*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 2, Issue 37 16 November, 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 Frank Sottile sottile@math.toronto.edu , editor for the month of November. Next issue: Wednesday, 23 November. Editor for October: Frank Arlinghaus frank@math.ysu.edu Editor for November: Frank Sottile sottile@math.toronto.edu Editor for December: Steve Kennedy skennedy@mathcs.carleton.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. The views represented here do not necessarily represent those of the administrative board or membership of the Young Mathematicians Network. In fact it is their policy to have no policy, save perhaps the dissemination of information relevant to the concerns of young mathematicians. Table of Contents Item # Title ------ ----- 1 Editor's notes 2 Professional Development after the Ph.D. Curtis Bennett 3 Academic Downsizing Kevin Charlwood 4 Correspondence with a Concerned Reader Ramit Mehr 5 Comments Re: Are Women Getting all the Jobs? Mark W. Winstead 6 Statistics Frank Sottile 7 8 9 10 Closing Credits _______________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editor's notes: Before discussing the fine selection of articles we have for your reading pleasure, I wanted to put in a few notices of interest to all. First, besides the e-math site mentioned last week, and the ftp site described above the table of contents, I have been asked to mention that the Concerns of Young Mathematicians is also available on the gopher server at Lake Forest College: URL: gopher://davinci.lfc.edu:70/11/MathRelItems/YMN The advance registration deadlines are approaching for the Winter meeting, I believe that today is the deadline for hotel reservations. Of course, there probably won't be any problem in getting a hotel if you send in your reservation after today. Along those lines, we are still looking for someone to run a roommate matching service for the winter meetings. At the risk of further impeding my ability to do my job, I ask that any one seeking a roommate to help combat the high cost of attending the meeting, to please write me. At the Winter meetings themselves, there will be a YMN Town meeting on Saturday from 1-2PM. We hope to discuss where the Network is going and how to get there, among other things. Many of us among the administrators of the Network will be at the Winter meeting, anyone should feel free to contact any of us. In this issue, we have the first of Curtis Bennett's article about professional development for young mathematicians. This article is concerned with how to continue working on research after your Ph.D. This is a critical problem for young mathematicians, as the majority of research mathematicians `die' quite young; only a fraction of us are still actively working ten years after obtaining a Ph.D. Kevin Charlwood continues his series of articles. This week, he discusses `academic downsizing', and how it affect our profession and career opportunities. In particular, he is interested in hearing from any of our readers about their experiences. Our next article is a summary of some correspondence between Ramit Mehr and some of the administrators; this summary was posted to a news group, and the author asked us to include it as an article. It concerns a quote that was included in an article of Curtis' in the 5 October issue of Concerns. There, a disgruntled job seeker had said: "I have been told repeatedly by a variety of people that being a white male is not to my advantage." Considering the universal difficulty we all face in seeking employment, it is understandable this aroused someone's ire. Mark Winstead has sent in an article for us that he wrote after he participated in the AWM forum: "Are Women Getting All the Jobs" at last year's January meetings. During our discussions following Ramit's original letter, Mark proffered this piece to shed some light on the subject, and perhaps help calm some of the feelings and anxieties of dissatisfied job seekers. Lastly, I removed my editorial cap, and wrote a short piece containing some statistics that I gleaned from Toronto's Library to buttress comments made by Mark. I also included some personal comments about what occurs behind the scenes among the editors of Concerns. In closing, I wanted to say that Ramit Mehr's note to us engendered a lot of internal discussion among us and we suspect it may do the same for you. Wendy Brunzie is hoping to devote a serious number of column-inches to specific concerns of young female mathematicians during her tenure as editor in March. I wish you all good reading, and good fortune with your work. Frank Sottile, Editor for November __________________________________________________________________________ Item #2 Professional Development after the Ph.D. Curtis Bennett The purpose of this series of articles is to discuss the process of moving from a graduate student to a research mathematician. The main basis for the information in this article is my own experience combined with talks I have had with friends and mentors. By no means should every suggestion contained in this article be taken as gospel, and I am quite certain that others have very good suggestions that I have not made. If you do have suggestions of this sort, PLEASE send them on to me, so that I can put them in the newsletter. Let me first state my mathematical background. