*Concerns of Young Mathematicians* Volume 2, Issue 41 Dec. 14, 1994 An electronically distributed digest for discussions of the issues of concern to mathematicians at the beginning of their careers. Please, direct submissions and questions to Steve Kennedy skennedy@mathcs.carleton.edu , editor for the month of December. Next issue: Wednesday, 28 December. November Editor: Frank Sottile sottile@math.toronto.edu December Editor: Steve Kennedy skennedy@mathcs.carleton.edu January Editor: Matt Hudelson hudelson@math.washington.edu To subscribe: Contact Charles Yeomans at cyeomans@ms.uky.edu Back issues and other information are available via anonymous FTP to ftp.ms.uky.edu, in pub3/mailing.lists/ymn-list. Or connect to the YMN homepage on the WWW, the URL: http://math34.gatech.edu:8080/YMN/ymn.html The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of the administrative board or membership of the Young Mathematicians' Network. The editorial policy of this newsletter is to encourage discussion of issues, and facilitate the dissemination of information, relevant to the concerns of young mathematicians. Table of Contents Item # Title ------ ----- 1 Editor's Note 2 News & Notes 3 Applying to a Liberal Arts College Jack Goldfeather 4 Advice for Young Mathematicians Kevin Charlwood 5 Values vs. Goals Michael Mamish 6 Recommended Reading About Writing David Cruz-Uribe 7 Where to Publish Curtis Bennett 8 Is YMN Working as a Support Group? Mark Winstead ______________________________________________________________ Item #1 Editor's Note At lunch a couple of weeks ago the topic of conversation was the job market. Jack Goldfeather, one of my colleagues, and one of the members of the search committee here at Carleton last year made some comments that I found surprising: "cover letters are tremendously important" and "your letters of recommendation are not as important." I had always assumed that letters of recommendation were the single most important determinant of success in my application packet. After he explained his thinking, I immediately asked him to write it up for this newsletter. Please see Item #3. Kevin Charlwood is back with his own advice on dossier prepar- ation and what to expect in San Francisco. It's interesting to compare and contrast Kevin's and Jack's pieces. With the hope that I made it even more interesting, and with Kevin's permission, I inserted some comments/advice into Kevin's article. My comments are enclosed by []. Michael Mamish reacts to Mark Winstead's piece of last week about the future of YMN. Michael asks us to consider setting yearly goals for the network. What should they be? He, and we, want your input on that one. David Cruz-Uribe responds to Curtis Bennett's article on mathematical writing with a recommendation of his favorite writers' manual. Curtis Bennett continues his series on professional development. This week he has some advice (solicited from Charles Holland and Steven Krantz) on how to determine where to send that beautifully crafted article you just wrote. And, finally, Mark Winstead wants to know if you think YMN is accomplishing its goal of functioning as a support group. Steve Kennedy skennedy@mathcs.carleton.edu ______________________________________________________________ Item #2 News & Notes 1. There will be no issue of Concerns published next week. The next issue will be published December 28. 2. Kevin Charlwood writes to ask again that all those on the market this year please fill out and return to him the YMN job market survey. It appeared in last week's Concerns. If you can't find it, write Kevin at kec1@bradley.bradley.edu he'll be happy to send you one. 3. Last week, it was implied in an article by Mark Winstead that some unnamed person is sending highlights of the "Concerns" to the AMS Council members and other officers . It turns out that this was based on misinformation; there is no regular effort by anyone to do this. _____________________________________________________________ Item #3 Applying to a Liberal Arts College Some observations and advice from someone who read over 700 applications last year for a tenure-track position in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Carleton College. All completed applications contained at least: (a) Cover letter from the applicant. (b) Curriculum vitae. (c) Three letters of recommendation, at least one of which spoke to teaching. (d) Statement about teaching. (e) Statement about research interests. (f) A graduate transcript. Because of the sheer volume of applications, the "first pass" through all the applications was necessarily brief (usually less than 10 minutes per reader per application.) Although we used a complicated grading system, and there were three members of the search committee reading all the applications, the net effect of this phase was to divide the applications into two piles: Consider Further and Don't Consider Further. The negatives and positives which determined whether your application should be placed in the (small) Consider Further pile or the (large) Don't Consider Further pile can be classified into three general groups: (a) What YOU write (or fail to write) in your cover letter, c.v., and other statements; (b) what others write about you; (c) what the record shows about you. As astonishing as this might seem, it is very difficult to make distinctions between applicants based solely on (b) and (c) above. Letters of recommendation are mostly uniformly positive: everyone wrote a good thesis, everyone is a good teacher, everyone