Faculty Meeting

MINUTES

The regular meeting of the faculty of the Department of Mathematics was held virtually via Zoom at 3:30pm PST, May 7, 2024. Max Lieblich, Chair, presided over the meeting. Rose Choi was the recording secretary.

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

Chair's Remarks

All grad students who requested funding will be funded this summer.

Merit raises are being discussed with the Personnel Committee.

There will not be any tenure-track hiring next year. Rather, this period presents an opportunity for the department to do a comprehensive review of all the programs and plan, clarify, and look towards becoming the math department of the future rather than the department of the past.

The safety of the department is paramount especially when discussing things that are very emotionally charged such as the ASE contract. Advocacy is a natural and important part of the process; however, there are state restrictions against using state resources for personal gain or for the gain of a third party such as the UAW. Matters of this type should not be discussed through business emails; rather they should be contained to a general mailing list such as the department’s bboard or via means of personal communication.

Announcements

Math grad student Nelson Niu is an elected bargaining team member of the UW Academic Student Employee Union. He provided an overview of the current state of the ASE contract negotiations along with some details pertaining to the impending voter authorized strike on May 14th. He also addressed common misconceptions regarding strikes and provided a guideline for faculty on approved vs illegal interactions with union members.

Committee Reports

The Undergraduate Program Committee brought the following items up for vote:

• Allow students in the Math BS option to double major with Statistics with no restrictions from our department on course overlap.
• Add Diversity credit to MATH 420: History of Mathematics, remove the note that it is only offered in Spring as that is no longer correct, and add the line “including discussion of the multicultural origins and diversity of contributions to mathematics” to the catalog copy.
• Include the following language on the department website re: MATH 300: “Students may attempt MATH 300 (Introduction to Mathematical Reasoning) no more than three times. Courses considered to have been attempted include any with a numerical grade; those with grades of I, S/NS, or X; and courses dropped resulting in an RD on the transcript.

Votes for all three proposals were held, passed, and approved.

The Graduate Admissions Committee provided a report on the incoming class of 2024.

ADJOURNMENT

There being no new business, the meeting passed into executive session at 4:55pm.