*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 2 Issue 24 July 20, 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 Franklin Mendivil mendivil@math.gatech.edu , editor for the month of June. Next issue: Wednesday, August 3 Editor for May: Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu Editor for June: Franklin Mendivil mendivil@math.gatech.edu Editor for July: Franklin Mendivil mendivil@math.gatech.edu Editor for August: 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. Table of Contents Item # Title ------ ----- 1 Editor's notes 2 [anonymous] A voice from a married mathematician 3 Eric Voth Industrial Jobs 4 Cary Timar Does this idea bounce? 5 Evelyn Hart Letter of recommendation 6 Mark Winstead Incredible but true. 7 Mark Winstead Call for Volunteer 10 Closing Credits _______________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editor's notes: I think this is the last issue with me as an editor (for a while at least). Thanks for allowing me to do this. I am glad to see that the YMN is still going strong at the beginning of its second year! We don't have an editor for the month of August yet, so if you want to submit something you can send it to me and I will make sure it gets to the right place. Franklin Mendivil Georgia Tech mendivil@math.gatech.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #2 A voice from a married mathematician I am writing to submit my opinion about the recently discussed idea of creating a `vitae book' of job applicants available on the market. I have some reservations about this idea. My main concern is that in effect it sort of makes me apply to all potential job adds, which in my situation could be harmful. Namely I am married also to the young mathematician, who is also looking for job; I don't have any evidence for or against my concern, but I can very well imagine members of the recruiting committee seeing two applications for the one position that they advertised and disregarding both `because we cannot hire a couple, and one of them wouldn't come anyway'. I don't know I am probably exaggerating but in the present market I am scared of the slightest disadvantage. (Advise to graduate students getting married to fellow graduate students: do NOT change your name.) Overall my hesitation towards the `vitae book' comes from the fact that I do not want to make vitae public, and if we tried to somehow hide it by using some sort of access codes then the work time needed to receive it by the job announcer makes it, in my opinion, less efficient than the present (bad) system. [submitted anonymously. -ed] _______________________________________________________________ Item #3 Eric Voth Industrial Jobs Throughout my long industrial job search, I have been jotting down notes to condense into a submission for the YMN-- things I wish I had known earlier. I finished my PhD in applied math (computational fluid dynamics/numerical analysis) at Brown last December, and I think it is even harder to find a private-sector job than many people realize, even without constraining oneself to a particular metropolitan area for personal reasons as I am foolhardy enough to be attempting. :-) I just wanted you to know that I plan to help with CoYM's stated goal of "providing more information on finding jobs in industry." Also, the IMA (Institute for Math and its Applications) here at the University of Minnesota is definitely in the vanguard of this bridge-building effort, having sponsored industrial postdoc positions since 1990-91. I am familiar with NSF's program (93-139) as well, but have not been able to find any awards from it in the STIS database, unless I am doing something wrong in my searches. --Eric Voth _______________________________________________________________ Item #4 Cary Timar Does this idea bounce? I just had an idea. It looks OK to me, so I thought I'd bounce it off this network, so that its flaws could be exposed. Several others have mentioned the efficiency of the placement for MD's. One method used for residency placements (vaguely equivalent to our 2-year appointments?) is simply a giant matching program. Each candidate ranks their favorite positions, each institution ranks its favorite candidates, and a program tries to match them up. I don't think this would work at the PhD level, because we are much more specialized. It is already used at the Employment Register. One other place where it might work is to coordinate short-lists. In late January, every candidate might rank their favorite positions, and vice-versa (say, five 1's, and ten each 2's through 9's). The program would provide each department with a short list of five or ten candidates, and each candidate with a list of no more than ten institutions. At this point, those departments and candidates whose lists are too short might already begin scouting each other for the second round. The idea is to let the less popular schools know earlier in the season that they will not be getting their top choices, so that they can choose from what's available then, instead of in July. One unfortunate effect might be to have more of the most popular candidates failing to find positions (say, reaching the lower half of the short-list of his top ten choices, but never getting an offer). There is already a certain amount of this happening, though. I'm not sure this approach would make that any worse. -- Cary Timar, ABD, Vanderbilt University _______________________________________________________________ Item #5 Evelyn Hart Letter of recommendation I was very uncomfortable while reading about Greg Gibson's comments on