There has been much said in The Polytechnic in recent weeks about the teaching assistant situation in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. I want to clarify two statements that imply that the department willfully withheld TAs from 2000 level courses. In the February 16 issue, Vice Provost Tom Apple states that “there are more teaching assistants at the Institute today than there were prior to the inception of the tuition policy, and that the same holds true for the math department itself.” This is true. He goes on to add that “Understanding the shortage must come through an examination of the resource allocation within the math department.” Fair enough.
For many years prior to 2001, MATH-2400 Introduction to Differential Equations and MATH-2800 Introduction to Discrete Structures both had three hours of lecture and one hour of recitation/lab, but for two years, an extra contact hour was added for Differential Equations, but not for Discrete Structures. When the department was informed of the target number of TAs for academic year 2003-2004, that number led the department to believe that there would be fewer TAs. At that time, the department decided to absorb the projected change of number by returning Differential Equations to one hour of recitation/lab. That decision was made at the time of course scheduling, and anticipated the projected lower number of TAs.
Complicating issues then was the effect of the Graduate Tuition Policy on the number of “free agents,” non-math major graduate students who were given TA positions by the Math Department. They disappeared. (In the February 16 issue of The Polytechnic, Vice Provost Apple characterized these TAs as “cheap labor.” That is inaccurate—they were paid the same as math TAs in stipend and tuition.) Other departments were reluctant to admit these students without support. The math department compensated for this change by admitting a sufficient number of TAs to staff the courses. “Yield” (the fraction of students admitted who actually enroll) being an inexact science, more students enrolled than anticipated, thus making Vice Provost Apple’s statement about the increase in the number of math TAs true, although the intention was that the number of math TAs should decrease. If the department had hit the “target,” the actual number would have been fewer.
The Department of Mathematical Sciences made the decision to add more math TAs in order to have as little impact on undergraduate mathematics education as possible. We had hoped that we would be able to support these TAs in the future on research funding. The School of Science Dean’s office and the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Research office agreed to each and every one of these TA appointments.
There is another issue that looms over the future of instruction in mathematics at Rensselaer. The Graduate Tuition Policy states that a “student will be supported on a teaching assistantship…for a maximum of two years… After this period, it is expected that his/her thesis advisor will support the student.” The funding situation in mathematics at the national level, combined with the present size of the math department, limits the number of research students that we can support. The math faculty have made a strong effort to increase research funding (it doubled between fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2005), but the practical level of research assistants that we can support in turn limits the total number of mathematics TAs to about 25 (down from 39).
Clearly, something will change. We face some difficult decisions. The “extra” TAs that we admitted so that the undergraduate education would be maintained have exhausted their mandated two years as TAs. We face a decision about what to do for these students. Clearly, finding external support for them would be best, but with the best efforts of the math department faculty, we will fall short of supporting them all. Dismissing them due to financial exigency is just unacceptable. Supporting them out of the budget lines usually used for TAs impacts undergraduate education if the total number of TAs is held constant.
However, after we solve the present dilemma, the future status of undergraduate education must deal with a reduced number of math TAs. The choices we face are unenviable. We can reduce the number of recitation sections staffed by TAs, either by not offering recitations (or as many recitations) in other freshman/sophomore courses or increasing section sizes by about 50 percent. Other alternatives include unearthing those non-math TAs, hiring undergraduate TAs (a desirable partial solution!), and increasing the number of faculty and assign them to teach recitations.
As Rensselaer and the Department of Mathematical Sciences face the issues surrounding the impact of the Graduate Tuition Policy, I invite you to offer your opinions and observations to me—my e-mail is drewd@rpi.edu.
Donald Drew
Chair, Math Department