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in the summer of 1990 in the area of group theory. For the next two years I was a research instructor at Michigan State University. At the end of this position, I applied for and won an NSF postdoctoral fellowship. I spent the first year of the fellowship at Ohio State University, and the last two years at my current position at Bowling Green State University. In my short career, I have had six papers published, and I have four papers that have been submitted. There are certainly many others who have been more successful, but I feel reasonably good about my record. I state these numbers not to blow my own horn, but rather to give everyone some background as to where my experience lies, in particular that I have spent all of my career at institutions devoted to research. In this article, I will concentrate on the first steps of post Ph.D. development. In some cases, this process turns out to be remarkably easy, but unfortunately, in other cases it is much harder. Obviously, class load and non-research obligations will influence your ability to continue your research, but since for the most part, you have little control over these, I will not be discussing them. This article will deal with finding a mentor and the need to talk in seminars and conferences. Later articles will discuss publishing and keeping active in your field. If you are fortunate enough to find yourself at an institution with senior researchers in your field, it is very helpful to find a mentor or mentors to communicate with. Ideally mentors should not take the place of your Ph.D. advisor. They should be individuals with whom you can comfortably discuss your mathematical ideas, even if they are not fully developed. Unlike your Ph.D. advisor however, you should be forming a more collegial relationship with them. Mentors don't necessarily have to fully understand all the background of what you are talking about; in some ways, their most important role is to serve as a sounding board for ideas. After all, the process of explaining to someone else what you are trying to do will help you understand it better. The other role of a mentor is to provide you with someone to better show you the ropes. You should be able to get suggestions from a mentor on publishing your papers, giving talks, or even applying for jobs. Remember, the best resource for a mathematician is other mathematicians. Even if you are fortunate enough to find a mentor, it is crucial that you keep in contact with your advisor. Your advisor is the one person besides yourself who best understands your research. Advisors can provide you with insight about what topics are currently of interest, and they can also tell you what articles to read and where to look for your next paper. With e-mail, keeping up this contact is relatively easy, and you certainly should do so. If the school you are at has seminar talks in your area, you should be sure to attend and give talks in the seminar. In particular, it is worthwhile, and frequently expected, for you to give a series of talks on your thesis and subsequent research. The advantages of this are many. First it gives you more experience at giving talks. Second, you probably haven't had much of a chance to explain your research to people who are less versed in it than your advisor. Even if you have run similar seminars as a graduate student, odds are that your advisor was in the audience then. This may be your first chance of working without a net. Another advantage is that talking will force you to become more of a part of the department. It is too easy when working at a part time position to fall into the cracks of the department. Since it is important for you to develop a relationship with mathematicians in your field, it is crucial for you to be active in your department if you hope to continue your research. When attending seminar talks given by colleagues, try to take 15 minutes to an hour afterwards to think about what they have said. Perhaps you can come up with a small improvement of their result, or perhaps you will have some deeper questions about the talk. I was given this advice four years ago, and I consider it one of the best suggestions that I've ever been given. On one occasion it has let to a joint paper for me. One important comment here; the purpose of this is to help broaden your knowledge and to help you make new connections. Thus, the real reason to think about what was said is to firmly cement the ideas into your head. Conferences are another good place to find people to talk to about your research. I think that it is best to give at least one talk a year at some conference. Talking will introduce you to other mathematicians doing research in your field, and it will let you know what others are doing. Depending on your field, it may happen that someone else is doing almost exactly the same thing you are. This is only a problem if you don't know about it. Otherwise, you can compare notes and collaborate. This will be very helpful in the long run. Perhaps the hardest thing about the above suggestion is finding the right conference to talk at. This is where your advisor or mentor should be able to help out. If for some reason this doesn't work, find mathematical siblings and ask them for advice. You should also look at the organizers and titles for the AMS special sessions. If you recognize any names, contact them and find out if it would be appropriate for you to talk in their session. They may say no, but if they have room and your talk is related to their session, they will probably be happy to include you. As I said earlier, these are merely suggestions that have worked well for me, and should not be taken as the only way to do what you hope to do. In two weeks, I will write on the process of publishing papers and keeping up to date with research in your field. I hope by then to have some articles from truly senior mathematicians on some aspects of professional development. Curtis Bennett cbennet@falcon.bgsu.