would be a good colleague, everyone got mostly A's. If these were the only criteria for making the Consider Further pile, just about all of our applicants would have survived this cut. Since the name of the game in this preliminary round is "massive elimination," we had to establish stricter criteria for an application to be considered further. In particular: (a) Letters of recommendation had to say something really exceptional and explicit about teaching. (b) A lot more attention was given to what the applicants said about themselves. Since you have less control over what others say about you than what you choose to say about yourself, let me make some remarks about the latter. First and foremost, let me say that the cover letter you write is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT. In this modern age of word-processed form letters, it is certainly easy to try to maximize your chances of a job offer by maximizing the number of applications you submit. But there are other ways to improve your chances besides generating a blizzard of nearly identical applications. It takes more work and more time than simply writing one letter and selecting COPIES = 300 on the old Xerox machine, but I believe in the long run that a carefully written, well-researched, thoughtful, personal letter generates a lot of impact. Think of this letter as your opportunity to: (a) Introduce yourself. (b) Summarize your goals and aspirations. (c) Make it clear what kind of emphasis and priority you place on teaching and research. (d) Make it clear that you are knowledgeable about the educational mission of the PARTICULAR institution you are applying to. For example, if it is a liberal arts college, make it clear you know what a liberal arts education is. (A surprising number of applicants don't seem to have a clue about this!) (e) Show how your particular skills and talents blend well with this mission. (f) Make it clear you know something about the institution in general. What is its reputation? What kind of students does it attract? Where is it located? (Sure, the address is in the job advertisement, but do you know where Minnesota is?) If you don't know anything about the school, do some legwork and find out. (g) Highlight what you think is interesting and important in the other information you are sending (curriculum vitae, statements on teaching and research, student evaluations of you, etc.) For example, don't assume we will notice that teaching award listed on the bottom of page 2 of your c.v. Use the cover letter to draw attention to it. Does this seem like a lot of work? It is. Does it matter? You bet it does. In most cases, my decision about an applicant was nearly made after reading only the cover letter. I would then quickly read through the reference letters and other materials, looking for corroboration of my nearly-formed opinion. (Remember, this is only the initial read-through. The other materials do get scrutinized much more carefully once the Consider Further pile is down to a reasonable size.) Here are some other tips: (a) Limit the letter to no more than 2 pages (with a reasonable font size). You have to be creative to pack in a lot of information into this space. An overly long letter can be as bad as a too short one. (b) DON'T send a lot of raw information about teaching. We won't read it. DO send a summary of your teaching evaluations (1 or 2 pages). (c) DON'T send an overly long statement about either research programs or teaching philosophy. We won't read it. DO send a short (1 or 2 pages) statement on these matters. Remember, in a liberal arts environment, how you write about your research is just as important as what you proved. Our dean, who has a background in English Literature, always asks a job candidate during an interview to explain his or her dissertation results in terms she can understand. Are you prepared to do this? Suppose you have made it to the small Consider Further pile. (In our case last year there were about 75 applications in this pile.) Our next task was to reduce this to about 20 serious contenders. Who survived and who didn't? As you might imagine, since we were now looking at the top 10 percent of all the applicants, the decisions were much harder. At this point, other factors came into play. Among these factors were: (a) The quality of the reference letters. These letters had to be really excellent, especially in reference to teaching. General comments like "I heard from a colleague that she is a really good teacher" weren't given much (positive) weight. We were looking for specific anecdotal information of the kind generated by classroom visits of a careful observer who knows the difference between good and bad teaching. (b) Teaching experience. If you have only been a teaching assistant in large lecture courses, you will be at a disadvantage here. We want to get a sense of how you will fit in to a small class environment, how you will interact with students, what innovative teaching methods you have tried, etc. Suppose you made it it the top 20. Our next task was to reduce this to 4 or 5 whom we would actually invite for interviews. At this point, the entire department read all of the top 20 applications with great care. After several meetings of boisterous give and take (we all had our favorites in the applicant pool) the top 5 emerged by consensus. (Anyone who has ever been at a meeting in which something difficult was eventually decided by consensus knows how hard it is to describe the actual process.) Suppose