Search Committee Recommendations and Budget Discussion Summary

The committee must select diverse members for effective search processes.

### Search Committee Recommendations and Budget Discussion
* 📋 The meeting focused on **finalizing recommendations for search committees** and discussing the **budget for travel and supplies**.
* 👥 The committee needs to select five members for each search committee, and Eric Stura is **strongly recommended to chair the assistant professor search committee** due to his **eagerness**.
* 📝 It was emphasized that **at least one tenure-track faculty member** should be included on the lecturer search committee, as most volunteers were lecturers.
* 📊 The budget for travel is approximately **$36,000**, with expectations for on-site interviews costing around **$1,000 each**, which could total about **$8,000 for candidates**.
* ✈ The discussion highlighted the importance of **supporting untenured faculty with travel requests**, especially for **significant conferences**, while balancing the **limited resources available**.
* 📅 The department aims to **meet regularly as needed** rather than on a strict schedule, ensuring that meetings are **productive and focused on necessary business**.
* 💬 The committee agreed to send an email to Eric with the finalized recommendations for the search committees and to **keep communication open regarding the budget and travel funding distribution**.

thank you recommendation on the and also Eric sent us ads job ads and those to see if there's any suggested changes. Did you get those from three days ago maybe and and then we're invite Eric about just finish up the subjects he was talking about last time when he ran a little bit long and but I wanted to do this business first because uh you know it's we have to have it done by today the recommendations so um anyway um if you want I can share my screen of um the uh the names of people who um who volunteered to be on the search committee so can you see my screen yeah no okay good okay um so I don't know if you had a chance to study this and think about it but there we have to choose uh five people there has to be five people on each search committee okay and uh so Eric asked for our recommendations you know and I talked to Eric yesterday and I said you know how do you want us to give and I said do do

you want us to just say like whether we think people are acceptable and but then also say we think these are the best five or you know and he said yeah that would be fine so uh does anyone have any suggestions um I'll just say one thing first so when I looked at the names I kind of like tried to pick out who I think I would pick but I realized them that most of almost everybody who volunteered for the lecturer search is a lecturer and so I had picked out I said oh I picked out five lecturers but then I got to thinking well I think there should be at least maybe like one tenure track person on the lecturer search committee so that was the only that was the only one thought that I had that I wanted to put out there but um so anyone who has any suggestions is fine so the one other thing that Eric told me when I talked to him concerning the uh the assistant professor search committee um so you notice Eric Stura volunteered to chair

um so Eric Wesland told me that Eric Stura is very uh eager to be on the search committee. He really wants to, so he was the he's the only one who really really wants to, that Eric told me. Yeah, I'll recommend him to chair that search committee, and I would agree with you on that. Does anybody else have any thoughts? I have an objection. No objection. No objection. I think Eric is a good choice. Yes. Okay, so I think he's like the real easy choice to be on that search committee. Um, and then as far as the other and the other thought I had, so there's many of the people who volunteered, served on the committee last year, and yeah, um, I was kind of if um, if possible, trying to avoid those people because I think other people should have a chance to be on the committee. But we can't avoid all of them, but what I'm saying is I I would like to choose new people if we think those are the best people. Yeah, but I would like to put at

least one committee on this. Well, I know. I agree. Um, and pretty much, I think we have to just given the numbers there. Yeah. So, yeah. But I don't want to do the exact same committee as last year. In other words, you know, I would like to get some new people. Um, so notice, uh, Jennifer vanen Bush volunteered only if not on the chair search committee. And she's not on the chair search committee. And she is the only Professor on that list, right? I think, uh, you're right. She's the only Professor. You're right. Um, by the way, just as an aside, so the chair search committee who we made recommendations for last time has not been officially announced yet. Have you heard any official announcement of who it is? We ask you. No, no. I've not heard any official announcement. Um, however, I did read somewhere that the committee is going to be charged today, right? So, obviously, it's been selected. Um, yeah. Where did I read that? I read that somewhere, but oh, it was in Jennifer's, uh, CFC minutes or some. I

can't remember. I read it somewhere, but um anyway, although it's not been officially announced and nobody has officially told me who that search committee is, um somebody who was definitely selected told me that she is on it, and that is Ash Winnie. Okay, and she said, you know, the email she got. She pulled up the email she got, and it was sent to all four of the people, uh who were selected, or was, let's see, yeah, it was sent to all four of the people who were selected, and it was sent to Ash Winnie, uh um uh, I'm sorry, I guess three people. Ash Winnie, who else did we recommend? Um, Tim, who? Tim? Tim, yes, Tim is on it, yeah. And who else did we recommend? Uh, I think a Tom is, no um, we recommended Ikbel. Okay, yes, and we recommended who was the other one? How can I not remember it now? I'm sorry, was Sun recommended? No, not so. She's not going to be on the TDGE committee chair committee, right? No, she was not recommended. So, but Ikbel was.

