*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 2 Issue 27 August 31, 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 Bob Dobrow dobrow@cam.nist.gov , editor for the month of September. Next issue: September 14 Editor for July: Franklin Mendivil mendivil@math.gatech.edu Editor for August: Kevin Madigan madigan@math.nwu.edu Editor for September: Bob Dobrow dobrow@cam.nist.gov 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 Editors notes 2 Mark Winstead Placement Plan Idea 3 Curtis Bennett NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship Information 4 Lynn Steen What's NExT? 5 Ed Aboufadel Cheerleading for College Teaching 6 M. Prophet and J. Woodland Project NExT Report 7 Closing Credits ____________________________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editors notes Forgive me for sending this issue out early, but I am in the process of moving to Evanston, IL (I have a new e-mail address, which is at the bottom of this note). I know I am not the only young mathematician moving over 800 miles to take a one year position, and I would like to send my best wishes to all my comrades. Good luck, hope nothing breaks, arrive safely, have a great year, and good luck securing employment for next year. We'll probably see each other in San Francisco in January. I think our next issue is September 14, then we go back to weekly issues. Kevin Madigan madigan@math.nwu.edu ____________________________________________________________________________ Item #2 Mark W Winstead Placement Plan Idea Interesting fact: "Of the 226 positions in U.S. Ph.D.-granting departments filled by 1992-1993 doctorates 83 (31%) were held by new doctorates who received their degree from the same institution" John D. Fulton 1993 AMS-IMS-MAA Annual Survey (Second Report) July/August 1994 Notices of the AMS Comment: I have heard many people suggest some sort of placement plan like the medical internship program run by the American Medical Association. I have also heard much from some who tell me why it would never work. Most people think a limited program sounds good, but doubt that many colleges and universities would give up their independence to participate. I don't for a second believe that those 83 people couldn't have been placed in a program to test the viability of an AMA type program. The time is now to start the groundwork for such a test program. To outline one possibility: 1) All participating departments that are going to give their own graduates positions if necessary declare their intentions in May 1995 2) All PhD candidates in participating departments who are without positions submit a standardized vitae and list of references to some central place, say some office at the AMS. 3) The AMS publishes and distributes a book of participants among the participating departments, delivered sometime in June. 4) The second week of July, all those who submitted vitaes reaffirm their availability by submitting a preference list of places they would like to be plus a list of where they would be willing to go. 5) The third week of July, all departments submit their preferences. 6) Using some sort of previously agreed upon algorithm, assignments are made the fourth week of July. Ok, there is an idea. Someone run with it. If it works well, or shows potential with some bugs, it can be expanded upon in future years. Remember to check the September Notices for your ballot. Then don't forget to use it! Mark Winstead mwwinst@gcr.com ____________________________________________________________________________ Item #3 Curtis Bennett NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship information. Recently in trying to answer a query of one of our readers, I contacted the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship Program concerning where to get application forms. I have been told that the 1995 announcement for the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship Program should be available via Gopher and STIS by Wednesday 8/31. If you want a hard copy of the announcement, it can be obtained by e-mailing a request to [msprf@nsf.gov]. Curtis Bennett _____________________________________________________________________________ Item#4 Lynn Steen What's NExT? An Invitation from the Mathematical Sciences Education Board To Join the National Conversation about Mathematics Education Lynn Arthur Steen, Executive Director Mathematical Sciences Education Board At the summer MathFest at the University of Minnesota, sixty enthusiastic young mathematicians gathered under the auspices of the new MAA project NExT to exchange ideas about how to launch their careers, how to improve undergraduate mathematics, and how to develop and document their own expertise in teaching and scholarship. Ideas flowed without bound, as did the participants' palpable energy for reform. The launching of Project NExT underscores an issue that has been commented on many times on the Young Mathematician's Network--namely, that university jobs in this era depend more on teaching and learning than on promise of mathematical research. Since mathematics education is, as its name implies, the central mission of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board (MSEB), many issues on our agenda should be of central concern to members of YMN. The purpose of this short note is to introduce MSEB, and to invite your contributions to our work. The MSEB was established in 1985 by the National Research Council under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. Although its most visible early work was addressed primarily