*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 1 Issue 24 December 15, 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 Kalin Godev kalin@math.psu.edu , editor for the month of January. Next issue: Wednesday, January 05 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 September was Ed Aboufadel aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu . Editor for October was Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu . Editor for November was Steve Kennedy kennedy@math.stolaf.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 Author Line # ------ ----- ------ ------ 1 Editorial 42 2 News and Notes 59 3 Cuomo Doesn't Get It Edward Aboufadel 67 4 Career List Available Charles Yeomans 91 5 Appointment to AMS Curtis Bennett 104 6 Some Info from Physics Edward Aboufadel 126 7 Personal Advertisements 155 8 Closing Credits 171 _______________________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editorial : Happy Holidays !!!! Hello YM's, this is my last issue as the Editor and also the last issue of CoYM for 1993. I would like to thank all of you for reading Concerns and especially for those who submitted articles. I have enjoyed being your editor and I would say "It's being very (Higher) educational". Hope to see you at Cincinnati Annual Meetings ! Happy New Year !!! Vic Perera Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis vperera@silver.ucs.indiana.edu ________________________________________________________________________ Item #2 News and Notes 1) Due to the holidays, there will be no issues of "Concerns of Young Mathematicians" for Dec. 22 and Dec. 29. Our next issue will be on Jan. 05,1994. Please direct your submissions to Kalin Godev kalin@math.psu.edu). ____________________________________________________________________ Item #3 Cuomo Just Doesn't Get It Government reports have clout! Part of my attention the past two months has been on the report by the Department of Education on gifted and talented students. This was posted on to the Young Scientists Network by Laurence Lurio: A quote from New York State Gov. Mario Cuomo (Albany Times Union, Tues Dec 7, 1993, pA-10): "The U.S. Department of Education has found that the failure to do more for gifted education nationwide has helped create a shortage of Americans with graduate degrees in math and science. This shortage forces major U.S. technology corporations to hire people educated abroad to fill jobs in research. In addition, this shortage of American scientists and mathematicians gives foreign companies opportunities to defeat the United States in the race to bring new high technology products to market. This results in the creation of thousands of jobs abroad, instead of in the United States." Edward Aboufadel Southern Connecticut State University aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu _______________________________________________________________________ Item #4 Career List Available Eliot Jacobson of Ohio University has compiled a list of career paths for undergraduate math majors, other than the usual teaching opportunities. The list was compiled with the help of several people on the Usenet newsgroup sci.math. I have put a copy of the file into our ftp archive ms.uky.edu. Charles Yeomans University of Kentucky cyeomans@s.ms.uky.edu ________________________________________________________________________ Item #5 Appointment to AMS subcommittee This is a brief note to inform our membership that I have accepted an appointment to the subcommittee on Employment Issues and Responsibilities. This is a subcommittee of the recently established AMS committee on the Profession. The goal of the subcommittee is to come up with new ideas on employment issues, raise awareness of the responsibility of graduate schools to their students, etc. The subcommittee has already been active. They are organizing a forum at the April meeting in Brooklyn to discuss issues related to employment and what the AMS's response should be. Several specific issues will be discussed, but to my knowledge, they haven't been precisely decided upon yet. The forum will probably take place for an hour or two on the Saturday afternoon of that meeting. I will post more about the meeting as I know more. Curtis Bennett Bowling Green State University cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu ________________________________________________________________________ Item #6 Some Information from our Friends in Physics The American Institute of Physics does a survey similar to the AMS survey of new doctorates. Jonathan M. Gilligan writes in a recent Young Scientists' Network posting that: According to the American Institute of Physics's 1991-92 survey of Ph.D. recipients in physics, ``The doctoral recipients of the class of 1992 faced such employment difficulties that 10% of them took part-time or temporary (non-postdoctoral) positions.'' Most of these part-time and temporary positions were created by the graduate's department to support him/her temporarily until another position could be secured. Such positions include teaching summer courses and other work that cannot be lumped in with traditional postdoctoral employment. The median monthly salary for physicists taking potentially permanent employment was $3830, a 5% increase from the previous year. The report, ``1991-2 Graduate Student Survey,'' is available free from the American Institute of Physics, Education and Employment Statistics Division, One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740-3843. Edward Aboufadel Southern Connecticut State University aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu ___________________________________________________________________________ Item #7 Personal Advertisements Room Available at Cincinnati: Hi. I've got a 2-bed quad in the cheapest hotel on the list ... I'm arriving on Saturday before the conference so it will be open pretty much all week. (I'm leaving Friday night, but others can stay longer.) I am asthmatic and absolutely can not share with smokers. Barbara Nostrand York University nostrand@mathstat.yorku.ca __________________________________________________________________________ Item #8 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