you were chosen to be interviewed. Our interview process is long and demanding and includes: (a) A variety of meetings with department faculty, majors, and other students. (b) An interview with the dean and president. (c) A colloquium talk. By far, the colloquium talk leaves the biggest impression. Candidates are asked to talk about something which would be of interest to, and pitched at our junior/senior majors. Talks based on your research are fine, IF you can find a way to make it understandable to this audience. Remember, we are less concerned with the quality of your results than with the quality of your presentation. You are being judged on how well you can communicate ideas, how you respond to questions, how good you are at getting students excited and interested. If you feel your research would not be a good choice for an undergraduate talk, pick another topic. Jack Goldfeather Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science Carleton College jgoldfea@mathcs.carleton.edu ____________________________________________________________ Item #4 Advice for YM's Hello, and happy holidays!! The purpose of this piece is to give those of you on the job market and/or going out to San Francisco some food for thought. The first part regards dossier preparation, and the second relates to what to expect at San Francisco if you've never before been to the Joint Meetings. I. Dossier Preparation For more complete information on this topic, please see Sarah Witherspoon's article (#6) in the Nov. 9 issue of Concerns. [And item #3, above, ed.] I'll just maybe give a brief, stripped-down synopsis of what she and others have mentioned on the subject. First, use the AMS cover sheet in your application packages (see the Sep. '94 NOTICES), even if position ads do not specifically ask for it. The only way it will ever be known how useful it is, is for applicants to attach a copy with all their applications. With 500+ applicants for many (most?!) jobs, employers need a quick way to sift through their stacks of applications, and this helps them, too. At least I hope it does! Next, if your resume is more than a page, so be it! The statement "keep your resume to a page" is hogwash, and with such a difficult market, one cannot afford to be too restrained. If your background and experience warrant, do not hesitate to include information about awards, courses taught, etc., even if it may seem trivial. Let the committee on the other end be the judge! [I read some applications last year during the search at St. Olaf College and would say that Kevin is correct. You should not eliminate important information about yourself to limit your c.v. to one page, however, a single page packed with information in a reasonable font size looks more attractive and professional than a two page c.v. with large type and lots of distracting white space. It is tempting to try to "pad," don't succumb. Most new PhDs probably don't need a second page. Essential info on your c.v.: name, addresses (include phone number and e-mail), education (grad and undergrad only, list all degrees awarded and expected PhD date if not yet earned), publications (list those submitted but not yet accepted, identify them as such), professional experience (includes faculty positions, TA-ships, research-assistantships, industrial positions, internships and summer research jobs only if scientific or mathematical), and talks given to professional societies. Optional info: specialty, list of references, memberships in professional societies, honors and awards (depending on their significance these maybe are `essential,' try to put them in context, i.e., The PiRSquare Scholarship, awarded annually to the undergraduate with the "greatest scholarly potential in mathematics" at State University), other talks, departmental service, manuscripts in preparation.] Above all, make sure the overall package you send is complete and well-organized. Employers dislike having too many separate pieces of mail show up for each individual candidate....avoid wasting THEIR time, and yours, too. Make your teaching and research statements brief and to the point....again, with (expected) large pools of applicants, it is crucial to make your information quick and easy to digest. An extremely important part of the process, before sending your stuff out, is to get people who know you best to critique your resume, letters and proposals. I know I find it difficult to "self-edit", and your mentors and colleagues will be bound to give you ideas/comments you hadn't thought of. As a minor aside, some have asked, "how in the world are you supposed to put all this together?" Last spring, an article in Concerns quoted someone from NC State who mentioned (roughly) "the application process is like reinventing the wheel." That stuck in my mind, as that's really the case for all of us. When you get started figuring out what jobs you want to apply to and how to go about it, you really are "inventing your own wheel!!" It's a very individualized process, as we all have such varied backgrounds. Make the qualities which are different about you work to your advantage....and again, not to belabor the point, get people who know you to take a good look at what you'll be sending!! [Make sure some of these people have been on hiring committees, or at least have seen some applications recently.] II. The Joint Meetings in San Francisco Last year I went to the meetings in Cincinnati, not knowing what to expect. I partook of the Employment Register, and was amazed by the "zoo." It sounds funny, but it was somewhat intimidating....552 applicants, and 71 employers. If this is your first time doing the Register, be prepared! Personally, many have said they did not find the Register particularly useful, but you'll need to try it and form your own opinion. It'll be difficult to be noticed, since each employer can interview up to 40 applicants. Plus, in many instances they'll spend a good chunk of the allotted 15 minutes telling you about their school and the mathematics department. Thus, it's definitely up to you to "sieze the moment" as it were, and talk about your qualifications, why you're interested in THEM and how you can enhance their program(s). If an employer wants to meet you outside the usual Register, DO IT!! Oftentimes these meetings take place in their hotel rooms....many very valuable contacts are made that way, so check the message board and the alphabetized "mail" boxes (outside the interview room) at the main hotel often! [It is almost essential that you go to the Meetings if you're on the market. There will be representatives of many schools there interviewing applicants besides the 71 or so participating in the ER. Many schools bypass the ER entirely and use only privately arranged interviews at the Meetings. You should mention in your cover letter whether you will be at the Meetings. If there are schools in which you are particularly interested, you should consider calling or sending e-mail this week to find out if anyone from the department will be at the Meetings and would be willing to meet with you there. Conquer your shyness and do it!] If you're giving a talk, publicize it in your application letters. If not, plan to do one next year, but be sure to attend 10 and 20 minute talks in your area(s) of interest. It's a great way to stay current on what's new on your front, perhaps giving you ideas of results to pursue. Also, you'll get to meet the "big guns" in your area(s) as well, and occasionally one little five minute conversation with someone might sow the seeds for a job opportunity down the line. All too often, it's not what you know, but who you know!! Do not hesitate to go up to someone in your area(s) and introduce yourself; you'll always learn something, and it helps build your confidence to go out and "press the flesh" for the day that big interview rolls around! If you feel you're basically shy, work hard at overcoming it....you may be a solid mathematician and a warm, wonderful human being, but no one will know that unless you get yourself out there!! [A few years ago, one of the first times I was on the market, I did exactly what Kevin is proposing. I found myself at a special session sitting next to a pretty famous person in my field; I knew that they were hiring that year and I screwed up my nerve, introduced myself, and asked her about the position. Turned out that they were looking for a more experienced person, but she went home and asked if the department would hire me as a postdoc to work with her and they did. This would never have happened if I hadn't introduced myself; she wasn't involved in reading the applications and had never heard of me. I would have been unemployed the next year if this hadn't happened; instead I got a really good job.] If you're a graduate student, plan to attend the free get-together normally held early on during the Meetings. I failed to do this last year, and again, it's a great opportunity to glad hand some people in the "biz" and make some contacts. If the chance comes up to go out to dinner or sightseeing around the City, by all means DO IT!! Even if you're not with someone who might help you with your current struggles, it's valuable to learn from them....plus, these contacts might help you in the future. Also, if you can find/make the time, explore the exhibits at the main hotel. There will be publishers, software dealers, etc. present to show off their wares. Pick up a few business cards, especially if you intend to do some writing....if you're ever in line to do some business with them (say you're marketing a piece of software you've developed), it's great to be able to introduce yourself to them by indicating you'd met with them in San Francisco in January of '95. As a final comment, I realize that this seems like an awesome task... going to all these events and such, but keep in mind that your (near) future could depend on what you can do out there! When I went to Cincinnati last year, my eyes were bloodshot (seriously!) by the end of the Meetings, but it was worth it. I hope you've enjoyed reading this, and I'll see you at the Meetings in January!! [By the way, there are lots of reasons to go to the Meetings besides trying to find a job. Where else do you get hear Andrew Majda, Clifford Taubes, Doris Schattschneider, Lenore Blum, Karen Uhlenbeck, Karen Parshall, and hundreds of others talk about mathematics? I guarantee you'll go home tired, but you'll also go home newly committed to learning, teaching, and doing mathematics. It's exciting to be around all that mathematics, and all those people who share this ridiculous passion with you!] Respectfully submitted, Kevin Charlwood, Bradley University e-mail: kec1@bradley.bradley.edu ________________________________________________________________ Item #5 Values vs. Goals In the last issue of *Concerns* (Vol.2 #40), Mark Winstead, in his discussion of future direction of YMN, questioned whether we should state as one of the purposes of this group is to encourage young mathematicians to be involved in