Faculty Meeting

MINUTES

The regular meeting of the faculty of the Department of Mathematics was held virtually via Zoom at 3:30pm PST, October 8, 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

The College is facing some financial challenges which will affect retention offers and hires.

Various faculty within the department are working hard to bolster our own programs and outreach efforts. Some examples:

• Julia Pevtsova and Danny Shi are continuing their amazing work with UW Math Circle and Husky Math Academy bringing outside interest by teaching kids about the beauty of math.
• Cynthia Vinzant is running a public lecture series that will make math accessible to a general audience.
• Chris Hoffman and Charles Camacho are working on a program to help support underserved calculus students.
• Andy Loveless is working on setting up internal awards for teaching.
• Soumik Pal is helping develop an alumni board and organize the department’s centennial celebration.

Our credit hours for undergraduate courses fall short in comparison to similarly demanding courses at parallel departments. Therefore, the Undergraduate Program Committee proposes increasing all 2xx/3xx/4xx classes currently at three credits to four student credit hours. If you have any questions or comments please route them to the committee this week. They hope to send out a voting poll by next week.

Math Day is in need of an organizer or team in order to continue. 

There will be a floor to the funds available via the department for summer grad support.

The AAP appointments committee is still being formed.

Announcements

Faculty are encouraged to come to the colloquia and the pre-talk gathering in the math lounge. The first talk of the quarter will be by our own Thomas Rothvoss. 

Julia Pevtsova reminded faculty to submit their nominations for graduate student awards by next Tuesday. She also reiterated that summer teaching is not a guarantee for grad students past their first year. Students will now be required to apply for summer teaching positions. If you have an RA, please consider supporting your student this summer.

Sara Billey is running a community development committee which will expose students to different opportunities such as internships. 

Committee Reports

The Undergraduate Program Committee proposes changing the prerequisites for Math 112 and Math 396/491/493 from STAT. An email with the reasoning for both was sent in advance of the meeting. Votes were held, passed, and approved.

ADJOURNMENT

There being no new business, the meeting passed into executive session at 4:16pm.