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The Survival of a Mathematician: from Tenure to Emeritus

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The Survival of a Mathematician: from Tenure to Emeritus The Survival of a Mathematician: From Tenure to Emeritus Steven G. Krantz December 5, 2007 ii To all the advice I never got and had to figure out for myself. Table of Contents Preface vii I Simple Steps for Little Feet 1 1 I Didn’t Sign on for This! 3 1.1 What am I Doing Here? . 4 1.2 Getting to Know You . 5 1.3 Getting to Know your Teaching . 7 1.4 Getting to Know the Other Aspects of Your Life . 8 1.5 Collegiality . 10 1.6 What Else is There to Life? . 11 2 Your Duties 13 2.1 How to Teach . 14 2.2 How Not to Teach . 16 2.3 How Teaching is Evaluated . 19 2.4 How to Establish a Teaching Reputation . 21 2.5 Teaching in Large Lectures . 23 2.6 Choosing a Textbook . 24 2.7 Teaching Cooperatively . 26 2.8 Media . 27 2.9 Research . 32 2.10 Committee Service . 33 2.11 A Panorama of Committees . 34 2.12 University-Wide Committees . 35 2.13 What Goes on at Faculty Meetings? . 37 iii iv 2.14 Serving as a Mentor . 39 2.15 Undergraduate Advising . 40 2.16 Graduate Advising . 41 2.17 Your Role in The Professional Societies . 42 2.18 Translators . 43 2.19 Is Mathematics Just a Service Department? . 45 3 Sticky Wickets 51 3.1 How to Deal With a Sequence of 1-Year Jobs . 52 3.2 If You Cannot Get Along . 53 3.3 What to Do if You Cannot Get Along with Your Students . 56 3.4 What to Do With a Problem Graduate Student . 57 3.5 Jobs in Industry . 59 3.6 What Do People in Industry Do? . 61 3.7 What about Tenure? . 63 3.8 Sex and the Single Mathematician . 64 3.9 First Kill All the Lawyers . 66 3.10 The Two-Body Problem . 68 II Living the Life 71 4 Research 73 4.1 What is Mathematical Research? . 74 4.2 How to Do Mathematical Research . 76 4.3 How to Establish a Research Reputation . 78 4.4 Seminars . 80 4.5 Writing Papers . 82 4.6 Writing Books . 85 4.7 Working on Your Own . 87 4.8 Working in Collaboration . 88 4.9 Publishing Papers . 90 4.10 Being a Referee . 92 4.11 How to Apply for a Grant . 94 4.12 How to Give a Talk . 97 4.13 Graduate Teaching . 103 4.14 Directing a Ph.D. Thesis . 105 4.15 Professional Travel . 106 v 4.16 Sabbatical Leaves . 108 4.17 What Clique Do I Fit Into? . 110 4.18 The Mathematics Research Institutes . 112 4.19 Outside Offers . 113 4.20 What Goes on at Conferences? . 115 4.21 The International Congress . 117 4.22 The January Joint Mathematics Meetings . 118 4.23 Prizes and Encomia . 121 5 Non-Research 125 5.1 Writing a Textbook . 126 5.2 The Mathematics Curriculum . 128 5.3 How to be a Departmental Citizen . 131 5.4 Letters of Recommendation . 132 5.5 Editing . 140 5.5.1 The Purpose of Editors . 141 5.5.2 Types of Editors . 142 5.5.3 Dealing with Editors . 154 5.6 What if You are a Foreigner? . 155 5.7 National Service . 157 5.8 A Mathematician’s Apology ....................159 6 Being Department Chair 161 6.1 What is a Chair? . 162 6.2 Characteristics of a Chair . 162 6.3 First, Do No Harm . 163 6.4 How to Become the Chair . 164 6.5 How to Stay Chair . 165 6.6 How to Cease Being Chair . 168 6.7 The Chair’s Duties . 169 6.7.1 The Budget . 169 6.7.2 Promotion and Tenure . 173 6.7.3 Hiring . 179 6.7.4 General Departmental Management . 183 6.7.5 The Reward System . 184 6.7.6 When One of Your People Wins a Prize . 186 6.7.7 Relations with Other Departments . 187 6.7.8 Vice-Chairs . 189 vi 6.7.9 Committees . 190 6.7.10 Graduate Students . 190 6.7.11 The Graduate Vice-Chair . 192 6.7.12 Undergraduate Math Majors . 192 6.7.13 The Undergraduate Vice-Chair . 193 6.7.14 The Curriculum . 194 6.7.15 Getting Along With the Staff . 196 6.7.16 Working Together as a Team . 198 6.7.17 Supporting Your Faculty’s Teaching Efforts . 200 6.7.18 Supporting Your Faculty’s Research Efforts . 201 6.7.19 Endowed Lecture Series . 202 6.7.20 Faculty Complaints . 203 6.7.21 Faculty Discipline . 