*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 1 Issue 21 November 24, 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 Vic Perera vperera@silver.ucs.indiana.edu , editor for the month of December. Next issue: Wednesday, December 1. Editor for December will be Vic Perera (vperera@silver.ucs.indiana.edu). Editor for January will be Kalin Godev (kalin@math.psu.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. Editor for August was Kalin Godev (kalin@math.psu.edu). Editor for September was Ed Aboufadel (aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu) Editor for October was Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu The opinions expressed herein are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of the YMN or the editorial board. Table of Contents Item # Title ------ ----- 1 Editorial: Happy Thanksgiving 2 News and Notes 3A Barbara Leasher: Job Ads in Concerns 3B Kenton Yee: Job Ads in Concerns 4 Pengyuan Chen: Advice to Undergrads 5 Paul Humke: Making the First Cut 6 Steve Kennedy: AMS Task Force on Employment 7 Closing Credits _______________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editorial: Happy Thanksgiving This is my last issue as editor, thank you all for reading. Thanks especially to those of you who submitted items and articles, I'd like to encourage the several hundred readers who have yet to write in to join the discussion. I think that we are accomplishing something towards making the experience of being a young mathematician less painful just by conducting this conversation: I have a friend who refers to us as the YBM (young bitching mathematicians). Even if this were all that we were about, that wouldn't be bad. If all that we accomplish is to give some frustrated YM's a forum to blow off some steam and get a little sympathy, encouragement and advice, then we will be doing good. I believe that we are doing more than this. I believe that we are making a difference in the mathematics community: we are raising consciousnesses to the difficulties faced by YMs and we are stimulating reform. I think we can, and will, improve conditions for future YMs. Steve Kennedy St. Olaf College kennedy@math.stolaf.edu ____________________________________________________________________ Item #2 News and Notes a) The November Notices of the AMS contains the first report of the annual Survey of New Doctorates. U.S. institutions awarded 1202 Ph.D.'s last year, an increase of 14.5% from last year's fall count. I wonder if this indicates that many people delayed their graduation a year, hoping to find a more hospitable market. The unemployment rate of new Ph.D.'s whose status was known was 12.4% (129 of 1043). There are 159 people whose status is not known; I suspect that the employment picture in that group is even worse than for the people who aren't lost. The contract status of 276 of the new doctorates employed by academic institutions is known: 53% (144) are in nontenure-eligible positions. Extrapolating to the whole population of 525 new doctorates in academic positions, we get 278 people in nontenure-eligible positions (if we take into account the fact that nontenure-eligible positions are more prevalent in doctorate-granting departments, we get 257 people who will be back in the job market very soon). One last depressing gleaning: "Rates of faculty attrition due to deaths and retirements are currently relatively high, and levels of recruitment have declined substantially for at least two successive years." There are a couple of bright spots: women Ph.D.'s were at an all-time high, both in absolute numbers (145) and as a percentage of all Ph.D.'s (28%). Also, people are apparently having some success finding non-academic employment--167, highest level since computer science stopped being included in the count. b) Speaking of non-academic employment: SIAM has published a report: "How to Start an Industrial Mathematics Program in the University." Presumably such programs would increase the industrial marketability of a mathematics Ph.D. (see item #5). c) Vic Perera (vperera@silver.ucs.indiana.edu) is editor for the month of December--please send all submissions to him. _____________________________________________________________________ Item #3A Barbara Leasher: Job Ads in Concerns I also feel that job ads are inappropriate here, for perhaps the same reason as the apostrophe in Young Mathematicians' Network. I think of YMN as being for us to support and advise each other, not as another (free) medium for departments to contact us. Of course we should welcome and solicit advice and support from established mathematicians, but as individuals. Even individuals speaking on behalf of organizations fit in, but somehow a job ad seems to be a message straight from the bureaucracy, if you know what I mean. Barbara Leasher bal9w@virginia.edu Department of Mathematics University of Virginia _____________________________________________________________________ Item #3B Kenton Yee: Job Ads in Concerns Of course, if there are enough of these exploitative positions and all of them are well advertised, then even these employers will have to raise their standards to compete against each other... Kenton Yee kyee@rouge.phys.lsu.edu ____________________________________________________________________ Item #4 Pengyuan