Resources for Department Heads
A brief (and incomplete) list of websites offering
information to help
run a mathematical sciences department,
Keeping in Touch
The Combined
Membership List (http://www.ams.org/cml), is supported by AMS (http://www.ams.org),
MAA (http://www.maa.org), SIAM (http://www.siam.org),
AMATYC
(http://www.amatyc.org), AWM ( http://www.awm-math.org) and
the CMS
(http://camel.math.ca). You can look up members using a variety of
filters. Be sure to keep your own contact information current, as well.
MAA Liaisons
(http://www.maa.org/liaisons) serve as a resource for information
from the national office to their department colleagues and to respond
with comments and suggestions for ways the MAA can better serve their
department. MAA Sections
(http://www.maa.org/sections) provide a regional network to support
faculty at all stages of their careers through sessions at meetings and
programs such as Section NExT. See the MAA professional development
pages (http://www.maa.org/programs)
for details on these and other MAA programs.
Directory of
Institutions in the Mathematical Sciences (http://www.ams.org/dirinst)
on the AMS website contains a list of institutions, arranged by state,
which includes contact information and names of department heads.
The Joint Policy Board
for Mathematics (http://www.jpbm.org) is a collaborative effort of
the American Mathematical
Society (http://www.ams.org), the American Statistical Association
(http://www.amstat.org), the Mathematical
Association of America (http://www.maa.org), and the Society for Industrial and
Applied Mathematics (http://www.siam.org).
The Conference Board
of the Mathematical Sciences (http://www.cbmsweb.org) is an
umbrella organization consisting of sixteen professional societies all
of which have as one of their primary objectives the increase or
diffusion of knowledge in one or more of the mathematical sciences. Its
purpose is to promote understanding and cooperation among these
national organizations so that they work together and support each
other in their efforts to promote research, improve education, and
expand the uses of mathematics.
Assessment and Your Department
The Statistical
Abstract of Undergraduate Programs in the Mathematical Sciences in the
United States (http://www.ams.org/cbms) (updated every five years),
is available from the Conference
Board for Mathematical Sciences website (http://www.cbmsweb.org).
The AMS, MAA, ASA and Institute
of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org) sponsor the Annual
Survey of the Mathematical Sciences
(http://www.ams.org/employment/deptprof.html). (The AMS also offers
Towards
Excellence (http://www.ams.org/towardsexcellence) as a free
download.)
The MAA
Guidelines for Programs and Departments in the Mathematical Sciences
(http://www.maa.org/guidelines/guidelines.html) and CUPM Guidelines
(http://www.maa.org/cupm) present recommendations that deal with a
broad range of curricular and structural issues that face mathematical
sciences departments and their institutional administrations.
The MAA project, Supporting
Assessment in Undergraduate Mathematics (SAUM) (http://www.maa.org/saum)
developed general guidelines and examples to help develop assessment
programs for particular courses (or blocks of courses) and entire
programs. A 2006 MAA Notes volume of articles and case studies is
available on-line, as is a self-paced tutorial on assessment.
A recent project of the MAA Committee on Consultants produced the
report Guidelines
for
Serving as a Consultant in the Mathematical Sciences,
available with other resources related to department/program review at http://www.maa.org/ProgramReview.
Targeted Information on the Undergraduate Program
The CUPM Guidelines listed above offer a range of goals and examples
related to specific groups of students. Background material is
available through the CRAFTY
Curriculum Foundations Project (http://www.maa.org/cupm/crafty).
In 2001, CBMS published The Mathematical
Education of Teachers (http://www.cbmsweb.org/MET_Document/index.htm),
now known as the MET report. The full report is available through the
CBMS website. The MET report serves as the basis for the MAA Preparing Mathematicians to Educate
Teachers (PMET) project (http://www.maa.org/pmet).
The
National Research Council (http://www.nationalacademies.org/nrc) of
the National Academies of
Science (http://www.nas.edu) released BIO2010: Transforming
Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists
(http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10497.html) in 2002. The report is
available from the National
Academies Press website (http://www.nap.edu), along with many other
reports. The MAA project Meeting the Challenges: Education Across the
Biological, Mathematical and Computing Sciences collected resources for
those wishing to address the significant need to reexamine quantitative
training in the life sciences. Much of this can be found in the MAA
Report, Math & Bio 2010: Linking
Undergraduate Disciplines (http://www.maa.org/mtc), which we
anticipate putting on-line soon. See http://www.maa.org/mtc.
