AGENDA
- Call to Order
- Chair's Remarks
- Announcements
- ACMS - Pal
- Committee Reports
- Graduate Program - Lieblich
- Undergraduate Program - Taggart
- Appointments - Viray
- New Business
- Executive Session
- Adjournment
MINUTES
The regular meeting of the faculty of the Department of Mathematics was held virtually via Zoom at 3:30pm PST, June 6, 2023. 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 end-of-quarter beer bash will be held on June 9th at 3:30pm in HUB 145. This event will celebrate our graduating Masters and PhDs so please attend if you can. There are also graduation celebrations for our Math undergrads and ACMS on June 8th at 11am and 1pm, respectively, at the Gates Center for Computer Science and Engineering (G20).
There may be a postdoc strike tomorrow. If a strike will affect your work in any way, please contact the chair, Jenni, Max, and Sarah for guidance.
Calculus class sizes will increase next year. Teaching-stream faculty will be teaching six courses next year as opposed to seven from previous years. Tenure-stream faculty work on a teaching credit system which will be adjusted from 3.05 to 2.6 (approx. 4 courses down to 3.5).
As a reminder, per the faculty code, all voting faculty make merit recommendations for non-voting faculty (in our case, part-time lecturers); all associate and full professors make merit recommendations for assistant professors (both teaching- and tenure-stream); and all full professors make merit recommendations for associate professors (both teaching- and tenure-stream). Postdocs are evaluated on a separate criteria.
This year we received a 4% salary pool of which 3% must be given to meritorious faculty. The remaining 1% is, for the most part, at the department’s discretion. The Personnel Committee has voted to provide a 3.5% raise to all meritorious faculty and split the remaining amount evenly among faculty who were excluded from the last three years of raise cycles.
Announcements
The Applied and Computational Mathematical Sciences (ACMS) program is a multidisciplinary Bachelor of Science degree program in the College of Arts and Sciences, offered jointly by the Departments of Applied Mathematics, Mathematics, Statistics and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. It remains one of the most competitive majors on campus admitting roughly 40-50 students per cycle (twice a year). ACMS is run by a steering committee from all four departments under one director every three years (currently Soumik Pal). Their curriculum has been recently revised (last updated in the 90s) to streamline the tracks, update outdated courses and admission requirements, and offer more relevant course choices for students. They anticipate this new curriculum to roll out in Spring 2024.
Committee Reports
The Graduate Program Committee proposes the following policy changes:
- Prelims to be replaced with a Writing Milestone due by end of second year
- Core courses will have higher expectations with the expectation that instructors report to the Graduate Program Committee with a slightly more uniform grading scale (there will be no appreciable increase in faculty labor)
- Students will be expected to take seven core quarters over two years (five in year one) with exceptions to be granted by the GPC in consultation with the committee and core course instructors
Non-policy recommendations are:
- Encourage general exams at earliest feasible date
- Encourage students to assemble more than one mentor early on
A vote was held, passed, and approved.
The Undergraduate Program Committee proposes updating the requirements for a teaching endorsement in Mathematics for students in the College of Education’s Master’s in Teaching Program (both middle and secondary level).
For the middle level endorsement, the proposed changes are:
- Option I: Add a statistics course worth 3-5 credits and MATH 444 (geometry) worth 3 credits to the requisite coursework bringing the total from 20 to 26-28 credits.
- Option II: Add a math minor or major with specific coursework in stats/probability and geometry (determined on a case-by-case basis)
- Option III: Require extensive prior experience in teaching mathematics (determined on a case-by-case basis)
For the secondary level endorsement, they propose a minimum of 50 credits (increased from 39-40), including 33-35 credits from:
- MATH 124, 125, 126
- MATH 208
- MATH 300
- MATH 394
- Basic statistics course
- MATH 444
- One of MATH 301, 402, or 411
The committee also proposes the following:
- Change the prereq for MATH 126 to a minimum grade of 2.0 in MATH 125 or 134, or a score of 4 on BC advanced placement test
- Change the admission requirement for the Math Major to a minimum 2.0 grade in each course within either of these two groups (Group A: MATH 124, 125, 126, 300; or Group B: MATH 134, 135, 136) along with an overall minimum 2.50 GPA in all mathematics courses (all courses must be completed at the time of application and cannot be “in-progress”)
These new admissions requirements would go into effect Fall 2024 with an announcement and coordination of MATH 300 sections in Fall 2023.
A vote for the teaching endorsement updates, the changes to the prereq for MATH 126, and the changes to the admissions req for the math major were held, passed, and approved.
The Appointments Committee has reworked the axes presented at the last meeting. The first round evaluates the publication quality and community recognition of research, the second round looks at research (independence/innovation and mentorship/leadership), and the third round looks at collegiality/service, diversity, and classroom teaching. The timeline goal for the interviews will be before the end of winter quarter with offers going out soon thereafter.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no new business, the meeting passed into executive session at 5:08pm.