professional societies and get on these societies' many committees. He wondered whether this was a means to an end or an end, which triggered some thoughts. In my view, we should differentiate between the "values" of the network and its "goals". Values once established will not change very much. However goals once achieved, will give room to new goals to achieve. If we base this network on goals alone, then the network may lose its raison d'etre once the goals are achieved, and the end was met. I know, given the awesomeness of the problems that young mathematicians are facing today, this network will not run out of goals in the near future. So maybe, we want to set an agenda, or a set of goals, for the network, at the begining of each year to serve ourselves, and work on achieving them. These goals should be in the spirit of the values for which this network stands.* Another way to think about this, is to write a "charter" for the network. And see how we can fullfill a self-imposed mission by working on incremental steps towards all the points of the charter. Michael Mamish mmamish@osf1.gmu.edu [* Editor's note: Please read Michael's ideas as an invitation to participate in this conversation. What do you think should be the YMN goals for 1995?] _____________________________________________________________ Item #6 Recommended Reading About Writing Having read the recent article on writing papers, I would like to enthusiastically recommend the following book: Higham, N. J., Handbook of writing for the mathematical sciences, Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1993. I found this book while revising my thesis for publication. I had written (with my advisor's approval) in article format for immediate publication. However, it ended up a bit of a hybrid and came back with a damning referee's report. (Actually, the referee really liked the mathematics, but he spent two pages criticizing the write-up.) I ended up reading Higham's book cover to cover twice, and kept it next to my computer as a reference for weeks. He has in-depth discussion of English grammar and usage (including a chapter specifically intended for non-English speakers) and a number of chapters about the specific concerns of mathematical writing. He also has chapters on TeX and Emacs, as well as an extensive bibliography to the whole field of scientific and technical writing. My personal recommendation is that every graduate student should be given this book before trying to write a thesis. David Cruz-Uribe, SFO cruz@math.purdue.edu _____________________________________________________________ Item #7 Professional Development: Where to Publish First, let me thank those of you who have sent the Halmos reference on to me. The Halmos article is in: Steenrod, Halmos, Schiffer and Dieudonne, "How to Write Mathematics", AMS, 1973. Another reference which was sent on to me is: N. Higham, "Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences", SIAM, 1993 Now for this week's article. Last week I wrote on writing papers. This week continues the subject with the question of where to submit your papers. My experience on the subject being somewhat limited, I put the question to two senior mathematicians (actually, a couple of more, but two responded in time for this article). My deepest thanks go out to both Dr. Holland and Dr. Krantz for sharing their experience and knowledge. The first by Charles Holland: In selecting a journal for submission of a paper, there are several considerations to bear in mind. The paper should have some chance of appearing in a timely fashion. It should be in a journal with wide distribution. It should be a journal with a decent reputation. It should be a journal where the paper is likely to be refereed by a knowledgeable and sympathetic referee. Finding the necessary information will probably require spending some time in a library with a good selection of journals. Of course, once the decision is made, you need to look at the journal to see specifically what they require in the way of format, number of copies, and to what address it should be sent. Twice each year, the AMS Notices publishes the backlog and estimated waiting times for papers submitted to many of the standard journals. Other things being equal, I try to avoid journals that are too far behind. Next, if my paper is closely connected with other papers, I consider the journals where those papers appeared (or where their referenced papers appeared), on the grounds that it will be easy for the editor to find a good referee. For similar reasons, I check the list of editors of the journal and try to find someone who I think will be interested. Of course, some journals have specific restrictions on subject matter, length, etc. There is a perceived ranking of journals by "prestige", though personally, I tend to discount that. If that makes any difference to the author or the author's university - our Dean once sent the department a list of "the twenty most important Math journals" with the suggestion that we publish more in them - then the only way to find out about the relative ranking of journals is by asking (and you will probably get different opinions from different people). In any event, it doesn't hurt to ask colleagues and friends for suggestions. There is a lot of informal information floating around which would not be obvious in any library search. For instance, certain editors are known to be "black holes"-the submitted papers disappear and are never seen again, and some journals have a definite