*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 2 Issue 1 January 5, 1994 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 12 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 October was Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu . Editor for November was Steve Kennedy kennedy@math.stolaf.edu . Editor for December was Vic Perera vperera@silver.ucs.indiana.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 ------ ----- ------ 1 Editorial 2 News and Notes Summary on Personals Cary Timar 3 Announcement of a summer intern program Tom Kurtz 4 Career List Available Charles Yeomans 5 Member-at-large of the AMS Council Ben Lotto 6 Collaboration with MAA Ken Ross 7 Liberal Arts Colleges What to Expect and What is Expected Stan Wagon 8 Closing Credits _______________________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editorial: "1994" Ten years after the predicted nightmare, the world is confident that Orson Wells was wrong. Wrong, turned out to be the predicted shortages in Math Ph.D.'s and I am happy that the number of "myth sightings" in 1993 was small and mostly attributed to people not so closely associated with the hiring process. From talking to a large number of people I got the impression that the situation is starting to improve. This is hear-say and I am sure everyone is anxious to see the results of the AMS meeting. A number of positive signs indicate that things are starting to change in the right direction. Ph.D. and Master's advisors are becoming more involved in securing a job for their students. A variety of new programs are under way, that could possibly lead to more jobs (see also Item #3). One such program is the initiative of NSF (summer of 1993) -- a new type of a hybrid Post Doctoral program that requires the candidate to spend part time at an industry location and part time at a university. The term of this postdoc is up to 5 years and the funding comes from NSF, the host department and the respective industry location. The deadline for 1994 was unfortunately the middle of last December. Another excellent initiative is the creation of the so called Master's in Industrial Mathematics degree. Its mixed curriculum targets particular needs of specific industries and it is believed that holders of the degree have good chances to start a career in Industry. Since these programs are under development I will not mention the names of the schools , but instead will try to solicit input from faculty, involved in the implementation. Encouraging is the report of the Board on Mathematical Sciences, "Mathematical research in Material Science - Opportunities and Perspectives" National Academy Press, Washington D.C. 1993 Especially interesting is the section on recommendations to Industry (page 101): " Industrial firms should employ young mathematical scientists as consultants, making a long-term, several year commitment (as some firms currently do for young engineering faculty); ..." Copies of this report are available from National Academy Press 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418 A discouraging observation is that there are still quite a few fixed term positions - almost like a "dead-end one-way street". Also, disturbing is the fact that some of the fixed term positions are just for a semester. I hope this is just a temporary phenomenon -- a quick fix for the problem of placing the unemployed graduates. I hope that this year YMN will expand, mature more, realize its political power and make an honest effort to collaborate with other professional organizations in order to solve some of the current problems that face us. The Editor ________________________________________________________________________ Item #2 News and Notes Summary of Roommate Matching From: cctimar@athena.cas.Vanderbilt.Edu (Cary Timar) In the December 8 issue, I offered a roommate matching-service for the Joint Meetings. Now that the matching is mostly finished, here is a summary. A total of twelve people replied, including both men and women, all non-smokers. Most of them have been matched in some way. I think that a similar service might be a good idea for future large meetings. For meetings attracting fewer than 1000 people, the service will probably only work if it is offered through more specific mailing lists. In my opinion, the moderators should probably allow announcements for such services to appear in the CYM, but probably not allow every individual request for roommates. I have some notes for coordinating a service like this, which I've made available through the FTP archive. -- Cary Timar, Mathematics Department, Vanderbilt University ____________________________________________________________________ Item #3 Announcement of summer intern program From: "Thomas G. Kurtz" kurtz@math.wisc.edu Tom Kurtz, University of Wisconsin - Madison Below is an announcement that may be of interest to some of your readers. The program, which is in its third year, was invented in direct response to the difficult job market and the fact that many capable young researchers are isolated from centers of activity in their fields. The program is indicative of the fact that both NSF and many of us old folk are aware of and concerned about the career development of young mathematicians! ANNOUNCEMENT Center for the Mathematical Sciences University of Wisconsin - Madison Summer Internships in Probability and Stochastic Processes NSF funding is anticipated continuing support for the summer internship program for recent PhD recipients in probability and stochastic processes. The program will again be held at the Center for the Mathematical Sciences at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. The objective of the internship program is to stimulate and enhance the scientific development of capable young researchers. Opportunities will be provided for day-to-day interaction with senior researchers from the University of Wisconsin, access to the major research library and other research facilities of the University, opportunities to establish continuing contacts and collaboration with other participants in the program, and advice and support in developing long-term research plans. The seven-week program will begin June 27, 1994 and run through August 12. The program this summer will be directed by M. Bramson, D. Griffeath, C. Neuhauser, and R. Pemantle of the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Attention will be focused on probability theory and its application to mathematical physics and biology. Likely topics include percolation theory, interacting particle systems, random cellular automata, critical exponents, and population genetics. Featured speakers will be Professors Geoffrey Grimmett (Cambridge University), Gregory Lawler (Duke University), and Simon Tavare (University of