08.06.06

Project NExT: Day 1

Posted in Mathematics at 11:56 pm by Haris

I’m at Knoxville, TN for Project NExT and we just finished our first day. So far it has been a blast. I’ve gotten to meet a number of recent PhD’s and exchange a lot of information on life after the PhD.

The day started rather late, at 1:30pm, with Aparna Higgins introducing herself and the rest of the Project NExT team, Joe Gallian, Judith Covington and Gavin LaRose. These are all people with unbelievable energy and passion for teaching, and they are being assisted by a group of very gifted teachers.

We then had a breakout session where we got to meet some of the other fellow Sepia NExTers (that’s our year’s color for those not familiar with the project), and that was followed by a truly fascinating talk by Bill Velez, who focused on the very important problem on how to get more people to major or minor in math. One of his main points is that we mathematicians are the biggest stumbling block in that respect, as we all too often tend to think that a BS in math is good only for one purpose: To pursue a PhD in math. Or put better in his words: “Mathematicians don’t think that mathematics is useful”. This couldn’t be further from the truth, in fact a math major is one of the versatile degrees out there, especially combined with a second major. Anyone interested in deep higher level work in Biology or Chemistry for instance should expect to have the need for a very solid grounding in mathematics, much more than what is offered on the typical calculus sequence that is the standard requirement for such majors. Also for those considering careers in industry, a degree in mathematics tells the recruiter that the candidate is a fast-learning very smart person, who can easily learn whatever they need to get the work done. Bill spends most of his time trying to attract more and more students into a math major/minor, extremely aggressively, and he has been very successful in it.

This was followed by another breakout section, where we got to meet with people who were all going to be teaching in similar colleges, and we discussed teaching approaches we have tried and how we felt they went. There is an increasing interest in methods alternative to the typical lecturing style, methods that engage the students more, and it was very interesting to see the things that people have done. This was followed by a wonderful dinner, were we got to sit in small groups and socialize. Our table had Joe Gallian and Carol Schumacher and we had a great time. Looks like we will be having all our meals in a similar manner in the next two days. They are really trying to make sure that we spend as much time as possible with each other, and that we get to meet as many of the 83 fellows as possible, and I guess this is really what the project is all about, establishing contacts.

After dinner we got to meet the Leadership, namely representatives from the MAA, the AMS, SIAM and AWM, and got to find out how we can get involved with these organizations and what we can do to help. One of the interesting things I found is that one good way to start is as a reviewer for things like MathSciNet. The day ended with some “Informal Socializing”, which we did a place called oodles with some wine and cheese. And here are some pictures to prove it (I need to work on my photo-editing/taking skills):

Looking forward to tomorrow.

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