The Mathematical Sciences in 2025 (2013) / Chapter Skim
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6 The Changing Academic Context
6 The Changing Academic Context
Pages 145-152
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From page 145... ...
As noted in a recent report from the National Research Council, all of the normal funding streams of research universities are under stress: American research universities are facing critical challenges. First, their financial health is endangered as each of their major sources of revenue has been undermined or contested.
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From page 146... ...
The desire to reduce these costs is pushing students to take some of their lower-division studies at state and community colleges. It is also leading university administrations to hire a second tier of nonladder faculty with larger teaching loads, reduced expectations of research productivity, and lower salaries, or to implement a series of online courses that can be taught with less faculty involvement.
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From page 147... ...
For example, many graduate students from overseas pay full tuition, so there is some incentive for universities to actively recruit them. In particular, self-funded master's students from abroad, or students seeking professional master's degrees, can be helpful to department finances, but will too many such students change the research environment?
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From page 148... ...
and the Georgia Institute of Technology, are also beginning to offer "massive, open, online courses" or MOOCs. Other courses with mathematical content are offered through Coursera.org, which "is committed to making the best education in the world freely available to any person who seeks it."6 As of October 11, 2012, the listings included the following: • Model Thinking, from the University of Michigan; • Introduction to Mathematical Thinking, from Stanford University; 4 Daniel de Vise, 2012, At Virginia Tech, computers help solve a math class problem.
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From page 149... ...
As stated in Chapter 5, the committee agrees that the existing mathematics curriculum would benefit from a significant updating of both content and teaching techniques. There is a real chance that if mathematicians do not do this, others will, and that could exacerbate the erosion in mathematics service teaching that is likely to occur due to cost pressures.
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From page 150... ...
One particular aspect deserves mention here in connection with the stresses on academic finances: The ratio of federal support to institutional support for graduate students in the mathematical sciences is very low relative to the same ratio for students of other sciences, as shown in Figure 6-1. The support model for graduate students in the mathematical sciences is overly reliant on teaching assistantships, which extends time to degree, 11 Derek Hill, Alan I
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From page 151... ...
old* Biological sciences Computer sciences Mathematical sciences Physical sciences FIGURE 6-1 Fraction of graduate students supported (above)
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From page 152... ...
As a community, the mathematical sciences must be proactive in shifting this balance, because innovations in the delivery of the classes that support teaching assistants could erode that means of support much faster than the number of research assistantships could ramp up. A first step is for mathematical science researchers to be more aggressive in seeking research assistantships for their students, in recognition of the need for graduate students today to gain more research experience and to lessen departments' dependency on teaching assistantships.
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