Southern California). WHO MAY APPLY An applicant must have received a PhD in some area of probability or stochastic processes since January, 1989. In order to receive funding, an applicant must also be a US citizen or permanent resident, or hold a tenure or tenure-track position at a US college or university. Individuals whose regular position is isolated from active research groups in probability and stochastic processes are particularly encouraged to apply. INFORMATION AND APPLICATION MATERIALS For further information and application forms write Probability Intern Program Center for the Mathematical Sciences University of Wisconsin-Madison 1308 West Dayton Street Madison, WI 53715-1149 e-mail pip@cms.wisc.edu, or call T. Kurtz at (608) 263-4659. All materials must be received by March 1, 1994 in order to ensure full consideration. Materials may be submitted by electronic mail. Selection of participants should be completed by April 1. _______________________________________________________________________ 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 I decided to run this one again since it came out just before the holidays. The Editor ________________________________________________________________________ Item #5 Member-at-large of the AMS Council From: BeLotto@vaxsar.vassar.edu (Ben Lotto) Dear YMN community: I've already submitted a mini-history of my professional history to YMN (issue 20) and mentioned there that I was thinking of running for Member-at-large of the AMS council on a young mathematician's platform. Well, I've decided to do it. If you're interested in getting me on the ballot, I could use your help. There are nominating petitions in the latest issue of the Notices of the AMS (December 1993 issue) on page 1374. I need 100 signatures of AMS members to get me on the ballot. One note: they are very fussy about names. You must use the form of your name as it appears in the Combined Membership List or on the AMS mailing list for your entry to count. Make sure that anyone who signs is aware of this! In particular, my name (at the top of the petition) should read "Benjamin A. Lotto." When you fill a petition, you can send it to me (address below) or right to the AMS. I have a slight preference that you send it to me so I can keep track of who is signing and how many signatures I have. If you have any comments, thoughts, etc. about this idea, I am happy to receive and consider them. Many thanks for your help! -- Ben Lotto Department of Mathematics/Box 349/Vassar College/Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 914-437-7180 belotto@vassar.edu ________________________________________________________________________ Item #6 Collaboration with MAA From: ross@bright.uoregon.edu Ken Ross I have recently been elected President-Elect of the MAA. I will serve in that office during 1994 and then serve two years as President. My top priority is to help humanize the job market. Originally, my goal was to increase awareness (on the part of the young people looking for jobs) and sensitivity (on the part of the people involved with hiring). Fortunately, YMN is now accomplishing the former on a scale that I couldn't have hoped for. So I've replaced that goal with the goal of helping improve the procedures. Here's my agenda as it has evolved so far. I've indicated where you might help. 1) There will be a regional AMS-MAA meeting in Eugene, Oregon, next June (16-18) and I am organizing a panel discussion on the job market. I plan to have three "young" panelists with recent or current experience in the job market and two or three department chairs of institutions who have been offering jobs lately. If you are in the Northwest and would like to participate in this panel discussion next June, let me know. 2) When I visit MAA sections, I offer various mathematical talks (random walks and the like), and I also offer to talk about the job market. My goal is to increase the sensitivity of the people who are in the hiring process. As the cliche goes, "If I can change one chair's approach, it will all be worthwhile." Right now I am scheduled to give such a talk at the Nebraska/Southeast South Dakota MAA Section meeting in Lincoln, Nebraska, April 22-23. I need your help here. First, let me stress that I think YMN is healthier and more effective because you have NOT let your newsletter become a rag where you all vent your (understandable) anger and tell increasingly appalling stories about mistreatment and insensitivity in the job market. We have graduate students in the job market, so I know the anger and the stories are out there. Don't send them to YMN, but do send them to me. I need a broad selection that I can refer to anonymously (I promise!). You can understand why I don't want all my examples to be from experiences of our graduates; in fact, I'd like to avoid using any local examples if I can. 3) Among all the fine ideas circulating in YMN, to me the most promising is Charles Mannix's suggestions in the Nov 10 issue (vol. 1, issue 19) of your newsletter. Briefly, his idea is that the standard initial contact between applicants and potential employers should be a one page cover letter and a two page resume. Colleges should review new incoming applications weekly, and all applicants should promptly receive one of three responses: A) an indication that there's no point in pursuing the application, B) an indication that the candidate is a strong possibility whose file will be retained, but additional material is not needed at this time, C) the candidate is a top possibility and a complete application, including letters of recommendations, should be forwarded right away. I will urge the JCEO (AMS-MAA-SIAM Joint Committee on Employment Opportunities) to take a close look at Mannix's proposals, and if possible to try to implement some viable version of them. This will require getting the vast majority of mathematics departments to agree to a process. This would be an unprecedented event, but I think it's possible. It is becoming increasingly clear that the current procedures (in which each applicant sends hundreds of complete applications to departments who receive nearly a thousand applications each) is madness. Of course, I have not had the benefit of attending any JCEO meetings, so perhaps this idea is naive and there are better ideas out there. 