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #3 Academic Downsizing Kevin Charlwood Hello, it's me again! After some e-mail "conversations" with Bob Dobrow on the YMN board, I decided to tackle another issue which affects all of us in the academy. For the past five years or so, the news media has reported extensively on the modern phenomenon of "corporate downsizing." Opinions on this vary, but as the economy has caught up with all of the financial excesses of the 1980's, reality has finally set in and taken a heavy toll in terms of our present work force. My discussion with Bob related to the relatively new concept of "academic downsizing." In this piece, I will attempt to publicize some of the relevant issues, and to provoke some useful dialogue on these matters. It is anecdotal in nature, as at present I only have ample data based on past personal experiences. The notion of "downsizing" translates to saving money. This is obvious, but some of the money-saving measures have unusual implications. The most traditional cost-cutting measure is through faculty attrition. Part of the trouble in the current job crisis in mathematics has resulted from schools leaving positions unfilled after someone vacates them. In all fairness, the current pool of high school graduates is at its lowest in recent memory, so some reduction in faculty is essential. At the U. of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where I finished my Ph.D. last summer, the last three members of the department to leave were not replaced. Two left for retirement, and the other took a post in Germany. Wisconsin, like most other states, has had its fair share of funding difficulties, and UW-Mil- waukee has only had one new tenure-track hire in mathematics in four years. The math department there has roughly 35 full-time members (aside from full- time lecturers) in any given year, and the overall student population at both the undergraduate and graduate levels has been fairly steady. This year, to pick up the slack in the classroom, $40K of the $70K salary of the latest retiree was slated for paying three additional part-time lecturers to help cover the large number of sections of Intermediate Algebra, College Algebra and Precalculus. In this scenario, almost everyone wins. Three lecturers do the job of four full-time professors, and the State gets $30K to use anyway it sees fit. Unless the lecturers do a great job, the chances are good that the quality of education the students receive will diminish. One of the obscure side-effects is the reduced course offerings for graduate students in mathematics at Milwaukee. On the other hand, teaching assistants have the opportunity to teach more sections of calculus, benefiting them in the long term should they pursue academic positions. Next, let us consider some major effects of academic downsizing which are interrelated. The aforementioned decrease in course offerings is one, together with increased teaching loads for remaining department members, and possible increased class sizes. I say possible in this last instance only because some classrooms simply have no additional space to support a greatly increased class size. Nowadays, however, nothing stops administrators from "laying off" non-tenured faculty and forcing the remaining faculty to carry the additional burden. As a case in point, examine the situation at a school such as Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. I did my undergraduate work there; in 1992 the President was fired resulting from financial mismanagement to the tune of almost $1 million. For a school with 1300 students and an operating budget of roughly $20 million annually, drastic measures appeared to be in order. Of 80 faculty positions, 8 were cut, including tenured (yes, tenured!) faculty in geography, English, and physical education. A physicist retired and was replaced with a one-year temporary, and the remaining faculty all agreed to teach a fourth course one semester (above the usual 12 hour load) and to do additional service work, as some support staff was also eliminated. On the bright side, two vice presidents were terminated, at a savings of over $50K apiece annually. As an ugly consequence, course offerings were reduced as well. In the final analysis, the students suffer most from such decisions. Financial predicaments like these are increasingly more common, and although the situation at Carroll merited some action, other academic institutions with fewer difficulties have been guilty of the same type of behavior. As a final comment on this, all too often it appears to me that highly paid administrators take huge pay increases when faculty members are shouldering a larger share of the workload and accepting pay cuts or pay freezes. Morale amongst faculty members could only improve if administra- tors bore their fair share of cuts and increased workload, too!! This next item grew out of conversations with colleagues over the past two years. In my opinion, the tenure system as we know it may be in the process of a major overhaul. I hope this brings forth comments from readers, as I would like to hear the opinions of others on this issue. As it stands now, tenure is a strong measure of job security. Since corporate job security is the next best thing to nonexistent, it seems only natural that the academy might follow suit. With the preponderance of temporary posts at present, along with the hiring of "part-timers" and other adjuncts to cover courses ordinarily taught by full-time professors, logic dictates that tenure-track positions are slowly becoming extinct. As tenured faculty retire, oftentimes their replacements come in the form of