October 28, 2005

Visit to NAU

Prepared by Tufail Malik

 

The visit to the NAU campus was coordinated by Prof. Steve Kaliszewski. A meeting was already scheduled at 3pm. The group met with Professors Terence Blows, Nandor Sieben, John Hagood and the department chair Prof. Roy St. Laurent in the 'Blue Chair Room' of Adel Math Building. During the meeting the group asked questions ranging from the hiring process, teaching and research experiences at the Mathematics department of NAU, promotion procedure to the use of WebWork in various mathematics courses. The answers were given out very explicitly with as much details as the group desired and the professors were ready to share openly.

The campus is beautiful, exhibits diversity among students and ranks highest in graduating the Native Americans in the state. The Mathematics department runs three master degree programs; M.S. in Mathematics M.S. in Statistics and Master of Arts in Teaching. The department consists of 21 regular faculty, one visiting professor and 10 full-time and part-time instructors. There are 3 female and a number of international professors in the faculty.

The class capacity in a usual mathematics class is 35 and WebWork is used by many instructors in various courses.

New positions open up focused on a typical area depending on the finances to fill certain positions at certain times. The applicants are required to submit a cover letter, a CV, a statement of research plan and three reference letters addressing the applicant's research as well as teaching ability. Both -- reasonable amount of research and good teaching record -- are given almost equal weight in review process. Telephone interviews are done with short-listed candidates out of which 2 to 3 are invited to give a seminar talk in the department.

Once hired, the usual teaching load is 3 courses in one semester and 2 in the other and a faculty is expected to teach a variety of undergraduate courses offered in the department. At the same time a faculty is expected to actively involve in undergraduate research. The REU research program, launched with NSF funding in 1994 is a fairly active undergraduate research program. Over each summer 6 to 8 undergraduate students from around the US are funded and given an opportunity to work with an active researcher in the department for 8 weeks.

An overview of duties of an Assistant Professor is as follows; Teaching and Advisement 50%, Research and Scholarship 40%, Service 10%. Each assistant professor is evaluated annually according to the policies described in the "Faculty General Expectations and Evaluation Policies" document which results in recommendations regarding merit pay increment, retention, promotion, tenure application and such.

Flagstaff is a small beautiful town with a medium size NAU campus and provides a nice living experience. The faculty and students interact like a family.

After the meeting, Marcus Szwankowski gave the group an informative tour of Adel Math building, highlighting various teaching technologies available to be implemented in different classrooms.