recommended. Why can't I not remember who was the other one we recommended? I remember is sign maybe all right. I'm sorry uh I need to pull up the email and see uh See who we recommended. Oh wait a second Lake we did not recommend Lake no. Oh okay um here it is DFC. Okay here's who we recommended. The one we forgot was Julia. Oh yeah so Julia was recommended. Tim Ash, Winnie and Ikel. Those were the four that were recommended. And then um we also said so those were our top four but then our number five and six was and Sunny. Yeah Sunny is okay. And so here's what I heard unofficially through Ash Winnie who who was selected because she got an email that she was selected to be on the committee. And she said the only ones selected and the only ones on included on her email were her Tim and Julia. Period. Okay only three people. And I was rather surprised by that. I said because I had been told that we definitely need to recommend a lecturer and which we did. We recommended a couple.

of lecturers, and I was surprised. If that's the official word, then no lecture was selected, which really surprised me. So, once we officially hear the announcement, I'm going to ask about that, like what, you know, because Rob had, you know, specifically said we need to recommend a lecture, which we did, and they apparently didn't select one to be on the chair search committee. Okay, um, but so the only reason I say that is Tim Faer volunteered to chair or to be on this tenure-track search committee, but he's definitely on the, uh, on the chair search committee. So, I don't think we should, I think that would be too much, you know, having him be on two search committees. That's right. So, so far, we have what? We have Eric, and do we have Jennifer? Okay, okay, Eric and Jennifer so far. And we look at the area of research, I think we want to diversify, yeah, and AR's analysis, Genen for GR theory, yes, and Andy Wilson's commentator works. I think what I, I, I, I'll suggest we

put B on it. I'm in agreement with that. I think he would represent us well on that committee. You know, just overall, you know, in addition to representing discrete math, he would represent just the department well, I think. Yeah, that's what you know. Yeah, what I'm thinking. I agreed. Yeah. And then so we either, I mean, Pang Chang. I don't know how Pang Chang does on search committees. I don't really have any idea. Um, I know he's been on a few. Has anyone been on any search committees with Pang Chang? P Chain's good. He's good. Yeah. Okay. I just don't know. He is. He's taking, I think he's taking leave now, right, this semester? Yeah. I remember. I think so. Baby, in that case, we really cannot select him because if you're on leave, you're not supposed to be doing this work. But we, we, this current semester. I think he is taking the absence. I think he is too. So I don't think we can select him. I don't

think that that you know we're allowed to. I don't think we're so allowed to give him work when he's on leave, you know. Yeah, correct. Yeah, so I mean there's Osma. I like, you know, I would be happy with Osma as a choice. I would be happy with Martin Rolick as a choice, but I was kind of reserving him for the other search committee because he's one of the only tenure-track people. He and Zhu are on the, you know, they're the only two tenure-track who volunteered for the lecture search committee. Then let's choose the Asma. Well, yeah, I know that's, yeah, so I would agree. Yeah, yeah, I think Somaya and Asma, one of those two. Yeah, Asma I think is good. Okay, Osma. So, so far we have Osma. We have four so far. We have Eric, Jennifer, Andrew, and Osma. Okay, yeah, maybe I can, I guess we can put two on that. We two on which one? Two on the on the

first one. I mean the assistant professor committee. Uhhuh. His area is number theory. Is the only one in that. Okay um that's true. Oh you know actually Andrew Wilson is also a number theorist. Oh he's very much a number theorist. Oh he put a in the. I know I know his research and it's it's very largely. There's a lot of number Theory. That's do you remember Jim hagland when at KSU back in the old days. Were you hear when Jim haglin was here. You probably were not but he. He's a number theorist and Andrew Wilson actually did a post talk with him. Anyway but anyway um all right so so far we have four and I'm open to whoever you want to say. Well I'll tell you what let's move on to the lecture search committee and then come back and figure out who the fifth one is on the other one. Okay okay so um any any suggestions um I like sunny. I like as far as the lecturers at