tilt toward or away from certain subjects, though they don't necessarily publicize this. Finally, if the author believes the paper would be of interest to a certain mathematician, and no other obvious choice presents itself, then send the paper to that person and ask for an opinion on publishing options. The second by Steven Krantz: You've just written a paper. You think it's pretty good. Where should you submit it? It is difficult to judge the genuine worth of one's own work, especially when one is still in the heat of passion. Before the problem is solved, it seems mightily important. After it is solved, one is tortured by self-doubt: shouldn't I have solved this much more quickly? Is it really all that interesting? Could I possibly get it published? One good barometer of how to proceed is to show your preprint to friends and colleagues. Are they surprised, impressed, confused, bored? Sometimes they will suggest changes. Sometimes they will suggest a journal. [Sometimes the friend is the editor of a journal and will offer to communicate it, but don't bet on this ---it is obviously the exception.] Ultimately, the decision of where to submit is up to you. Begin by considering where cognate results have appeared. The Journal of Algebra will probably not consider papers on singular integrals. The Journal of Symbolic Logic probably doesn't publish papers on Gelfand-Fuks cohomology. Certain journals have become the default forum for work on operator theory or several complex variables or potential theory. It is natural to consider those. It is also natural to consider which editors will understand what your paper is about and will know how to select a referee. You need not actually know the editor, but it is comforting to know where the editor is coming from. If you shoot high and select a really classy journal, you might pay in several ways: 1) the refereeing process may take an extra long time, 2) the journal might have a huge backlog, 3) the paper could get rejected for almost any reason. Thus, the entire process of getting your work published could drag on for two years or more. If you are fighting the tenure clock, this could be a problem. In some ways it is better to err on the side of shooting low. Usually mathematical work is judged on its own merits. Nobody will downgrade your work, or you, if your theorems are not published in the optimal journal. But don't publish in an obscure journal that nobody ever reads. There are some journals with the reputation that they would publish Dan Quayle's laundry list; that is not where you want your work to appear. There is no magic formula for picking the right journal to which to submit your work. In some ways it is a crapshoot. If the paper is rejected, it is not always correct to conclude that the paper is worthless. It may have landed in the hands of a referee with an axe to grind, or who did not understand it. The editor might have misread the referee's report. Don't be afraid to get help or advice on how to proceed. Some of the best mathematicians that I know---even Fields Medalists---can reel off horror stories of all the papers that they have had rejected. Part of surviving in this profession is learning to live with the reality that one needs to persevere. If your paper is accepted first time around, then congratulations. If not, try to be objective and figure out why. Then act intelligently on that new information. Curtis Bennett cbennet@falcon.bgsu.edu __________________________________________________________________ Item #8 Is YMN Working as a Support Group? Surveys, surveys, surveys. As a followup to my article last week, I would like to hear opinions on the following: Item (iii) of the YMN "charter"is "YMN is a support group for those on the job market" 1) Has YMN succeeded on this, can we do better? I have been involved in some discussion on this issue via e-mail with some. Rather than risk tainting the survey, let me just say I want a few more opinions. 2) What additional forums would you support/use for YMN? What forums would you volunteer to help with? Some possibilities for additional: i) Special interest WWW pages, such as teaching oriented, industrial job seeking, etc. Please specify which ones you would be interested in. ii) Special, but limited(?) interest mailing lists, with themes such as two-year college job seeking, two-body problem, industrial job seeking, etc. Please specify which ones you would participate in. (Of course, a great number of the contributions could be cross-posted, with permission, to CYM.) (If too much interest is expressed in any one possibility, it would mean it should be addressed more in Concerns.) iii) A "situation wanted" mailing list. Industrial or unusual academic situations wanted would be posted to a mailing list, and others on the list could help point out possibilities the poster was not aware of. Please send replies directly to me, and I will compile the results. If you have trouble "cutting" this from the newsletter, write me and I will send you a note with just this article in it. Mark W. Winstead mwwinst@gcr.com _________________________________________________________________ The Young Mathematicians' Network is administered by: Charles Yeomans cyeomans@ms.uky.edu Mark Winstead mwwinst@gcr.com Nancy Wilson nwilson@stmarys-ca.edu Emil Volcheck Emil.Volcheck@risc.uni-linz.ac.at 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 Kevin Charlwood kec1@bradley.bradley.edu 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: Curl up with a good book!