poorly paid, young, talented graduate students, or high school teachers, or adjuncts who are otherwise unemployed. For temporary employees, job security is merely a fantasy, for when their contracts expire, they become expendable. A major implication of fewer tenured positions arises: Professional activity is a must to obtain a contract renewal. Many believe that any faculty member worth their salt owes it to their students to remain active in their profession rather than "resting on their laurels." With no tenure system, though, a professor with an outstanding record in both teaching and in research might be "laid off" despite twenty or more years of dedicated service. I brought up the notion about the tenure system as I have a related anecdote to share. In June, I had a phone interview with four members of Woodbury University in Burbank, California. The dean indicated to me that their contract system was based on a sequence of five one-year contracts, to be followed by three year contracts thereafter. Renewal is contingent upon solid performance, as well as availability of funds. The dean also told me straight out that there was no tenure system at Woodbury; three year contracts are the best one gets. I want to know from readers if this signals a trend, or if this is just an isolated case. Rumor has it that changes are due, and the consequences could be far-reaching. As I see it, individuals have little if any power to stop some of the above practices. As pawns caught up in the financial difficulties faced by institutions, we have no choice but to make the best out of bad situations. Those of you who have some data with respect to "downsizing" at other institutions are most welcome to share it; it would be of use to many of us in academia to get a picture as to what is occurring on the national level. If anyone has ideas as to solutions to the problems associated with "academic downsizing", many of us would enjoy discussing them. Any comments from readers are always welcome-feel free to e-mail me!! Regards, Kevin Charlwood, Bradley University e-mail: kec1@bradley.bradley.edu _______________________________________________________________ Item #4 Correspondence with a Concerned Reader [This is a summary of recent correspondence between one of our valued readers and some members of the editorial board] Dear AWM members, A week ago I was asked to forward the October 5 bulletin of the YMN (Young Mathematicians Network) to other networks I'm involved with, e.g. those of SMB, AWM and AWIS. One of the articles contained contributions from graduate students describing their experiences with the job market. These varied in the amount of information contained in them and in the mood - some optimistic, some hopeless. However, one comment was annoying in my view. It read: "I have been told repeatedly by a variety of people that being a white male is not to my advantage." In response, I wrote a letter to the current moderator of the YMN bulletin, repeating the above, and adding: "Not that I don't believe the guy who wrote this! I know many white males have similar stories. But it is YOUR responsibility as moderators of the bulletin to mention, beside this item, that: a) the STATISTICS of WHO REALLY GETS HIRED show that women and minorities are still largely under-represented; and b) there is plenty of evidence that institutions use the "Sorry, we can't hire you because you're a white male" excuse to reject the candidates they don't want, but they end up hiring another white male anyway. Women and minorities SOMETIMES get interviewed more than others but that does not mean they get the jobs! " I added that more information about this subject could be obtained from AWM or AWIS, and that I do support the IDEA of a network dealing with concerns of young mathematicians, and will support any attempt to run such a network as long as it is run properly. In response I got a short letter from the moderator, who basically agreed with my point and referred my letter to the author of the specific article. Here is the author's reply to me, in full: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- From cbennet@falcon.bgsu.edu Date: Mon, 7 Nov 1994 To: ramit@goshawk.lanl.gov Dear Dr. Mehr, In response to your recent message concerning the concerns of the YMN. I am grateful for your interest and your dislike of the comment: ``I have been told repeatedly by a variety of people that being a white male is not to my advantage." First of all, I would like to state that this comment is not endorsed by the administrative board of the YMN, nor is it necessarily indicative of any of their beliefs. As the author of the article on the response to my questionnaire, I deliberated long and hard on whether or not I should include this statement. The article was a compilation of comments given in reply to a survey I published. We did not either endorse the statement of the comment nor did we condemn it. Of course, we didn't endorse or condemn anybody's comment. In fact, the purpose of the editors is not to refute every controversial comment that shows up in the YMN, but rather to provide a place for information to be disseminated to junior mathematicians, a place for debate about how to solve problems in the profession of interest to junior mathematicians, and a place for junior mathematicians to air their opinions. My decision to include this comment was based on the fact that I included EVERY comment that was sent to me by graduate students as I hope was made clear in the article. I felt the comments showed the pent up anger that many of the junior mathematicians feel. In any case, we certainly do not endorse such a viewpoint, but to silence all voices