to supporting the movement to establish standards for school mathematics in grades K-12, the MSEB has also been instrumental in the efforts to reform undergraduate mathematics, beginning in 1987 when the MSEB helped launch calculus reform by co-sponsoring the national convocation "Calculus for a New Century." More recently, an MSEB Task Force chaired by Uri Treisman of the University of Texas produced an "issues paper" to help mathematics faculty at colleges and universities think about ways of developing and documenting their teaching growth and effectiveness. Today the MSEB, now chaired by Hyman Bass of Columbia University, is looking carefully at the interface between school mathematics and post-secondary education. We worry a lot--as should all young (and old) mathematicians--about how undergraduate faculties will respond to the various challenges of the standards movement that is sweeping the nation. For example: One of the problem sets in "Measuring Up," an MSEB publication that illustrates standards-based elementary school mathematics, is about L-shaped rectangular hexagons called "hexarights." Children are asked, after exploring the behavior of these shapes, to figure out how to produce a hexaright of perimeter 24 with the largest possible area. That's no challenge for a college student. But it suggests a challenge for college faculty: how should the teaching of calculus change if some--and eventually many--students have studied this kind of mathematics for the previous 12 years? The standards movement--whose goals have now been enacted into federal legislation--involves a profound shift in purpose for mathematics education, from preparing a relatively small cadre of scientific leaders to educating all students for a technology-intensive, world-wide economy. "Mathematics for all" is not just a slogan: it is the reality of post-secondary education in America. This too poses a challenge for faculty: What would be your reaction if your honors calculus course was 80% minority and 60% female? Would your teaching change? Your expectations? Should they? If so, how? The NCTM "Standards" for school mathematics have set the standard for reform in all subjects, yet remain controversial among some mathematicians in part because they call for significant change in both the ends and the means of school mathematics education. Like it or not, the NCTM Standards will exert great influence on undergraduate mathematics--because they will influence both what students know when they leave high school and how students have become accustomed to learning mathematics. And it won't be by the lecture method. Thus another challenge: Read the NCTM Standards, and related literature. Become conversant with the issues so that you can participate with full information in what has emerged as a great national conversation about the purpose of mathematics education. What's next? During the next few months, the MSEB will be putting some of its discussion documents on line via gopher, ftp and mosaic. I'll post information about this service as soon as it becomes available. In a subsequent issue of the YMN Newsletter, we'll also include some specific pointers to key issues of concern to undergraduate students in a brief "Students' Bill of Rights." In the meantime, you can reach MSEB by e-mail: hb@math.columbia.edu Hyman Bass, MSEB Chairman lsteen@nas.edu Lynn Arthur Steen, MSEB Executive Director lrosen@nas.edu Linda P. Rosen, Director of Policy Studies sforman@nas.edu Susan L. Forman, Director of Higher Education Programs For further information on Project NExT, which is sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America, contact the co-directors: iimleitz@unlinfo.unl.edu James R. C. Leitzel, University of Nebraska stevensc@sluvca.slu.edu T. Christine Stevens, Saint Louis Univesity _____________________________________________________________________________ Item#5 Cheerleading for College Teaching by Edward F. Aboufadel My travels this summer to two conferences put me in contact with at least 60 different mathematics professors of all ages. In university dining halls, we ate a lot of meals together and chatted about many different topics. We did a lot of talking about college teaching -- the students, the curriculum, the texts, and working with colleagues both in and outside of the department. This should not come as a surprise. According to a report in the Jan/Feb 1994 issue of Academe, the average faculty member spends 56% of his or her working time in the area of college teaching and only 16% on research. Of course, not every academic job is the same, but even at the "Great Public Research Universities", the authors of the study found the following break-down of time: 43% teaching, 29% doing research, 28% other activities. In spite of the amount of time spent with college mathematics education, the attitude of some faculty towards teaching is one of ambivalence or even loathing. I read an excellent book this summer that addresses this. The book is Exiles From Eden, by Mark R. Schwehn, a philosophy professor at Valparaiso University who resigned his tenured position at the University of Chicago because, he writes, "I found I could pursue my own sense of academic vocation more fully and responsibly at Valparaiso." In the first chapter of Exiles from Eden, he describes the "familiar faculty lament" that "because it is such a busy semester for me, I do not have time for my own work." "Well," Schwehn asks, "whose work are you doing?" By "work", the faculty member means "research and publication", and "busy" is a