Head Way by Dale Alspach, Department Head
Frequently it is difficult to tell with complex endeavors whether headway is being made. While leading the department I try to see the way ahead. This article describes some of the things that have happened during the past year or will happen in the near future.
Faculty Directions
Last year we were unsuccessful in filling a position in mathematics education research so this year there were no new permanent faculty. We were fortunate to have three Visiting Assistant Professors, Loretta Bartolini, Kei Nakamura and Jitka Stehnova. The first two of these are in low-dimensional topology and the third is in representation theory and automorphic forms. Postdocs provide added vitality to the department and serve as role models for our graduate students. Elsewhere in the newsletter you will find more detailed information about them and their plans for the future.
The retirement of Professor John Wolfe two years ago and Professor Hermann Burchard in August gave the department the opportunity to search for two new faculty during 2008-2009. This was an unusual year for the academic job market. As the fall progressed many universities around the country began to feel the effects of the recession and put searches on hold. Fortunately Oklahoma has not suffered as much and we were able to proceed with interviews and some offers. I am happy to report that we have hired Dr. Jeffrey Mermin and Dr. Jesse Johnson as new assistant professors. Dr. Mermin's research is in commutative algebra and he has spent the last three years at the University of Kansas where he held an NSF postdoctoral fellowship. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell. Dr. Johnson's area is low dimensional topology and he has recently been at Yale University as an NSF postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Johnson received his doctorate from the University of California at Davis.
The department tried again to hire a faculty member in mathematics education research, but there were very few qualified applicants this year and the position remains open. The department is seeking someone whose research interests are in undergraduate or secondary mathematics and has a strong background in mathematics. Mathematics education research in undergraduate mathematics is a young and growing area of research. OSU has given two doctorates in this area recently, but will need new faculty to sustain the program.
Climbing Upward
Several faculty members were honored or promoted this year. Professor William Jaco was made a Regents Professor and Professor Alan Adolphson was named Vaughn Professor. Associate Professors Birne Binegar and Jiahong Wu were promoted to full Professor. Professor Lisa Mantini was recently named the Oustanding Faculty Adviser in the College of Arts and Sciences for 2009.
Real Movement
By fall 2009 the department will have relocated some offices to the north end of the fifth floor of the Mathematical Sciences building. The renovation of South Murray Hall will allow the department of political science to move there from the fifth floor. With the freed space the departments of computer science, mathematics and statistics will each be able to expand. Rather than just dividing the new space an agreement was made to reallocate space. Currently the department has a few offices on the third floor and a computer classroom on the second floor. When the moving is completed the mathematics department will have all of its offices and the computer classroom on the fourth and fifth floors.
To There and Back Again
In previous newsletters I have described some of our efforts to experiment with placement exams for calculus, online homework and alternate ways of teaching college algebra. After a few years with one online homework system, we have now shifted to another, WebAssign. Now that we have used it for two semesters we have found that it has some advantages over the previous system but it also has some unsatisfactory aspects. We are encouraging the vendor to make improvements, but the online systems are young and it may be several years before a truly satisfactory system for calculus is available. We undoubtedly be revisiting this every few years.
Our pilot project in college algebra has yielded some promising improvements. You can read more details in our reports and presentation for NCAT. We are making some adjustments this semester and will be evaluating other software and approaches to teaching lower division classes. We are also looking at our placement exam for calculus and considering a different system and expanding placement testing to more courses. Placement testing was used at OSU in the past but fell out of favor. Because of concerns over preparation of students and reliability of other measures, it is back again.