which may carry a viewpoint with which we, personally, disagree with bothers us equally. If you would care to write an article refuting the view, I will happily make sure that it will be included in the next issue. Given time, which I am perilously short on, I will eventually be able to write such an article myself for our publication. However, I think the world of mathematics would be better served if someone else wrote the article. Thus I ask you to do so. Failing that, if you would suggest someone else who would be willing to write such an article, I would very much appreciate it. In any case, I am sorry that the YMN has offended you by publishing the quotation without refutation. It was certainly not our intent to offend. I also hope that you realize that this opinion is widespread amongst junior male mathematicians and you would be doing the mathematics world a great service by sending the YMN an article refuting it. Thank you very much, Curtis Bennett ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- One more "thank you" letter from me answered by one from Dr. Bennett followed. I hope that I succeeded in drawing people's attention to what Dr. Dianne O'Leary called "the myth that being a white male is a disadvantage". However, I think that a more comprehensive article on the subject should be written by someone who's had more experience than I did in the job market. (I just finished my PhD, and had three excellent offers for a post-doc to choose from, but never went on a "real job" search including interviews). I hope a volunteer can be found among AWM members who can write this article! In that case we could forward it not only to YMN, but to YSN (Young Scientists Network), AWIS, and other job-search networks in more specific fields, e.g. my field (Mathematical Biology, which happens to have a relatively large representation of women), with the hope of doing something against the spreading of that myth. Best wishes to all, Ramit ramit@goshawk.lanl.gov _______________________________________________________________ Item #5 Comments Re: Are Women Getting all the Jobs? Mark W. Winstead Below are some written comments I made after my participation last January in the Association for Women in Mathematics panel discussion "Are women getting all the jobs?". Let me preface those comments with some additional remarks. Though I don't have the research in front of me, in preparing for the panel, I looked back several years at the employment figures available in the November *Notices*, and the followup articles which appear sometime in the summer. More than show that white males didn't have a disadvantage by any statistically significant means, it showed that just a few years ago --white males had an advantage--. That surprises no one I am sure, but let me say that by "few years", I mean that as recently as 1990, the employment rate of males was better in a statistically significant way. Again, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but that this was still true so recently is burned into my mind. Now look at the final figures for 1993, which appeared in the July/August issue of the *Notices*. Bottom line, in 1993, how many positions filled by women would have to be filled by men instead to see the "still seeking employment" category proportionately equal. Seven. That is seven out of 962 positions (727 academic positions). If we look at unemployed, which includes those unemployed but not looking for some reason, the number needed to change falls to five. (Remember, the AMS-IMS-MAA annual survey does not, as reported in the Notices, separate white from non-white). Now, my "remarks" to the panel: Are women getting all the jobs? Of course the literal answer is no, but that is not really the question we want to answer is it? There is certainly a perception among many that women have an unfair advantage at the entry level, at least a perception among young and not so young (male) mathematicians. Most stories I have heard, though, come from sources that may not be reliable, e.g. fellow students of candidates, competing candidates, possibly faculty at hiring schools who didn't get their personal favorite hired. Certainly some deans are pressuring some departments to increase ``minority representation'', and perhaps, maybe, some are cutting corners . Certainly this is wrong. Lowering standards not only demeans and hurts the very persons it supposedly helps, but it demeans and hurts the profession as well. Anecdotal evidence does seem to indicate that some departments are responding to this pressure by making more campus interviews with women, but the sole purpose of this seems to be to tell the dean that x% of the ones they interviewed were women. If this is true, it is wrong because it misleads and hurts the women being exploited in this way. So, what if statistics arise that might give some ``proof'' that women have an advantage at the entry level (I have no doubts that they don't have an advantage when it is time to grant tenure). Well, as trained mathematicians, critical thinkers, we know that we cannot take statistics at face value. Consider that I can argue that the average female entry level candidate is better qualified than the average entry level male candidate. (Of course, since I am on the job market this year, I feel a need to interject a claim that I am above average.) Think about the difference in the paths that men and women have to becoming mathematicians. Along the way, women face the challenge of the myth that men are better at mathematics. This myth shows itself in less encouragement and even discouragement for women pursuing mathematics. The myth has resulted in fewer same gender role models for