code-word for teaching and service (maybe on that Search Committee). As young mathematicians, we are indoctrinated with this stuff throughout graduate school. Once in a tenure-track position, however, we face a fundamental conflict. A lot of our time is committed to teaching and service, yet we know, or at least we believe, that the key to tenure is research and publication, our "own work". (Yes, it is true that not every academic job is the same, but there are many places whose primary mission used to be teaching but who have now added research demands without reducing teaching loads.) There is change in the air, however, change which might have more of an impact on those still in graduate school than those who have recently completed the Ph. D. Universities are being criticized for their research "obsession" -- the whole Cold War scientific establishment itself is under pressure, both financial and philosophical. Some schools are experimenting with new paradigms. Here are several examples: == Schwehn again, in his book, discusses the philosophical underpinings of the modern university, which he traces back to an influential lecture by Max Weber in 1918. A quote from the lecture: "Whoever lacks the capacity to put on blinders, so to speak, and to come to the idea that the *fate of his soul* depends on whether or not he makes the correct conjecture at this passage of his manuscript may as well stay away from academics ...." Schwehn argues that this attitude has taken over academia today and that it is hostile to the education of students. He desires a change in attitude so that "teaching, not Wissenshaft [the process of knowledge formation], becomes the activity in terms of which all others -- publication, collegiality, research, consultation, advising -- are to be understood, interpreted, and appraised." Research, then, becomes an extension of teaching. == Phillip A. Griffiths, in the February 1994 issue of SIAM News, states that "universities should fundamentally rethink their missions." After reflecting on the Cold War world of academic science, embodied in Vannevar Bush's Endless Frontier, Griffiths remarks that "Although usually stated as having the dual missions of teaching and research, the reality is that in the so-called research-intensive universities the education mission has taken a second seat to research." He adds: "One consequence is that academic science has thus sought to justify through its ultimate societal value the research that is conducted and supported on our campuses. As we have noted, this is an increasingly tough sell." == The Washington Monthly is a journal of opinion about mostly political issues, and it has a liberal slant (but not as liberal as, say, The Nation). Charles Peters has a column called Tilting at Windmills, which features blurbs about different topics. In the July/August 1994 issue, he has a few negative things to say about academia. Concerning the core curriculum at Columbia, he writes: "One of the beauties of the curriculum was that the courses were taught by great teachers .... Now they are taught by young professors. The reason is that senior professors don't want to teach, or don't want to teach introductory courses, or don't want to teach interdisciplinary courses that take them away from their cherished specialties." Later he writes, "When alumni gather for reunions ... I hope they'll devote an hour or two to putting the heat on teachers to teach and administrators to de-proliferate." == Recently, a candidate for the state legislature in Arizona said: "I offer representation for my district that has as its goals sharply increased vocational and technical training as opposed to another university in Tucson to produce unneeded college educated waiters and waitresses." (I got this quote from Kurt Bachmann via YSN, who adds that there are plans to build a new university in Tucson, unaffiliated with the University of Arizona, that has no tenure, no athletics, and that is chiefly accountable to sources inside the state.) == The Mathematics Department at Michigan State University has introduced a new academic species, the Teaching Specialist. Dick Phillips, the department chairman, tells me that this is a full-time, tenure-track position in the department. The Specialists work pretty much with pre-calculus courses and on the pedagogical training of graduate students. The requirements for tenure are satisfactory performance in all aspect of the job: teaching evaluations, effectiveness of the TA program, communication skills, organization, innovation, etc. Dr. Phillips adds: "We like the program: to initiate it elsewhere the big hurdle is going to be convincing university administrators that this type of position merits job security." What do we make of all of this? Public attitudes towards science, towards academia, towards professors, are changing. What effects this will have on the job market and on tenure committees is not clear. What is clear is that there are new opportunities opening up for those who don't feel that the fate of their souls depend on perfect manuscripts. For example, there is a growing national community writing about College Mathematics Education. (See, for example, the survey article by the Seldens in the November 1993 issue of the College Mathematics Journal.) The AMS, in the wake of this summer's report on faculty rewards, is dedicating some of its resources to developing just ways to evaluate teaching, and the NSF is planning to launch a new science education think-tank. Regardless of whether or not universities will want to hire people