his letters of recommendation. He had important questions concerning how to get good letters, but the fact that he has seen his letters (and that he didn't think there was anything wrong with that) bothers me. Annalisa Crannell offered valuable answers to his questions, but I'd like to discuss confidentiality. I realize that some states have laws making confidentiality impossible, but the whole system is weakened when letters aren't confidential. As an assistant professor, I write many letters for my students. I never agree to write a letter if I don't think it will be a good one, but even so I get the creeps when the student sees the letter. (For many scholarships, the directions say that everything must be sent in one large envelope, so I can't send the letter myself.) No matter what I say, won't the student think I should have said something else? My solution is to ask the student to agree not to look at the letter, and I put it in a sealed envelope and sign over the flap. Inside, across the top of the letter I can then write: Confidential letter of recommendation for.... I tell the student (and I believe it is true) that the letter will be taken more seriously that way. I also assure the student that I have plenty of good things to say, and I often say what those things are. As a member of a department that hired this year, I can say for sure that there are plenty of dull letters out there. But what is worse is that they may be so uniformly dull because the authors think the candidate may eventually read the letter. If somehow this were impossible, I think letters would become more interesting and more accurate and useful. Several letters I read did say, "This person is as good as so-and-so and definitely better than what's-his-name." I knew the people concerned, and it was very helpful to have that information. I intend to keep that information confidential, of course. But maybe I'm too old fashioned. The authors of those letters went out on a limb to do their job well despite the fact that the letters might not remain confidential. Most are not willing to take chances. So is there any way to solve the problem? Being able to see letters about you might protect you from being hurt badly in one letter, but it also weakens the entire process for everyone. Evelyn Hart Hope College hart@math.hope.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #6 Mark Winstead Incredible but true. Many of you may recall that Louisiana State advertised a position in May. From what I was told by a faculty member there, someone resigned late in the year and they were authorized to find a replacement. My understanding was that if they found appropriate quality, they would hire someone into a tenure track position, otherwise the position would be a one year visiting position and LSU would do a search next year. Early this month, LSU completed their search. The department reportedly found plenty of quality left out there, because they decided to hire into a tenure track position (congratulations, Paul). I think this speaks volumes about the job market, at least that segment of the market that LSU was looking at (research oriented algebraists). -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark W. Winstead winstead@euclid.ucsd.edu ______________________________________________________________ Item #7 Mark Winstead Call for Volunteer This fall we again have elections in the various professional societies. I think it would be appropriate for someone to solicit, on behalf of YMN, statements from the various candidates for publication in our electronic newsletter. The reason I won't do this myself is that I think it inappropriate for me to do so, seeing that I am on the AMS ballot. Besides, my situation for the fall is still unsettled, making it difficult for me to do the job. The work involved would be to obtain an early copy of the ballot and e-mail addresses of those on it. One would then write the people on the ballot, asking for statements directed at concerns of junior mathematicians, suggesting a limit on length, deadline for submission, etc. Finally, one would take all submissions received by the deadline and submit them to the September editor of CYM (still to be named) to be published about the time the ballots would be arriving in all our mailboxes. For the AMS, Robert Fossum, AMS Secretary, should be able to get you the e-mail addresses and the ballot. If anyone is willing, please write me, so we don't have more than one person soliciting statements for the same ballot. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark W. Winstead winstead@euclid.ucsd.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #8 Closing Credits The Young Mathematicians' Network is administered by: Charles Yeomans cyeomans@s.ms.uky.edu Mark Winstead winstead@euclid.ucsd.edu Vic Perera vperera@silver.ucs.indiana.edu Franklin Mendivil mendivil@math.gatech.edu Stephen Kennedy kennedy@stolaf.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 Frank Arlinghaus frank@math.ysu.edu Matt Hudelson hudelson@math.washington.edu _______________________________________________________________ End of Journal -- Next week: The Discussion Continues An addendum from the list person: I have had a lot of trouble during the summer with certain addresses, as people come and go, and as system gurus tweak their systems. Our mailing list software doesn't like this, so I frequently have to delete the offending addresses and wait to be contacted via e-mail. If you've stopped receiving the YMN newsletter, please write me (cyeomans@ms.uky.edu) to complain. Charles Yeomans