Math department faces faculty number crunch

Yale has one of the smallest math departments in the country, and students have definitely felt the limitations of its size. Most notably, the department is still searching for staff members to teach several popular courses this spring. The Herald sat down with Richard Beals, PC '60, GRD '64, the mathematics department's Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS), to discuss the current state of the department.

JULIA TIERNAN/YH ADDING IT UP: Mathematics DUS Richard Beals, PC '60, GRD '64, stresses quality over quantity in defending the prestige of Yale's math department.

Beals considers the current faculty of 17 senior members and 10 junior members to contain "competitive instructorship and assistant professorship." He pointed out that other prominentuniversities also have small math departments, including Harvard and Columbia.

When questioned whether or not the math department was being targeted for selective excellence, a policy instituted by President Richard Levin, GRD '74, which restricted faculty hiring in departments, such as statistics, sociology, and engineering, Beals responded, "I don't feel that we are being targeted for selective excellence. The department is excellent and should only stand to benefit from any emphasis on excellence."

Despite Beals' confidence in the ability of the department, he admitted that the inflexibility of the curriculum makes teaching courses unattractive to many potential professors. "Because of the courses we offer, getting the last one or two positions staffed is always a problem," Beals said. Apart from providing a reasonable selection of courses for math majors, the department's first responsibility, according to Beals, is to offer survey and introductory courses usually taken by non-math majors. "This is a huge task for the small department. We manage to do it just barely year after year," he explained, "We certainly could use more faculty positions."

Although staffing problems exist, Beals believes that math at Yale is quite strong. "We've done very well," he said. "When we have an opening we fill it." He admitted, however, that he would definitely like the department to do better in its recruitment of undergraduate and graduate students. "It is a disadvantage in the graduate level, and perhaps on the undergraduate level, when competing against universities, like Princeton, that have huge mathematics departments," he said. "Places get reputations, and some students just don't realize just how good our science department is."

Beals argued that the credentials of the department's professors compensate for its size. Math professors Gregory Margulis and Efim Zelmanov have both received the Field Medal (math's equivalent of the Nobel Prize) and professor Ilya Piatetski-Shapiro won the Wolf Prize for outstanding achievement in math. Professors Ronald Coifman, Walter Feit, Roger Howe, and Serge Lang are members of the prestigious National Academy of the Sciences. "If you count that up, you'll realize that because of our size, that's a fairly impressive list," Beals said.

While there hasn't been much discussion concerning departmental expansion, Beals said, "We're hoping that now that the [hiring] freeze is off, there will be a culmination of thinness of staffing and perhaps the opportunity to attract more faculty and more students." Beals recognized that departments always want more staff members, but Yale often doesn't allow for expansion. He took a positive stance toward the University, stating, "Even though Yale does not bring on a lot of faculty, they are not laying off a lot of faculty." He sympathized with University Provost Allison Richard on the issue of allocating Yale's limited resources. "If you give too much in this area, you have to take away from another," he said.

Beals confirmed that all math courses currently listed in the Blue Book will be offered next semester. He also noted that the situation is not disastrous. "We're stretched thin, but we're not stretched so thin that we can't do it. Staffing problems are difficult but not acute."

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