jpbm@math.umd.edu ______________________________________________________________ Item #8 Sharon Pedersen: A Clarification I said: You're not restricted to the 10 minute Job Register interviews. You can leave notes at the JR and also at the general meeting bulletin board for professors from schools you are particularly interested in and request a meeting. and Curtis Bennett wondered: Did you have any success this way? When I did the register (Baltimore), I got the feeling from the dept. chairs I knew that they really didn't want to deal with that particular way of meeting people. Perhaps this only held true at the research university level. Certainly, asking for more time later to continue an interview makes sense. I just wonder? No, no, for employers who DO use the Job Register, you get a 10 minute soundbite to promote yourself. If they're interested, later in the semester they'll call you for a phone interview or invite you for a campus interview. Unless there's compelling and fascinating mutual interest and they clearly have time to spare, I think it would seem naive, gauche, or ill-prepared to request more time. IF you can't get a JR interview scheduled, then it's appropriate to leave a note asking if another time would work. The new JR algorithm is supposed to be almost certain to grant mutually requested interviews. For employers who DON'T use the JR, obviously the only way to meet with them is by arranging "private" interviews. Many of these schools prescreen their regular applications (not the JR resume book) and send letters to selected candidates saying, "We'll be at the meetings." If you got such a letter, follow it up. This is the situation where even if you didn't get such a letter, it makes sense to find out if they're at the meetings and interested in meeting candidates, and request a meeting anyway. There's a good description of the JR in the October notices; it gives more information than previous descriptions I've seen. Depressingly, it seems that only about 100 campus interviews and 50 job offers were made as a result of Baltimore JR interviews. Given the 7:1 candidate:employer ratio, (they don't reveal the number of employers), this is lower than I would have expected. Though, if there were 100 employers, this means on average that each found 1 candidate for a campus interview from their 30 or 40 JR interviews. What I gather is that lesser colleges, and branch campuses of state universities, use the JR. Most "elite" colleges, and research universities, do not use the JR. The elite colleges use the winter meeting to screen preselected candidates "privately". The research universities know who they want through the research grapevine and don't need the winter meeting at all. My own success in San Francisco was: * 7 to 10 JR interviews, resulting in a couple of phone interviews and no campus interviews. * About 5 "private" interviews, resulting in 3 campus interviews. * 3 of which were the result of running into someone hanging around the JR, (1 friend, 1 name I knew from a "we'll be at the meetings" letter, 1 person I hadn't had contact with before but knew his school as a good school), * 1 of which came from meeting a department chair I knew at a poster session, and * 1 of which came from leaving a note at the message board at the prompting of a friend who had had an interview with the school and found out they wanted a geometer (that was Bowdoin, and the geometer they found was me). The moral might seem to be: avoid the JR. But, if I were in this harsh job market, I wouldn't leave any stones unturned. And, I wouldn't have been as keyed up for interviewing, gotten as much practice, or made as many contacts, if I hadn't been in the JR. These are entirely my own opinions from my experience being a job-hunter. I've never sat on the other side of the table as an interviewer. --Sharon Pedersen pedersen@polar.bowdoin.edu Department of Mathematics, Adams Hall Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine 04011 [The previous article was in response to a personal query I sent to Dr. Pedersen when I received her item in #4. Her previous items missed my deadline for inclusion in last weeks newsletter by about 2 hours. - ed.] ______________________________________________________________ Item #9 Edward Aboufadel: Draft of a Letter to Congress After Curtis Bennett's comments last week about NSF funding, I have drafted a letter to my Congresswoman. I hope that all of you will do the same. I have attached below a modified version of the letter that I am sending out if anyone wants to use it to send to their representative. (One change in my letter: I state that I was a National Needs Fellow.) It is becoming clearer to me that if we want continued funding from the Federal government, we are going to have to make a stonger case for it. Some people have argued to me that we (scientists in general) are in danger of being perceived as just another interest group with its hand out. (To be honest, I wonder sometimes that maybe the perception is accurate, but that's not the point.) Silence is not a good option. Edward Aboufadel aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu ============================================ Dear Congressperson: I understand that Congress is considering changing policy at the National Science Foundation (NSF) pertaining to the funding of mathematicians. In particular, there is a push to invest more money in mathematics, but with bigger grants rather than more grants, the result being that less mathematicians are funded. I am opposed to this idea, and I wish to outline my reasons why. A few years ago, there was a concern that there would be a shortage of mathematicians in the near future. As a result, National Needs grants were established to help American citizens earn Ph. D.'s in mathematics (and in other areas of science, I believe.) The people who took advantage of these grants are now graduating from graduate school. These citizens are now trying to establish careers in mathematics. The proposed change in policy at NSF will make it difficult for these young mathematicians to begin their careers. If grants are going to only a few mathematicians, most likely the money will go to established researchers and not to new researchers. These young mathematicians may end up not being able to do any research at all. In turn, since tenure decisions at universities often depend on a record of NSF funding, more young mathematicians will be denied tenure. Given the "National Need" for mathematicians, I do not believe that this is what Congress intends. The new policy is also 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. Diverse areas of mathematical research need to be funded. To concentrate funding in only a few areas of mathematics, on only a few people, may cause more harm than good. I believe we should strive to fund many people with a little money rather than a few people with a lot of money. A policy such as this will strengthen mathematical research and will support the newest generation of mathematicians at a critical time. Sincerely, Pierre Fermat, Ph. D. _______________________________________________________________ Item #10 The Chalk Talk Room No items this week. _______________________________________________________________ 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