Chen: Should We Discourage the Grad School Bound? How should we advise our undergraduate majors on graduate studies in mathematics? The title question has been puzzled me recently. Let me explain why. I teach at an undergraduate liberal arts college and often find myself in a dilemma when it comes to advising my students on matters about graduate studies in mathematics. On one side, given the tough job market that most (Can I use "most" here?) math Ph.D.'s are facing today and will most likely continue to face in a foreseeable future, I am kind of reluctant to push students into graduate studies in mathematics because I would not want to see them joining an ever growing army of math Ph.D.'s who have to agonize through the placement process and have difficulties in landing a decent job just to keep the body and soul together after 4-6 years of nearly hair-losing graduate work. On the other side, I consider it a duty as a mathematician to promote and further the profession by attracting the best possible people into mathematics. Also if the colleges and universities in the U.S. can not attract more students into mathematics and send more students to study math in the graduate schools, the percentage of math Ph.D.'s who are U.S. citizens will likely drop further resulting in even larger percentage of foreign-born math Ph.D.'s (of which I myself am one), which I understand is not a pleasant picture. The way I have been struggling with the dilemma is this. When students come to seek my advice on career opportunities and graduate study in math, I always try to candidly inform them about the difficult reality that mathematics as a profession is facing and the kind of job market out there for new Ph.D.'s at present and at least in the near future. Except for truly mathematically talented and devoted students, I would encourage them to consider careers in mathematics-related or mathematics-based disciplines such as computer science, statistics, operations research, economics, etc. I know many colleages in many math departments still consider sending as many as possible students to pursue math Ph.D. a high priority. I am not sure that is most appropriate at the present time. Should the difficulies that our profession is facing have any implications on our missions and priorities in undergraduate mathematical education? What do market signals bear upon in this regards? I would like to know what other people in similar situations do and how to resolve the dilemma. Pengyuan Chen Gustavus Adolphus College chen@gac.edu (Pengyuan Chen) _______________________________________________________________________ Item #5 Paul Humke: Making the First Cut Introduction The solution to ``What does one look for in an application?'' is not unique, but rather depends on several boundary conditions including who is doing the looking, what position is being filled and at which school that position is located. In this note I'll assume I'm on the hiring committee at St. Olaf College {Something that's happened eight or nine times in the past thirteen years!} and we're trying to hire a recent Ph.D. for a regular (tenure track) position and have not specified a particular mathematical area for this position. In what follows I'll overview our hiring process, explain how and when the first cut is made, detail what I look for in evaluating candidates, and finally indicate what I look for in application materials. I've written this essay in the first person because different people look for different things. On the other hand, we at St. Olaf, do discuss hiring in some detail and there is overall agreement on the fundamental issues. What follows though is my perspective and not that of my department. An Overview of the Hiring Process At St. Olaf, like most good liberal arts colleges, the process of searching for a new faculty member begins the year before the position is advertised. During the spring before, the department discusses the details of the pre-search and reviews how we wish to advertise and what we will advertise for. A hiring committee is set up to handle the logistic details of the search and to see that the process proceeds in a timely fashion. Roughly, our timetable is: *Get the Ads Out September, our ads are mailed. We advertise in the Employment Information for the Mathematical Sciences, Focus, Notices of the Amer. Math. Soc., AWM Newsletter and others. *Applications Arrive In the main, the only activity that occurs during the fall is that the applications arrive, files are made for each applicant and reminder notes are sent to make sure the files are completed. Individuals {In our department, files are available to all mathematics faculty.} may look at some files, but most faculty are busy with teaching, research and the general stuff of running a mathematics program have little time for reading files. After Thanksgiving, the hiring process begins to rise to the surface, but it is not really front burner until the middle of December. *The First Winnowing December 15, or thereabouts is when this is done. A top group of about 25 emerges After this first cut every application is measured against the top group. More important, applications received but not in the top group are rarely elevated. It is therefore very important that applicants pay close attention to the early application process so that they continue to be considered after mid December. Note that mid December is not a deadline for our applications {We consider all applications up to the time our position is filled.