4) I want to maintain an ongoing dialogue with YMN on these important issues. I need your help in setting realistic priorities. Let me hear from you. Ken Ross, University of Oregon [ross@math.uoregon.edu] ___________________________________________________________________________ Item #7 Liberal Arts Colleges - What to Expect and What is Expected Stan Wagon, Macalester College I offer here some thoughts to young mathematicians seeking tenure-track positions at liberal arts colleges. I have been on many search committees over the years and seen very many candidates. These opinions are purely personal. EXPERTISE In a department of about ten people it is helpful when individuals can take responsibility for curricular and other issues pertaining to their specialty. It is often said that a competent professor ought to be able to teach any part of the undergraduate curriculum. But if "teaching" means "teaching with a personal and modern point of view", then this is simply false. Thus a certain natural division of labor takes place. Thus I would expect a candidate to be willing and able to discuss curricular issues related to advanced and elementary courses in his or her field, to have a knowledge of the important textbooks, to be aware of innovative approaches to the field using computers, and so on. In short, most departments will be willing to defer to the specialists, but they must have confidence in him or her. WORKLOAD A mathematician at a liberal arts college is very fortunate. The atmosphere is lively, the students are diverse and talented, and one gets to know colleagues in other departments very well. A faculty member gets to teach a variety of courses, and the liberal-arts ethic infuses the curriculum and the teaching methods with a certain spirit that is liberating. But, this means that there is a lot of work to be done, and new PhDs are often woefully unaware of how heavy the workload can be. The top colleges all demand research, as well as teaching several courses each semester; and the students at these colleges can be very demanding, usually properly so. And when some of these courses are new to the instructor, the workload can be overwhelming. New instructors will usually get high priority in choice of courses. In the first semester, they should not take on courses involving material with which they are not familiar. After a year or two, they can take on such courses more often, to learn well as much of the curriculum as is reasonable. Some colleges put young faculty on very important and time-consuming committees. I feel that an junior faculty member should be free to say "No" to such requests, reserving his or her service component to the departmental level (advising, curriculum work, and other such tasks). Some college service is a reasonable demand, but serving on major elected committees with weekly meetings is not. Such committee work can be satisfying and productive, but it has a cost. Wait at least 3 or 4 years before agreeing to serve, pointing out that high-quality scholarly work cannot be maintained if 40 hours of every week are occupied (and they will be if you serve on, say, a college-wide curriculum committee at the same time as you teach three courses). The tenured faculty should be staffing these major committees. TEACHING It would be presumptuous to expect everyone to teach in the same style. Each individual must find the approach that works, and just about any style has the potential for success. Steven Krantz's new booklet, "How to Teach Mathematics" (AMS), contains many insights that will be valuable to a fledgling professor. Here are some things that seem especially appropriate to expect at a liberal arts college: ** Respect for the students and their questions and difficulties. ** Enthusiasm about the material, together with knowledge of how it is used and why it is important. ** An understanding of the effect that modern computers have on the theory and practice of mathematics. And, most important, math professors at liberal arts colleges should be trying to instill a respect for and confidence in the mathematical way of thinking. This will be of much more importance to almost all our math students than any specific theorems or techniques they learn. SCHOLARLY WORK I take a broad view of research, preferring the phrase "scholarly work", which includes expository articles, articles about teaching, books, problem solving, and the like. During the interview process I look for signs that the candidate will have a lifelong commitment to scholarship. When too much time in an interview is spent discussing questions such as: What exactly is required for tenure? Does this count? Does that count? Are n papers sufficient?, a red flag is raised in my consciousness. The tenure system has many drawbacks. Nevertheless, we must predict, when hiring and promoting, whether a candidate will maintain a life-long scholarly career. Thus I look for deep heart-felt feelings about mathematics; I want to feel that the person thinks about math because he or she loves it. That makes it more likely that the person will carry on for 40 years, even if the research direction changes dramatically, as it no doubt will, and also indicates that the person will bring enthusiasm and innovation to the classroom. Despite a general raising of standards re. scholarship, many candidates feel that a liberal arts college, unlike a university, is low-key when it comes to research and, once tenure is achieved, there is little in the way of scholarly requirements. Nothing could be farther from the truth at Macalester and its relatives. Also, I look for indications that the person will be able to bring his or her scholarly work to the students via honors or independents projects or advanced courses. While this may not be easy for a new PhD, I believe it can and should be developed and I look for signs that it will be. If someone arrives with a very advanced research program, with little or no connection to the undergraduate curriculum, then, during the first six years, there ought to be a subtle shift in the research program so that it is not exclusively high-level. Otherwise, the job becomes too much like two separate jobs. I don't mean to say that a strong research program should stop or radically change, but there must be some effort to connect one's scholarly work with the interests and abilities of the undergraduates. A FINAL NOTE Naturally, in the current job market, it is tempting to take the first job offer that promises the chance of long-term employment. Yet, most Americans change jobs regularly, and a new Ph.D. should not necessarily expect his or her first job to last for 30 or 40 years. Think strategically about your whole career, keeping in mind that you will look much better to prospective employers after you have two or three years' experience. Thus, when weighing temporary positions vs. tenure-track positions, take the long-term view and perhaps tilt the scale in favor of the position that offers the best chance of giving you valuable experience and pushing your career in a direction in which you want to go. Stan Wagon, __________________________________________________________________________ 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 What is new at the AMS Meeting?