volunteered. I think any of them would be fine, actually. Um, I like all everyone who volunteered. I think would be fine on that committee. Yeah. Do we need to make a recommendation who is going to serve for chair position? No, no. Okay, no. We don't have to say who's going to serve as chair. Okay, okay. So we can was ital. Yeah, I would agree. Yeah, I and I like. I think Dustin Deutch always does a good job. He's been on it a few times, but he's. I think he served on it maybe two years in a row, but I think he's particularly good. I think he's very conscientious about it. Unless it choose, it doesn't. Yeah, Pedro, I think, has never been on one. So if he were to be on it, I think he would be fine. Um, but you know, it would be a new learning experience for him. But people have to learn. I like Sunny. Sunny volunteered to be on, and I think she's not on the chair search committee. Okay, yeah, agree. You want to

say Sunny yeah yeah yes okay let's also give Pedro a chance. Oh, you want to give him a chance? I think so. People need to learn, right? Exactly, right. And so then I think we should either choose J or Martin. Um, I would pick Martin there. Okay, yeah. Only 10e track person. I just think he might be better, a little bit better at leadership than J would be. So if you're gonna have just one 10e track person, and then I would be willing to pick J for the assistant professor. Yeah, yeah. I think that's good. Okay, so does everyone agree with that? We just say yes. Yes. Okay, so so far here's what we have for the assistant professor. We have XU, Andrew, Jennifer, Eric, and Osma. And for the lecturer, we have Pedro, Sunny, Martin, Kel, and Dustin. Sounds good to me. Okay, all right, so we're done with that business. Um, and then the other thing is I don't know if you had a chance to look at the ads. Um, I

scanned over them, but I think they're essentially the same ads from last year, um, which I helped write, so I was familiar with them. Um, I don't have any suggested changes on the ads. I don't either, which Che, everything looks good here. Okay, all right, so we're done with that. So, right now, I'm going to send an email to Eric to tell him he can, uh, join us. Okay, okay, let's see here. I guess I should stop sharing. Do you see my screen still? Yes. All right, let me stop sharing my screen as soon as I can find Teams. Where's Teams? Now here it is. Stop sharing. Okay, and all right. He said you can just call me on Teams. I don't even know how to call somebody on Teams if I'm already in a meeting. Uh, is there a way to, like, invite somebody into the meeting or something? There is, but I don't know how to do it. I don't know. I'm not really good with Teams. Let's see, more audio settings, meeting info, record.

and transcribe. You could join um from using the link, right? Yes, so I can just send him the link. Well, he already, well, I'm just G. I'm just going to send him an email. Yeah, he can email the link and he can join. He already has the link. Okay, so I just sent him the email, so he should be joining us shortly. Um, so yeah, I guess that's, oh yeah, as far as I mean, so this meeting we're having today coun is our September meeting, right? So um, we've already had two meetings and you know, I, I'm just thinking about it. I mean, I think we should just meet a minimum of one to two times a semester and as needed, right? So it may end up being more than three or four times a semester, but it may end up being less, just whenever we have business to handle, right? Doesn't that make sense? Okay, yeah, rather than meeting for no reason, just saying we're gonna meet every once whether we need to or not. I don't think we should do that. Yeah, because we, it's

very hard for us to find a common time. Um, I would have preferred to choose like 2:30 or what was it, two o'clock today, but we have the teaching conversation seminar, which is why I didn't said okay. So Eric is here. Welcome Eric, we're ready for you. Hi, good morning everyone. Just a second, let me get my one calendar or my camera pointed the right way. Okay, um, so I don't know what you'd like to talk about first. You want to talk about budget or you want to talk about hiring committees, search committees? Okay, well, we did make recommendations for the search. We decided on them, so I will just send those to you by email, I guess. Oh great, or unless you want me to just tell you them verbally, I can do that too. Um, um, sure, I mean, so okay. Well, the one thing that for the tenure track search committee, we agreed, you know, strongly that Eric Stura, since he's eager to serve on the committee and to serve as

chair. We recommend that you know strongly that he does serve on the committee and as chair. Okay, so um, and then you know the what one thing we wanted to make sure was that we had at least one tenured track faculty member on the lecturer search committee because most of the people who volunteered were lecturers. Yeah, and so um, what we ended up with just to make the long story short. So for this for the assistant professor um, we recommended Eric Stura, Osma, Jeu, Andrew, and Jennifer. Okay, we tried to have a mixture of different research areas and everything um, Jennifer volunteered only if not on the chair search committee and as far as I know she's not so. Okay um, but we don't know the official announcement on that because no one's told me but I've heard unofficial things so they they still haven't formed the search committee yet for the chair search. I read somewhere that no that I I heard that they did form it in fact I heard it two weeks ago or know right after we sent our