} but it tends to be an important time in the selection process. We call each of our top group and discuss the position with them. We also inquire as to whether they will attend the Joint National Meeting of the A.M.S.-M.A.A. in January and if they are we schedule a meeting with them. We try to further cut the top group to about 15. *The January Meeting We meet as many of the top group as we can. {We use meals for such meetings as well as other times. Generally we'll have 10 or 15 faculty at the January meeting and split the interviewing between those attending.} We often use the Employment Register. Although we do use this service, we have found it to be an inefficient use of our time and resources. It is unusual for someone to first contact us at the Employment Register and to emerge in the top group; it has happened though. *The End of January Amidst a flurry of meetings the top group is further winnowed to about four or five and finally to the three people we'll invite for interviews. All the information we've gathered thus far, application materials, letters of recommendation, phone conversations and personal meetings is discussed and decisions are made. Interviews are scheduled for the second or third week of February. *The End Game We try to schedule interviews very compactly; specifically, we try to have all candidates interview within a ten day period. Immediately at the end of the interview period we meet as a department and decide to whom we will offer a contract. The Dean actually makes the official offer, but this is done within a week of the interviews. {Assuming there are no delays AND the Dean is in town!} We try to complete hiring by the first week in March and usually succeed. Making the First Cut I think it is the December decision which is the most crucial for any applicant. If your file is one of the top group we will seek you out and you will be in the running for our position. If you do not make the top group your chances are slim (but not zero). Moreover, our December decision is based entirely on your application materials and on the letters of recommendation. Here is what I look for: *You know about the kind of place St. Olaf is and YOU WANT US. We have money for three or perhaps four interviews. We waste our time and compromise our ability to hire a good person by interviewing people who are really excited about another kind of position, but will settle for St. Olaf. We know people are applying to 100 schools or more and are not unsympathetic to their situation. However, our job is to hire someone who will flourish at St. Olaf College. This is who we look for. Even applicants who have a good record at good schools but who have no knowledge of who we are or what we do are at a significant disadvantage. *You are a Star in the Classroom This is the single most important trait to your being successful at St. Olaf and we look for evidence in your application. It is important to know that I don't mean ``good'' or ``adequate'', but that you're a great teacher, knowledgeable and compassionate, able to pull the very best from your students while inspiring them to continue their work in our discipline. *You like students and it shows. Strange as it seems to me, many people in our profession really don't like their students. Often praising mythical legendary students of old they have no time for the real stuff of education; a mix of technical expertise, high standards, compassion and an affinity for working with people in an educational setting. *You Have Some Mathematical Pizazz Teaching at St. Olaf is high intensity and high energy so it's important you thrive in that kind of environment. We do much more with students than occurs in the classroom. We need creative people who will work energetically with others to keep our department a dynamic and interesting place to be. *You Have Established a Research Program By this I mean that you've done more than prove some theorems, but you know how your work fits in, you have some problems you're currently working on and you know where to find more. What you have done is not as important to me as whether you have established yourself as part of the research community. At St. Olaf you'll be mathematically isolated so having established a program of research is a great advantage. You like your work. Many new mathematicians are ``burned out'' by their dissertation work. And ``burn out'' happens, but I'd prefer someone who can hardly wait to publish their next paper. *You Would Get A's in ``Works and Plays Well With Others'' We're a small place and need people who can shoulder their share of the load uncomplainingly. What do I Look for in an Application? *Cover Letter This cover letter should be no longer than a page {If possible!!