women. If the mathematically talented woman makes it to graduate school, she usually finds herself in front of a classroom, facing undergraduates, a few who are either consciously or subconsciously thinking that their teacher cannot know math as well as her male peers, so she cannot be that good a teacher. The result is she must work harder or better to get the same respect and admiration from these myth influenced students that her male peers may be given from the moment they step in front of the class. I believe this process results in letting only the stronger survive. A similar process is probably true for other minorities. Raw statistics are often deceptive. Though we might not get a true answer to the questions raised here today, we must agree to attack the perception of reverse discrimination by reviewing the anecdotal evidence critically. We need to work diligently to eliminate both discrimination and reverse discrimination. We must set and maintain standards, and not lower them just to meet some sort of ``quota''. Otherwise, we end up pitting ourselves against each other in a battle with no real winners, a battle were not just the profession, but mathematics in general, suffers. Mark W. Winstead mwwinst@gcr.com ____________________________________________________________________ Item #6 Statistics In the second paragraph of the previous article, Mark Winstead quotes some impressions instead of statistics; since he does not have access to library, he should be forgiven. He requested that I find the statistics and publish them. Here, I have put those that I gleaned from the AMS-MAA-SIAM annual job surveys, in particular from the second reports published in a summer issue of the NOTICES each year. I first extracted the number of people who were reported as having obtained jobs, and the number who were still seeking employment; this does not count all those who were unemployed. I then did a bit of long division to extract an `unemployment rate'. These data are collected by year and by gender. I apologize for any errors in this compilation. Year 88-89 89-90 90-91 91-92 92-93 Gender M F M F M F M F M F SSE 21 8 15 4 45 9 54 13 80 16 Employed 721 166 746 161 797 200 717 198 722 240 UR (%) 2.8 4.6 2.0 2.5 5.3 4.3 7.0 6.2 10.0 6.2 SSE = Still Seeking Employment, UR = `Unemployment Rate'. Looking at this, Mark's point is clearer. Until 1990, the unemployment rate was too low to draw any conclusions. After then, a shift of only a very few people's fortunes would change the figures considerably; in any event the unemployment rates are not very different between men and women. In my opinion, arguing over who is getting all the (entry level) jobs is both counter-productive and missing the point that we are all facing a difficult time trying to pursue our chosen careers. It is perhaps this difficult atmosphere which breeds bitter comments and sore feelings like those (possibly) expressed by the respondent to Curtis' job survey (in the 5 October issue of Concerns). I think that we should draw together and work to alleviate the problem while giving each other support, rather than arguing amongst ourselves. ----------------------------------------------------- Behind the Scenes at the YMN Ramit Mehr's note engendered a lot of internal discussion among us about our editorial policy, and what is the right way for us to treat the subject raised by the reader whom Curtis Bennett quoted and so aroused Ramit Mehr to write us. I offer my opinion about the purpose of Concerns and our role as editors. Concerns is an electronic journal published to disseminate information of concern to young mathematicians. It is not a news group for people to post anything they want; the editor can (and does!) exercise discretion as to what to include, and also ask authors for references and figures to support their arguments (witness the statistics included above). We do however try to serve the interests of our readers, and always seek input (read that as: please feel free to write us!) from you. Those of us who edit or otherwise administer the Network are volunteers; In the words of one of us, "editing the Concerns is NOT doing our job". Our only qualification is that we are willing to take the time and trouble to keep the Network going. I believe that we are all young mathematicians; a couple of graduate students, a few in temporary one year positions, a couple of post docs, some unemployed, some in the early stages of the tenure track. In that sense, we are just like anyone else. We all hope that the (sometimes substantial) amount of time we spend on the Concerns does not impede our budding careers. This is not to say we are selfless martyrs. Some of us derive a lot of satisfaction as we feel that the Network is having a positive effect on a rather dismal situation. Moreover, it is quite enjoyable, the e-mail we send back and forth in our discussions is quite interesting. Hopefully, one of us will write a summary of some of those discussions for some future issue. We are not an exclusive club, anyone can volunteer to edit. However, we do have editors lined up until late Spring. One purpose of our town meeting in San Francisco is to find out what other things the Network can and should do, and get people working on them. Take care, Frank Sottile sottile@math.toronto.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 address change pending Neil Calkin calkin@math.gatech.edu Wendy Brunzie brunzie@turing.ucdavis.edu Curtis Bennett cbennet@andy.bgsu.edu Frank Arlinghaus frank@math.ysu.edu Edward Aboufadel aboufade@scus1.ctstateu.edu _______________________________________________________________ End of Journal -- Next week: The Discussion Continues