recommendations. I heard it from a person who said was told that they were on it, um, but you know they got an email saying on it. I heard they were going to be charged like today possibly or something, um, but anyway that committee has been formed but no one has officially told us who it is. I've only heard the unofficial thing from the person who's on it. Okay, so I we should be hearing the official thing soon but I'm quite sure that Jennifer is not okay. If so, that's why we said it was okay for her to be on this one. Okay, and for the lecturer search committee, the ones we recommended were Pedro, Sunny, Martin, Kell, and Dustin. Okay, and for a chair on that is we didn't recommend, we didn't come for the chair, but however Martin is the only tenure track, but that I'll tell you. I mean now that you're just like spontaneously asking that question, a person who's now I think will be his third year in a row if he selected as Dustin.

I have a high amount of confidence in him as far as his organization and being on the ball, so yeah, I I'm interested in whether he'd be willing to chair it. Um, yeah, so okay, but I don't know. Typically, it's always been a tenure-track person, I think, who's the chair, but hey, I don't think there's any rule about that. I don't think that there is either. I'm not exactly sure if that with lecturer search committees, if there are, if there's policy on that, so I'll check, but um, okay. Was Martin the chair last year of the lecturer search committee? No, Tim Favor was. Oh, that's right, that's right. Oh yeah, and by the way, that's the reason we didn't choose Tim Favor in the first selection. I because um, I heard unofficially that he is on the chair sege. Oh, okay, okay, yeah, cuz he had expressed a a he really supported Eric Stura for you know for chair of this.

tenure track committee. He's very good friends with him, close colleagues. I know, yeah, you know, offered to serve on that committee as well, yeah, um, but yeah, if he's, but we thought that that might be a bit much, you know, if he's on both, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, nobody needs to be on two faculty search committees. U, otherwise, I would jump all over having him on it, you, but yeah, so anyway, yeah, so that's the, and as far as the ads, we were happy with the ads, which are essentially the same ones from last year, okay, yeah, so yeah, they're basically, basically just clones of last year's ads with a little tiny bit of adjustments and wording, um, I, I really didn't push hard for additional tenure track lines this hiring cycle because, because we were so successful last year, yeah, um, and other departments in the CSM were not. They had completely failed tenure track searches, all, all of them. I don't, I, I'm not exactly sure if everyone was failed, but I think they, they had several that were

that W was unsuccessful, and we were very successful. The other issue is that, um, we don't, at this point, well, I should mention, to be honest with you, as an interim chair, I don't, I didn't feel comfortable having that much kind of um. I would feel more comfortable if the permanent chair, the new permanent math chair, has more of a say in additional tenure track lines. Um, I think that that's appropriate, and I don't want to, you know, yeah, part. I think part of the skillful strategy, you know, you're doing as Department chairs, yeah, you need to choose the right time to kind of lay back. Like, this isn't the year to do a big push because, just like you said, we were just so successful in the P few years, and it's like, okay, let's not be, you know, come across looking like Hogs, you know, let, let's let some other departments, like, do some hiring, and then, then, like, maybe next year is our right time to jump in, like, when there's a permanent chair and so forth.

yeah, yeah, and that can possibly be used as to kind of sweeten negotiations possibly with chair candidates is if you know you can if the administration can somehow say, Well, we'll approve this many additional tenure track lines in your department, and that can, you know, because, and you know, that's very typical that they do that hiring a chair, that is, yeah, all right. And also, just to be honest, we have nowhere to put people anywhere. I mean, I want to make sure that we can support the new tenure track people that we have. Yes, focus on making sure they're set up and supported. I mean, we just have no Crawford is already basically filled in. People haven't even moved in yet. But, I mean, all of the offices are pretty much claimed at this point. Building D is completely filled to maximum capacity. Hopefully, we get those Honors College offices. Yeah, yeah, hopefully some event eventually we get some clarification on what happens with that. But, okay, um, then I will reach out to, I mean, uh, if

you're going to send me that list of people that you're recommending. Um, I have my own thoughts on it too. I may make a few adjustments, but I think I'd largely agree with what the DFC said. So yeah, the decision's up to you. Okay, thank you very much. Um, so hopefully once we get the search committee formed, then I can finish filling out the job request form and then get that submitted to Academic Affairs and get these ads live as fast as we can. Um, so thank you for your comments on that. Um, I don't really have a whole lot to say about the budget other than I just want to regularly touch base with the DFC just to kind of keep you aware of where we're sitting. So I talked to Marie Manuel um, just a couple of days ago and it looks like we have about 36,000 for supplies. So this does not include like Telecom or copy print or anything but like basic office supplies, any kinds of special purchase requests people have.