} and should inform us about who you are, where you're from and why you're applying to St. Olaf. This letter should be well thought out and carefully crafted; it is the first thing read and sets the tone for everything else in your application. *Resume Keep you resume professional by not cluttering it up with every grade school award you've won. But do put in ALL university academic awards, all academic jobs you've held, and all professional papers you've written and lectures you've given. Your dissertation title and thesis advisor are important pieces of information not always provided. An ``Other Interests'' category helps give context to who you are mathematically and I think including it is a good idea. *Research Program Description Write a short (2 page) essay on your research area and how your work fits in. Keep in mind that topologists, operations researchers, algebraists and even real analysts will all be reading this essay. *Teaching Statement Why are you interested in teaching? What are your goals for yourself as a teacher of mathematics? A well constructed couple of pages can let us know what you're thinking is on teaching. And we are interested in what you think! {But perhaps not at the 10 page level!!} *Letters of Recommendation (We ask for = 3.) One letter should address your teaching in some depth. A graduate student advisor who has visited you class once or twice in three years is not your best choice. {I hope it's not your only choice!} Discuss teaching with the person(s) writing your teaching letter(s) before they write for you. Make certain your letter writer values teaching as well as research. What your references write about your teaching and what they don't write is read carefully here. Your advisor's letter should address the theorems you've proved and why they're interesting mathematics. You advisor should also address your creativity, work ethic and general knowledge of your field etc. Some advisor letters tend to be self- congratulatory rather than frank appraisals of a new mathematician and their work; such letters are less than helpful. A third letter should be from someone who knows your work and is familiar with your teaching. It is most helpful if this person can give some perspective on how you balance these two. As I reread this letter it appears that I'm looking for the perfect applicant and I suspect there is some truth in this. It is not what I expect to find, however. Rather, what I've described are some of the things which I look for in applications and some things you can do to help me find them. I wish your luck this year to be huge! Paul D. Humke St. Olaf College humke@stolaf.edu [editor's note: This article is one of a series of articles on this topic solicited by the editorial board. We are grateful to Prof. Humke for providing it. The original article was submitted in LATEX, and I tried to reproduce the format as faithfully as possible here. I apologize for any errors or strangenesses I introduced (I used { } to enclose remarks that were footnotes in the original). ____________________________________________________________________ Item #6 Steve Kennedy: AMS Task Force on Employment A couple of weeks ago the editorial board was discussing asking the AMS to conduct a study of long-term prospects for employment. In fact, I wrote an editorial calling for just that; before it could appear, we learned that the AMS has already done so. In July 1992, the AMS published "Employment and the U.S. Mathematics Doctorate: Report of the AMS Task Force on Employment." It makes for sobering reading. The Task Force spent some time investigating the causes of the employment problem; we all could guess what they found. From the Executive Summary: "The factors creating today's tight market are reduced hiring by departments because of the current economic recession, the sudden availability of highly qualified foreign nationals from former Soviet bloc countries, and the increase in the supply of doctorates in the mathematical sciences in the last two years." They also surveyed 40 doctorate-granting departments about their hiring for the academic year `91-`92 (this survey appeared in the April 1992 Notices pp. 331-316, and is Appendix A to the Task Force report). The major finding of the Task Force (again, from the Executive Summary): "The task force projects that the U.S. job market will demand around 800 new mathematical sciences doctorates per year over the next 10 to 15 years from the nation's doctorate-granting mathematical science programs." It is worthwhile to examine the assumptions upon which this prediction is based, and the report itself emphasizes that wildly variant projections are possible if we perturb the assumptions. Academia is the major consumer of math Ph.D.'s, and the report identified three factors affecting availability of faculty positions: i) Attrition due to death and retirement annually ranges from 1.5% to 2% of total faculty. Demographics of current faculty do not indicate that this will change very much in the next 15 years. ii) Attrition for other reasons has historically been of the same order of magnitude as that due to death and retirement. iii) Increased college enrollments of about 1% per year after 1994. There are approximately 16,000 full-time doctoral faculty in mathematics/statistics in four-year colleges and universities. The report assumes 2% of these positions will open every year due to i), another 2% due to ii), and a 1% growth in the number of positions due to iii) (not compounded). This gives a total of 800 faculty openings each year. Historically, 63% of openings are filled by new doctorates (~500 of 800). Further, about 