AGENDA
- Call to Order
- Chair's Remarks
- Announcements
- Graduate Program - Lieblich
- Committee Reports
- Diversity Committee - Shokrieh
- Undergraduate Program Committee - Taggart
- New Business
- Executive Session
- 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, May 3, 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
The graduation event will take place on June 9th (invitations were sent out via email). This event will be a combination of a celebration of our Masters and PhD students receiving degrees this term and the traditional beer bash that’s held at the end of each quarter. Everyone in the department is invited. There will be a separate morning event for the undergraduates.
All UW employees are required to go through Title IX training. It is federally mandated and highly relevant. You can access the training link at https://www.washington.edu/titleix/title-ix-employee-course/.
Based on the split votes from the last department meeting, the Executive Committee has decided to postpone and reassess making any changes to the duration of the postdoctoral position.
For the policies that were passed at the previous meeting, these will be accessible on the password protected portion of the department’s website.
Not enough is known about the upcoming budget as it pertains to faculty raises. It may be in the 3-3.25% range. Once these figures are available, the Chair will work with the Personnel Committee on how best to distribute these funds.
The hiring plans for next year are not being reviewed by the College this quarter. There will not be a hire next year but there will be at least three approved searches for the following year; hopefully, this will include one teaching stream position (no tenure stream positions are anticipated).
A representative of the American Mathematical Society will be visiting the department on May 31st at 3:30pm in PDL C-38. It will be a hybrid presentation.
Announcements
Graduate Program Committee: Starting next year, the department is going to consider offering some graduate courses only one day a week for three hours. Additionally, there will be the inclusion of “celebratory moments” into the usual milestones of “normal progress” for graduate students within the program. One of these moments will be the option of receiving one’s Masters Degree upon eligibility. Lastly, the leftover funds from the recruitment efforts have been redistributed to the Gloria Hewitt Endowed Fellowship. Nominations are being accepted for 1-2 candidates. As a reminder, this fellowship is intended for mathematics graduate students with a preference for those who contribute to the goal of a more equitable representation of underrepresented minorities and women in the field of mathematics.
Committee Reports
The Diversity Committee has revised the previous Diversity Statement from November 2021 with the aid of input from the faculty. Continued discussions are encouraged and, with enough interest, small group or even department-wide discussions to be organized in the near future. The committee plans to create a stand-alone page to document their actions in detail (undecided whether it will be visible to the public). If you have been involved with diversity outreach and are comfortable promoting this on the proposed page, please contact Professor Shokrieh. Additionally, the committee has been discussing ways to improve diversity efforts in the undergraduate and graduate program, and hope to have a concrete project developed for next year. Further details will be provided at the next department meeting.
The Undergraduate Program Committee has approved the following change to the MATH/STAT 493 prerequisites:
Students must have a minimum grade of 2.0 in either MATH/STAT 491 or a minimum grade of 2.0 in MATH/STAT 396.
A vote was held, passed, and approved.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no new business, the meeting passed into executive session at 3:53pm.