and then travel um for the rest of the year um 36,000 total for everything. Yeah, I mean, and so we've had a decent amount of our travel budget, you know, has already been encumbered from people putting in, you know, requests at the beginning of the year, which is fine um. And then there were a number of different, like, there was travel that was very close to the end of the fiscal year, like late June um, that you know, when they submitted the expense reports, we were already into the new fiscal year. And so it came out of, so it was like travel last fiscal year that's getting paid for uh out of this fiscal year's budget um. But yeah, so we have 36,000 for travel, and so of that uh travel and operating expenses kind of right um. We're doing two searches for a total of four open positions, and you know, if you budget, I'm thinking something like at least eight on-site interviews um, you know, the one tenure

track position is probably going to have like three on-site interviews. Um, the lecturer position, if we're trying to hire three, um, I think it makes sense to have about five, five, six onsite, um, you know, and those if you approximate at least $1,000 each, um, which may not be that you, maybe less than that if we get some candidates that are local, um, but then you get candidates that might be from, you know, the other end of the country and their cost to bring them in is higher, um, so I was just kind of averaging about $1,000 each. So, that's going to, you know, eat up about 8,000 in bringing in, um, job candidates. Um, so that would leave us with about 26,000, um, to use for travel and operating expenses. I don't have a problem with, like, I, in the past, I know that we've been very conservative with our, uh, with our spending and at the end of the fiscal year, in like the fourth quarter, um, we're buying like

streams of paper just to eat up, you know, funding that hasn't been spent yet. Um, I don't really want to do that practice as much if I can, so I would rather support research travel and things like that for faculty. So, um, yeah, I'm just interested in what the DFC thinks about how to distribute travel funding in an equitable way. So, we have 33 or 34 tenure-track faculty or tenure or 10 TR tenure track. Four of them have funding for sure for travel. Um, so KTI in your travel funding all is covered by the Dean's office. Eric Stura has an army grant that covers almost all of his travel. He does have some expensive travel, but it's built into his grant. Uh, Andy Wilson has about $3,000 a year of travel from his AMS Simon Grant. Uh, and then Tim Faber's new NSF Grant, he's got money built in to cover his travel. So, I don't suspect that any of those four would need much in the way of funding.

and then we have five, five, uh, have startup, you know, dedicated startup accounts, um, that I'm trying to make sure that they spend that money and don't go over by too much. But so that still leaves about 25 faculty that have research workload allocation, um, and don't have explicit funding to support their travel right now. Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm just, you know, kind of, I've tried to encourage people to submit their travel requests early, but really there hasn't been much, um, that's been submitted. Um, we do, did have a h, a few that have been submitted, um, where is it, um, for, let's see, ulia Dua Lynch have submitted, and those have not yet been encumbered. Um, but I don't know if the, if the DFC had any thoughts on how to, how to equitably distribute travel funding. It's always a tough one in with limited resources, and some people are really like, some people really don't request travel, so it's, it's really hard to budget, um, for what they're going to do.

um, you know, some will just go for years without doing any kind of travel, and then, right, so just from my historical perspective, you're right about um, people in the last several years. The travel requests were much lower than I had remembered in previous years. Very few people requested travel, basically um, and back when we had mathematics education in the department, yeah, they ate up our entire travel budget every year. They would just go crazy with travel, and when they left, then all of a sudden, it became much more manageable. I definitely think we're, you know, in an okay position. I just um, you know, I just wanted to have the DFC weigh in a little bit on what they think is a good way to approach it um, you know, on the one hand. I really want to support the untenured tenure track people um, to the best of my ability um, and we have well, the five that we just hired. They have dedicated, you know, startup accounts um, osma and Tim were hired in.