36% of new doctorates have historically taken jobs outside the academic sector. So there should exist approximately 500 academic jobs for new Ph.D.'s and approximately 300 non-academic jobs each year. These assumptions can and should be questioned. For example, the 1993 Annual Survey of New Doctorates (AMS Notices, Nov. 1993, pp. 1164-1175) states: "However, data reported in the 1992 Second Report show that many faculty positions being vacated by death, incentive retirements, and other retirements are simply not being filled. Rates of faculty attrition due to deaths and retirements are currently relatively high,..." Despite this higher than normal attrition, the total U.S. job market for new Ph.D.'s last year (academic and non-academic) amounted to 721 positions, a deficit of 10% from the report projections. Even if we accept the prediction of a demand for 800 new Ph.D.'s per year there still exists a major problem: last year U.S. institutions granted 1202 Ph.D.'s, in the last five years 5258 Ph.D.'s were awarded -- a 1051/year average. Where do we expect these people to go? There is, perhaps, little the AMS can do to decrease these numbers, but the report does not even mention the possibility of trying. There is also no effort made in the direction of predicting how many Ph.D.'s will be awarded in the immediate future: it should have been possible to survey the graduate schools for graduation projections for the next couple of years. The numbers of Ph.D.'s awarded in each of the past five years are: 919, 950, 1125, 1062, 1202 (this last number is a fall count, which probably undercounts by 1% or 2%). Are these numbers still on the way up? Who (and how many) is in the pipeline? The report does make some worthwhile suggestions for ameliorating the problem both short- and long-term. Most of the short-term suggestions involve improving the functioning of the Employment Register and trying to facilitate and encourage the finding of non-academic employment. Many of these suggestions have since been implemented by the AMS. Of course, as long as we produce 200-400 surplus Ph.D.'s each year there will always be a huge amount of pain associated with finding mathematical employment, no matter how efficient we make the process. The long-term initiatives are intended to address this problem. There are four categories of recommendation: 1. Change graduate education to: develop teaching and communication skills, promote and expand professional masters' degree programs, and promote internship programs to expand interest and opportunities for non-academic employment. 2. Create more postdocs: especially those which combine traditional research with other forms of professional development (curriculum reform, interaction with industry and other disciplines). 3. Expand non-academic employment market: promote industrial internships to convince industry of the value of hiring mathematicians. 4. Expand academic employment market: the report notes that teaching loads have been much reduced since the `60's, but at the cost of larger class size and heavy use of TAs instead of enlarged faculties. "Today there are few universities where the quality of lower-level mathematics instruction is not heavily criticized." ... "Departments would do well to examine whether they could make the case for more regular faculty." ... "Between 1970 and 1990 the mathematics enrollments per faculty member increased by approximately 13 percent." I do not know what steps the AMS has taken to implement any of these long-term suggestions. (But, see item #2b.) All seem to have some promise and are worth pursuing. There are some depressing lowlights in the report -- I'll mention a couple. On page 10 we read " `...we must make fundamental changes in the nature of graduate work in mathematics which will prepare most of our students for something other than academic life.' " This was written, by Gail Young, during the last employment crisis in 1971. Will it be heeded this time? The report also notes that depending on academia as a nearly exclusive employer narrows employment prospects and "restricts the size of income." This sounds remarkably prescient when you consult the Survey of New Doctorates in the November Notices and learn that the median salary for a new Ph.D. this year is lower than it was a year ago. The report also notes the preponderance of temporary, non-tenure eligible positions for new Ph.D.'s and predicts that "it will haunt the employment market over the next several years." In particular, the hiring survey conducted by the task force of 40 Group I, II, and III departments in `91-`92 found that these 40 institutions hired 214 people that year -- 148 (69%) were temporary of whom 79 (37%!!) were hired for only one year. Jim Maxwell and Elizabeth Foulkes of the AMS are working on posting an electronic copy of this report on e-MATH (hard copies are in limited supply). Once it is posted, instructions on obtaining it will appear here. Steve Kennedy kennedy@stolaf.edu ___________________________________________________________________ Item #7 Closing Credits The Young Mathematicians' Network is administered by: Charles Yeomans cyeomans@s.ms.uky.edu Mark Winstead winstead@ml.kva.se Vic Perera vperera@silver.ucs.indiana.edu 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