Survey Reveals Latest Data on Mathematical Sciences in the U.S.

November 3, 2009

The 2008 Annual Survey of the Mathematical Sciences in the United States (Third Report) offers new data on recruitment of new faculty, undergraduate and graduate course enrollments, number of bachelor’s and master’s degrees awarded during the preceding year, and number of graduate students.

The number of full-time faculty in all mathematics departments was 22,166, up 3% from last year. The number of nondoctoral full-time faculty was 3,977, as compared to 3,839 last year. The number of part-time faculty was 6,700, down 5% from last year.

For all doctoral math departments, the number of full-time non-tenure-track, doctorate-holding faculty reached 1,601.  For the combined mathematics departments, women comprised 28% of full-time faculty in fall 2008. For the doctoral mathematics departments combined, women comprised 13% of the doctoral-holding tenured and tenure-track faculty, and 25% of the doctoral-holding non-tenure-track faculty. Among the nondoctoral, full-time faculty in all math departments combined, women comprised 55%.

For all mathematics departments, the number of full-time positions under recruitment during 2007-2008 increased 13% to 2,012.  The number of tenured/tenure-track positions under recruitment during this period was 1,213, up 7% from the previous year.

For all mathematics departments, the number of new doctoral hires for positions beginning in fall 2008 was up 20% from the previous year’s number. The number of new doctoral recipients obtaining tenure-track positions for fall 2008 reached 284, compared to 331 reported for fall 2007. The number of non-tenure-track positions filled by new doctoral recipients increased from 303 to 474.

Among the 253 individuals hired into tenure-track positions in the doctoral mathematics departments, 136 held a non-tenure-track position when hired, and 34% of these were postdoctoral positions.

The reported number of full-time graduate students at doctoral mathematics departments decreased from 10,937 to 10,883. The number and percentage of women among these graduate students decreased to 3,193 (29%). The percent of U.S. citizens among the total full-time graduate students remained at 56%. The percentage of underrepresented minorities among the U.S. citizen graduate students remained at 10%.

The Annual Survey, begun in 1957, is under the direction of American Mathematical Society, the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Mathematical Association of America, and the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Source: Notices of the AMS, November 2009