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from the issue of September 30, 2004
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Grant focuses on math transitions
UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
A $2.5 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation will fund a mentoring program at UNL for mathematicians entering graduate school, for those making the move from the advanced graduate level to an academic position, and for early-career faculty.
The grant, Mentoring through Critical Transition Points, will focus on interactions between non-doctoral-granting colleges and universities and doctoral-granting research universities. The program will benefit students at UNL as well as develop mathematicians in the larger mathematical community. The long-range goal of the program is to better prepare students who pursue careers in mathematical sciences.
Principal investigators on the grant are Judy Walker and Tom Marley, both associate professors in the Department of Mathematics.
The core of the program, to begin in the spring semester of 2005, will be Intensive Mathematics: a Mentoring, Education and Research Summer Experience, or IMMERSE. It will have two components. One will strengthen the preparation of students who are about to enter their first year of graduate study in mathematics. The other will develop the teaching, research and mentoring skills of graduate students and early-career faculty.
"We found by experience that (undergraduates) who came from schools that had a graduate program were better prepared when they came into our graduate program," Marley said. "They had taken part in research seminars and maybe took a graduate class. Those who didn't seemed to start out a little behind."
IMMERSE program participation will consist of 16 students who will start graduate school in the following fall, at UNL or elsewhere; six UNL graduate students, three of whom will have just finished their first year of graduate school and the other three of whom are beginning their final year; and four early-career faculty who earned their doctorates after Jan. 1, 1999, and are employed at colleges or universities that do not have doctoral programs in mathematics.
The pre-graduate students will take two intensive, six-week courses structured around the reading of research papers. Two UNL faculty members will be course coordinators and work with the graduate students and early faculty to select papers and develop topics that typically appear in first-year graduate algebra and analysis courses.
Pre-graduate school participants will receive room, board, a travel allowance and a $3,000 stipend. The graduate students will receive a graduate traineeship of $22,500 for the calendar year. Early-career faculty will receive room, board, a travel allowance and a $10,000 stipend. Funds totaling $7,500 will be given to the faculty members' home institutions for release time from teaching in the 2005 spring semester so they can work on research and prepare for IMMERSE courses they will teach.
Early-career faculty will be mentored by senior UNL faculty, graduate students will be mentored by one another and the early-career faculty, and the pre-graduate students will be mentored by the graduate students and early-career faculty.
Each early-career faculty participant will have a UNL faculty member as a research mentor. Over the course, the early-career faculty will work with their mentors on a joint research project. The collaboration is expected to carry over into the next academic year via e-mail and visits.
Other sections of the Nebraska MCTP program:
• The Math Scholars program for mathematics majors will prepare them to attend graduate school at a top-ranked university. In the program, top students will compile a record to indicate they can do well in graduate-level mathematics courses, have experience doing mathematical research and teaching entry-level college mathematics, and have excellent recommendations.
• Three Advanced MCTP Graduate Trainees will be selected from continuing doctoral students who expect to graduate within about a year. Trainees will be paid $22,500 for a year and be relieved of teaching responsibilities as they transition from graduate student to post-graduate school career. Selection of Advanced Graduate Trainees is based on their intent to remain in academia and academic record.
• Three First-Year MCTP Graduate Trainees will be selected each year from the pool of incoming UNL graduate students. Special consideration will be given to students who are from underrepresented groups, are first-generation college students or are from four-year colleges. Students will receive a full tuition waiver, payment of most fees and a stipend of $22,500 for the calendar year.
• The Regional Workshop in the Mathematical Sciences is a two-day workshop aimed at students and faculty at colleges and universities within driving distance of UNL.
• The Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics gives outstanding undergraduate women the opportunity to discuss their research and to meet other women who share their interest in the mathematical sciences.
• The Keep Research Alive workshop enables UNL doctoral alumni who are now early-career faculty at four-year colleges to return to UNL for three weeks of research collaboration.
GO TO: ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 30
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