204 6.7.22 Prima Donnas and the Like . 205 6.7.23 Outside Offers . 206 6.7.24 The Library . 207 6.7.25 Computer Support and Technology for the Department 208 6.7.26 Part-Time Faculty and Freeway Fliers . 210 6.7.27 Chair Professorships for the Department . 212 6.7.28 Retirement and Emeritus Professors . 214 6.7.29 Tenured Faculty Changing Departments . 217 6.7.30 Raising Money for Your Department . 218 6.7.31 The Interface Between the Dean and the Faculty . 219 6.7.32 Miscellany of Being Chair . 222 6.7.33 The Duration of Your Term as Chair . 224 6.7.34 Staying Alive While You Are Chair . 225 6.7.35 A Second Term as Chair . 226 6.7.36 Do You Want to Become a Dean? . 228 III Looking Ahead 231 7 Living Your Life 233 7.1 Time Management . 234 7.2 Publish or Perish . 236 7.3 Tenure and the Like . 238 7.4 How to Be a Tenured Faculty Member . 242 7.5 What Happens if You Don’t Get Tenure? . 244 vii 7.6 If Tenure Doesn’t Make You Happy . 245 7.7 How to Keep Your Teaching Alive and Vital . 246 7.8 Promotion through the Ranks . 249 7.9 Striking a Balance . 251 7.10 How to Know When You are Done for the Day . 252 7.11 Managing Your Life . 253 Glossary 255 Bibliography 273 Index 277 Preface The tradition in mathematics is that the profession is a sink-or-swim oper- ation. Nobody tells you, once you earn the venerable Ph.D., what you are supposed to do next. If you are lucky, your thesis advisor will get you a job. If you are especially lucky, this will be an academic job. But, in point of fact, there are many choices these days. Your first job could be at a lab that is part of the genome project. It could be at Microsoft. It could be with the Federal Government. But then just what are you supposed to do? How do you function? What are your goals? What is expected of you? To whom are you answerable? It is a hard fact that more than 90% of American Ph.D. mathematicians never write a paper. Of those who do, most write just one paper based on the Ph.D. thesis and that’s it. Nothing more. Why is this? Is the cutting of the (academic) umbilical cord so traumatic that most people just fall off the wagon? Or are the reasons more complicated? Do people just get wrapped up in other duties, or other career pursuits, and decide after a while that “Publish or perish.” is not part of their credo? Are they perhaps in a job where publishing and doing research is not really the thing that is rewarded? And what about teaching? If you are working for the National Security Agency (as, for instance, three of my Ph.D. students now are), then you certainly will not be teaching classes, or grading papers, or giving grades. But you will have to give seminars. You will have to mentor others. You will have to provide guidance to younger staff members. How does one learn these skills? And, no matter where you work or what you do, you will no doubt work as part of a team. You will have to function in meetings, and on conference calls, and in interactions with your supervisors and your subordinates. vii viii If you are in an academic job, then your role(s) in life are carefully de- lineated and described in your institution’s Tenure Document: teaching, re- search, and service are the three branches of an academic’s professional activ- ity. He/she is judged on each of these, and in different ways. For example, if you manage to prove the Riemann hypothesis, then it doesn’t matter whether you spend your time at staff meetings rolling your eyes and humming The Battle Hymn of the Republic. If you are a world-class teacher, then you will probably be granted some slack in your research program. If you are a terrific departmental citizen, seen as a person who holds the ship of state together, then you will perhaps not have to put in quite so much time on the other two portions of your profile. The bottom line is that there is an awful lot about this profession that you are going to have to figure out.
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