This is the only time of year when I think folks on the quarter system, as opposed to semesters, have it easy. We’re in our second week of classes at Mudd, and even for those still savoring their last refreshing sip of summer, it is most definitely Back to School season. It’s in the air. I’m also returning to Mudd from sabbatical, so it’s a great opportunity for me to take stock and think deliberately about the upcoming school year.

I’m starting this year convinced that mentorship is universal. Mentorship isn’t a map with a specified domain and codomain. There isn’t a fixed group of mentors or mentees. Our roles may be fluid, and everyone is a candidate for both giving and receiving mentorship; it is universal. Below the fold, I’ll describe my experience at PCMI this summer and how it reinforced my understanding of the universal nature of mentorship.

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Thanks to Greg Martin for this guest post! Greg has been writing interesting and important material recently concerning gender inequity in mathematics. For the eMentoring network, he writes about mentorship and gender. What follows are Greg’s words.

Mentorship and Gender

Personal, dedicated mentorship is an extremely important part of postgraduate education and the academic career. So are mentor-like networks of more senior members of the discipline, as well as supportive networks of academic peers. Those who don’t have adequate access to these resources are at a significant disadvantage, even with full use of “official” resources such as courses and job postings. In an extreme case, a position might not even be officially publicized before being offered to the student of a close colleague. At the very least, consultation with someone who has broader experience and academic success can help an up-and-coming mathematician to optimize their allocation of energy.

Unfortunately, these mentorship opportunities are not equally available to everyone in mathematics; in particular, there is a systemic bias against female students and mathematicians. Implicit biases cause us (all of us) to systematically undervalue women in mathematics – female applicants to graduate school, female speakers at conferences, female authors of papers, female faculty members being evaluated for tenure. In particular, they cause us to be less likely to devote our time to mentoring women. Continue reading →

I ran into a colleague from another department the other day. Someone whom I’ve known for years. Someone whom I consider a friend. She greeted me, “Hey Hector, how are you doing…”

It’s not the first time that this has happened, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Now it’s true that, because I am clearly a Latino, I probably look a lot more like a “Hector” than a “Herbert,” but nevertheless you figure that they would get my name right after my 23 years on the faculty here at Loyola Marymount University (LMU). Continue reading →