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Now Available: 2006 Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences (Final Report)

The last of three reports of the 2006 Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences is now available. Prepared by Polly Phipps, James W. Maxwell, and Colleen A Rose, the report gives information about faculty size, departmental enrollments, majors, and graduate students for departments of mathematical sciences in four-year colleges and universities in the United States.

The report was based on data compiled from a questionnaire about fall 2006 course enrollments, graduate students, and departmental faculty that was sent to mathematics departments in September 2006.

The changes in the numbers of faculty in various categories from 2005 to 2006 were modest. The estimated number of full-time faculty in all mathematics groups combined is 22,086, up slightly from 21,903 last year. The number of nondoctoral full-time faculty is 4,107, up moderately from 3,804 last year. The number of part-time faculty is 6,543, almost unchanged from 6,526 last year.

Women comprise 27% of the full-time faculty in mathematics in fall 2006 compared with 26% in fall 2005. However, the size of the standard errors make it possible that some of the changes observed are due solely to sampling error.

The number of doctoral full-time non-tenure-track faculty continued its slow but steady climb for 2006. For the doctoral mathematics departments, this number reached 1,461, up 44% over its 1999 figure of 1,014.

Among the doctoral full-time math faculty in fall 2006, women comprised 12% of the tenured and tenure-track faculty and 25% of the non-tenure-track faculty. Among the nondoctoral full-time faculty in all math departments combined, women comprise 53%.

The number of tenured and tenure-track positions under recruitment during 2005-2006 was the highest reported over the past five years. Furthermore, the number of new doctoral hires is up 28% over last year, to 701 for positions beginning in fall 2006. The number of new doctoral hires into tenure-track positions is up 38% to 406 for fall 2006.

Among the 230 individuals hired into tenure-track positions in the doctoral mathematics departments, two out of three (152) held a non-tenure-track position when hired and 80% of these were postdoctoral positions.

The number of full-time graduate students at doctoral mathematics departments continued its steady climb over the past ten years reaching a new high of 11,686 for fall 2006. The number of women among these graduate students also reached a new high of 3,478, maintaining its percentage at 30%, a figure typical over this ten-year period. The percent of U.S. citizens among the total full-time graduate students remains steady at 56%.

The Third Report appears in the November 2007 issue of the Notices of the AMS. The 2006 Annual Survey represents the 50th in an annual series begun in 1957. The 2006 Survey was under the direction of the Data Committee, a joint committee of the MAA, AMS, the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and SIAM. The current members of the committee are Richard Cleary, Amy Cohen-Corwin, Richard M. Dudley, John W. Hagood, Abbe H. Herzig, Donald R. King, David J. Lutzer, James W. Maxwell (ex officio), Bart Ng, Polly Phipps (chair), David E. Rohrlich, and Henry Schenck.

id: 
4414
News Date: 
Thursday, October 11, 2007
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