By Adam Topaz
Remember that paper you read 4 months ago… the one with the really interesting result that you planned to use in your research but then somehow you forgot about it? Well it’s 4 months later, and it’s finally time to use that result in your research — it’s too bad you can’t remember the name/author of that paper. It’s probably time to start using a reference manager. Continue reading
by Kareem Carr
Ellen Maycock has been kind enough to supply us with some more information on graduate student categories in two comments made in response to my last article. I will just reproduce her comments here.
Frank Morgan suggested that I write to you about the new membership categories. I’m a former college mathematics professor who has been on the AMS staff for the past 5 years. One of my responsibilities is to oversee the membership activities of the AMS. The Society is very interested in expanding our programs for early career mathematicians and improving what we can do for graduate students is a top priority. As Diana wrote above, a Working Group looked at the Nominee Program last year, and came up with a number of recommendations. We at AMS Headquarters are excited about moving forward to implement the proposals.
Our first step was to get new membership categories and a mission statement for the Graduate Student Program approved by the AMS Council, which was done on January 5. I’ll post the mission statement in a separate comment. The new membership categories should be in place for the 2012 membership year. We’ve always felt that the “Nominee” category was confusing to you and it hasn’t been easy for us to be in touch with you. We worry about graduate students whose memberships have been dropped because their institutions are no longer institutional members. And there are folks other than graduate students who are in this category. So, we’ve taken all the members who have been in either the Nominee category (named by their institution) or Student category (paid dues) and divided them up into three categories. We think that we will be better able to address the concerns of each group with these new categories.
Graduate Student: all graduate students who are named by their institutions or who have paid dues
Student: all undergraduate students who have been named by their institutions or who have paid dues
Nominee: other individuals (usually faculty) who have been named by their institutions.
Our president-elect, Eric Friedlander, is very interested in supporting early career mathematicians. We expect to expand the Graduate Student Program significantly over the next few years. Very soon, we will be announcing several new funding opportunities for you–so stay tuned!
I remember the days when you would walk into a library and it would be dead quiet. It was so nice.
I am currently in search of that peaceful silence. These days it is hard to find.
My office mates seem to always have office hours when I need some peace. For some reason, my office seems like Grand Central Station sometimes. Headphones help, but hinder my best thought processes. Home is not much better. I have 2 children. I know that’s unusual, but I am sure many of you have roommates that challenge your search for absolute quiet.
With this in mind, I went on a search for a quiet work/thinking space. First I tried the library. No longer are our libraries guarded by the shushing sounds of older quiet librarians with glasses and buns (you know at least one like that). They are hives of social activity! video games and large study groups. Even on the 9th floor of our library, you can’t get away. In my search for a place of thoughtful reflection, I have tried museums, coffee shops, book stores, even parks.
Has the reverence of silent reflection died?
As scientific minds, are true revelations possible without the opportunity to clear one’s mind? Where has the silence gone?
by Brian Katz
If you are looking for some cool math-art, check out the new documentary “Between the Folds”. The math content is a little lite for some classes, but it’s extremely well done and inspirational. It is also quite mature from an art history perspective. If you are interested in finding out more about the math related to origami, check out Robert Lang’s talk on TED.com.
And if you are looking for some short videos that might help you connect with your first-years or high-schoolers and teach them some content, check out vihart.com for some awesome mathematical doodles. If you’re interested, you can see the back of my head in the video from the recent Joint Meetings.
by Derek Smith
Last quarter I had a video consultation through the TA Development Program on campus. Every new teaching assistant must sign up to have a section recorded. The consultation consisted of a one-on-one discussion, with the DVD used to move the conversation forward. I took away many ideas which I’d like to share. I ripped the DVD and edited out a representative problem, which is linked below. The class is Math 34A, Calculus for Social and Life Sciences, at UCSB. The students are mainly freshmen who need the class to progress through their major.