involved in these areas, clearly the environment in which we work is changing. _____________________________________________________________________________ Item #6 Janet C. Woodland and Mike Prophet Project NExT Report The first meeting of the program New Experiences in Teaching ( Project NExT ) took place in Minneapolis from August 12 - 17, overlapping with the MathFest. The sixty-six participants were kept occupied with talks, meetings, discussions and presentations, which began early in the morning and ran well into the night. The schedule was indeed copious; over twenty hours in the first three days alone. Overall, the NExT Fellows eagerly participated in the project, contributing to and drawing from all material presented. The sixty-six found they had much in common with one another, yet it was the diversity of experiences that fueled the energetic discussions. Perhaps as important to the new Ph.D.'s as the scheduled material were the contacts and connections made. A "grassroot" network of peers is certainly a valuable asset in our profession; and establishing this network was clearly a goal of Project NExT. There were two main themes that came across during the week: the changing role of mathematics in society and the attempts to respond to this new role. A view of mathematics in the 90's and beyond was captured in the opening address by current MAA president Donald Kreider. Reminding us that 90% of all mathematicians who have ever lived are alive today, Dr. Kreider made the point that we should not expect from society a continuation of the "unquestioned support" that science received during the first half of this century. With the end of the Cold War, new social responsibilities for science have emerged; we must identify and respond to them. Perhaps a starting point for mathematics is re-establishing a connection between our profession and society - including a resolution to teach the students we have, not the ones we wish we had. Our responsibilities have changed because our student population has changed. There are more "non-traditional" students, who may have families and who probably work at least part-time, if not full-time. Fewer of these students are completing a bachelor's degree in four years. With the impending changes in the Advanced Placement exams, more of our students will come to our class knowing how to use a graphing calculator, and expecting to be able to use it. It is impractical, at best, to continue to treat today's students as we were treated and to teach them the way we were taught. Some acknowledgement of these realities must be considered as we plan our curriculum and its implementation. One response to the new role of mathematics is calculus reform, which includes changes in curriculum, instruction, testing and the use of technology. These topics were discussed and demonstrated at length during Project NExT. The Fellows were given opportunities to examine particular examples of reform projects, including materials from St. Olaf, the Harvard Consortium, and Project CALC. Some of this experience included rolling up our sleeves and doing some homework problems to see how traditional concepts can be investigated in non-traditional ways. There were demonstrations using software packages (including some "freeware" from USNA!) for calculus, linear algebra, and differential equations. It was pointed out, in fact, that though calculus reform became popular first, it generated movements to reform precalculus and postcalculus courses as well. Alternative classroom techniques were also explored. In "break-out sessions" we discussed the use of collaborative learning, student projects, and writing assignments to expand the possibilities of increasing student involvement and understanding. A panel discussion concerning the expectations of new faculty was a dose of reality. At issue was the task of performing as both teacher and scholar. The panel made it clear that there was certainly no call for the abandonment of scholarship in the reform movements. Indeed, to teach mathematics creatively, it was suggested that one needs to be involved in creating mathematics. Thus rather than view teaching as incompatible with research, perhaps the pursuit of quality in both regards should be welcomed and encouraged by departments. Moreover, since scholarship, in varying degrees, is often a vital consideration in tenure appointment, new faculty cannot ignore this criterion. A broader definition of scholarship which reflects innovation in the classroom and curriculum could help to satisfy this requirement. Michael Prophet Janet Woodland propmich@fs.isu.edu woodland@comp.uark.edu _______________________________________________________________________ Item #7 Closing Credits The Young Mathematicians' Network is administered by: Charles Yeomans cyeomans@s.ms.uky.edu Mark Winstead mwwinst@gcr.com Frank Sottile sottile@math.toronto.edu Vic Perera vperera@silver.ucs.indiana.edu Franklin Mendivil mendivil@math.gatech.edu Kevin Madigan madigan@math.nwu.edu Steve Kennedy skennedy@mathcs.carleton.edu Matt Hudelson hudelson@math.washington.edu Bob Dobrow dobrow@cam.nist.gov Lyle Cochran 74443.3055@compuserve.com Neil Calkin calkin@math.gatech.edu Wendy Brunzie brunzie@turing.ucdavis.edu Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu Frank Arlinghaus frank@math.ysu.edu Jeff Adams adams@bright.uoregon.edu Edward Aboufadel aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu ___________________________________________________________________________ End of Journal -- Next week, The Discussion Continues.