Faculty Meeting

1. Call to Order
2. Chair's Remarks
3. Announcements
4. Committee Reports
   • Graduate Program Committee -  Lieblich
5. New Business
6. Executive Session
7. Adjournment

MINUTES

The regular meeting of the faculty of the Department of Mathematics was held in-person in C-38 Padelford Hall and virtually via Zoom at 3:30pm PST, March 1, 2022. John Palmieri, Chair, presided at the meeting. Rose Choi was recording secretary.

The meeting began with approval of the previous meeting’s minutes.

Chair's Remarks

This has been an especially difficult quarter in part due to the sudden pivot to online teaching at the start of the quarter and uncertainty as to when we would be returning to in-person instruction. This in turn affected the timing of the midterms and finals with many still uncomfortable being back in-person. It’s been hard on everyone, faculty and students alike, and John wishes to acknowledge how hard everyone has worked to get through this challenging period.

There has not been any news or changes in guidelines to the current UW COVID policy since the return to in-person instruction.

There will not be a department dinner this year. We hope to be able to hold an in-person event at a later time, perhaps outdoors, once it’s safer for everyone to gather en masse again.

The International Congress of Mathematicians will be held virtually this year (July 6-14, 2022). Participation in the virtual ICM event will be free of charge. 

The department’s open rank search is underway with four out of the five candidates having concluded their visits. All faculty are highly encouraged to participate as this level search is quite rare. All of the talks have been recorded (the links were sent out via email) so please review those if you were unable to attend them live. There will be a closed meeting of voting faculty on March 10th to deliberate on the candidates.

The five-year hiring plan is due to the College of Arts and Sciences. A draft has been circulated around the Executive Committee and will be shared with the faculty on Monday. We hope to be able to make two or three tenure-track hires next year. John would like to include one teaching-stream faculty hire.

We tested out a new system for ranking postdoc hires this year. Feedback is  appreciated.

There was an open Q&A session for the Chair, Graduate Program Director, and Undergraduate Program Director.

Committee Reports

The Graduate Committee has eliminated the current internal policy for normal progress that “students should take eight courses in the first year (of which six are ‘core courses’).” The language regarding the normal progress metrics has been updated on the department’s website.

The committee would also like to request that faculty give graduate students a 4.0 in topics and reading courses, and are encouraged to provide feedback to students in order to encourage mathematical broadening, particularly for the first year students.

The Graduate Student Representative, Stark Ryan, provided an update on the general state of the graduate students and would like remind faculty how important their social interactions are to the mental and emotional well-being of the students. Impromptu discussions have been greatly missed and would help elevate the overall mood of the students. If you are able, please join the students for daily tea at 3:30pm on the loading deck (fully outdoors). Other suggestions are welcome.

ADJOURNMENT

There being no new business, the meeting passed into executive session at 4:08pm.