Supporting Faculty Development
The MAA PRofessional Enhancement Program (PREP) serves as the umbrella
for faculty development opportunities, including the PREP workshop program
(http://www.maa.org/prep), Preparing
Mathematicians to Educate Teachers (PMET) (http://www.maa.org/pmet)
and Supporting Assessment in
Undergraduate Mathematics (SAUM) (http://www.maa.org/saum).
Project NExT
(http://archives.math.utk.edu/projnext) supports young faculty
through both national and section level programs.
Special Interest Groups within the
MAA (SIGMAAs) (http://www.maa.org/sigmaa) offer a way for members
with shared interests to connect with each other through special
activities at regional and national meetings, and through targeted
communications coordinated through the MAA.
Information on these programs as well as targeted resources to support
grant writing and other professional activities are available through http://www.maa.org/programs as
well as the Mathematics Digital
Library, http://mathdl.maa.org.
Student Resources
Information for mathematics students is available through professional
society websites, including AMS (http://www.ams.org), MAA (http://www.maa.org) and SIAM (http://www.siam.org).
The American
Statistical Association (http://www.amstat.org) has information on
statistical careers. The Society of Actuaries
(http://www.soa.org) and the Casualty Actuarial Society
(http://www.casact.org) sponsor the Be An Actuary website
(http://www.beanactuary.org).
The Project for
Nonacademic Employment (http://www.ams.org/careers), sponsored by
the AMS, MAA, and SIAM, offers a variety of career information, as does
the Sloan Project
(http://www.sloan.org). The AMS Mathematical Moments site
(http://www.ams.org/mathmoments) provides examples of the role of
mathematics in a variety of applied fields.
More career information, including career profiles and information on
obtaining the MAA
Career Profiles brochure, We Do Math!
(http://www.maa.org/careers/brochure.html), is available on the MAA Student Career and
Employment Resources page (http://www.maa.org/students/career.html).
The AMS recently launched a new service for students, called Headlines
and Deadlines for Students
(http://www.ams.org/news-for-students),
that provides regular email updates.
Information on the Putnam
Exam (http://www.maa.org/awards/putnam.html) (for undergraduates)
and American Mathematics
Competitions(http://www.unl.edu/amc/) (for middle and high school
students) is available through MAA Online
(http://www.maa.org). The Consortium for Mathematics and its
Applications (COMAP) (http://www.comap.com) sponsors both the
Mathematical Contest in Modeling and the Interdisciplinary Contest in
Modeling.
Student paper sessions are sponsored by the MAA Committee on
Undergraduate Activities and Chapters at MathFest, with travel grants
available to Student Chapter members. The undergraduate student poster
sessions at the Joint Math Meetings offer another opportunity for
students to participate in national meetings. The MAA Undergraduate Mathematics
Conferences (http://www.maa.org/rumc) program provides support for
regional conferences that provide significant opportunities for
students to present their work to their peers. The MAA Student
Chapter (http://www.maa.org/students/chapter_index.html)
program is currently under review, as part of the ongoing MAA
strategic planning initiative, and we hope to enhance this
program’s
ability to support local faculty effort to involve students in
mathematics activities outside the classroom.
MAA Online
We think that MAA Online
(http://www.maa.org) offers the best place to start your search for
mathematics-related information on the web.
A significant component of MAA Online is the Mathematics Digital Library (MathDL)
(http://mathdl.maa.org), which now encompasses the MAA book
reviews, Classroom Capsules, Journal of Online Mathematics and Its
Applications (JOMA), Digital Classroom Resources and more. Convergence
(http://mathdl.maa.org/convergence/1/), the online magazine for the
use of history in the classroom, is also linked from MathDL. MathDL is
also the lead site in the Math Gateways project, which will soon launch
and offer a portal to more than a dozen mathematical sites, providing a
common search engine that we anticipate will enhance mathematics
faculty's ability to locate resources across the web.
Other Organizations (not already mentioned above)
The purpose of the Association
for Women in Mathematics (http://www.awm-math.org) is to
encourage women and girls to study and to have active careers in the
mathematical sciences, and to promote equal opportunity and the equal
treatment of women and girls in the mathematical sciences.
The National
Association of Mathematicians (http://www.nam-math.org) has always
had as its main objectives, the promotion of excellence in the
mathematical sciences and the promotion of the mathematical development
of underrepresented American minorities. It also aims to address the
issue of the serious under-representation of minorities in the
workforce of mathematical scientists.
Comments? Let us hear from you. We are always looking for ways to
improve the information we make available.
Prepared by Michael Pearson, MAA
Director of Programs and Services, pearson@maa.org