2021 their pre-tenure. Tim does have funding now. Um, Osma hasn't put in any travel requests that I know of. And then we have Misha, Martin, C. Thomas, and Andy that were all hired in 2020. And Andy does have some funding. So, there's four of them plus Osma. Um, so that's five. But those ones, those ones you just mentioned have not actually submitted any requests, right? No, no. Or it was, um, you know, like very, very small amounts, like Thomas put in like a, you know, request to travel, you know, for, it was like $500 or something. Those, I pretty much just approve without feeling the need to ask the DFC for permission, right? Or, I mean, they're small amounts. If it's an invited talk, it's like no question asked, you know. Sometimes they get part of their travel covered by the, uh, people inviting them. So, yes, that was my, um, also experience with that particular group you mentioned. They would submit very small travel requests once or twice a

year like $500 or less. You know, it's like for a regional meeting or something. Yeah, yeah. A lot of people have been requesting to go to the AMS sectional in Savannah, um, which is great. It's a perfect venue. So, I've been pretty much just giving a thumbs up to anybody that's requested that, um, but yeah. Misha Martin, uh, and Thomas have really don't travel that much, um, C's travel expenses are really, really light as well, so yeah. And, and, and same with osma. I, I, I'm not sure. Maybe they're doing more, uh, virtual kinds of presentations or I don't know. Well, some of those, some of those people are pretty soon, like osmo people. There's certain people who were going to spring on you requests to go to the AMS MAA joint meetings. Yeah, because, and they, they haven't gotten around to that yet. Probably about October, they're going to say, Oh, I want to go to the Joint meetings. Yeah, expensive. That's a good $500, $2,000 a piece. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

easily. I mean, it's a great, still a great, you know, annual conference to go to, though. So, I do want to support it if I can. Yeah, so I think, you know, as far as I mean, as much as people didn't really like Mark Anderson, I kind of like his approach toward travel. Yeah, um, funds, and you know, basically, you know, travel funds are to be used to advance the um, the business of the University. You know, the to um, you know, it's not kind of, I mean, I agree with this philosophy, and other people might not, that you know, it's not like everybody gets a certain amount of going to divide it up as evenly as possible, whether you need it or not, that kind of thing, but it's more like whatever takes precedence. And in any given year, there might be some particularly sort of high travel request that is important, you know, that um, because it's going to give our department exposure. Yeah, um, at some International me, you know, or something like that. So, I think that should be

weighed in. Yeah, H, you know, if like, you know, an invited talk at a, you know, it happens occasionally that, you know, it's not going to be like an even distribution of money. In other words, in each given year, yeah, it's true. And, you know, there may be somebody who, you know, just because you're a tenure track faculty member, even untenured, if you're not sort of making efforts, you know, for funding and that kind of thing, I think that should be taken into account. And so, I think it's fine if you make these little travel requests, you know, and you go to Regional meetings and all because, you know, you need to build yourself up. But, um, so anyway, those are just some of my thoughts. Yeah, I agree. I mean, some of the larger expenses, you know, are completely justified, especially if it's an International Conference and there's a, you know, invited talk. I mean, it's definitely getting the KSU name out there. It's helping the faulty memb

support their, you know, their research, and you know that really means a lot to get the KSU name out there because I can remember when I first came to KSU years ago, and I'm sure Leon Ching can remember, you know, nobody knew who KSU was. So, when you would go to a meeting, even to a regional meeting, like if you were to go to a meeting in Mississippi or something, yeah, they'd say, Oh, I think I heard of that place, right? Yeah, but now they have heard of it because we are getting our name up there, and that's important, you know? Yeah, all right, um, yeah, I just, I wish there was a way to have, you know, people sub-requests earlier, um, you know, just for budgeting, but you know, a lot of times, and it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen, and sometimes you gotta say, like, you know, like if somebody, like, you know, gives you, like, a last-minute request, like, say, to go to the Joint meetings, and it's not for any particular purpose, you know, or

something I think definitely precedence should be given if somebody's at least giving at least a contributed talk. Yeah, yeah, especially if it's an invited talk, you know. But yeah, yeah, definitely invited talks take a higher priority, I think. But yeah, any travel that I'm going to be supporting, the individual has to be presenting research. Yeah, there's just no question there. I think it has to be, I think it has to be, you know, like real research. You know, like I don't think this happens anymore, but like back in the old days when we had other groups in the department, people would just, you know, come up with a meaningless talk and they'd say, I'm giving a talk at this meeting, and it would be about, you know, how I use the TI-83 graphing calculator to graph functions in my college algebra, you know, and it every year that would be it. And so therefore you should give me funding because I'm giving this talk, you know, and those I don't think we can

fund those kinds of things anymore if it's a tight budget. No, I don't. I don't think so. Yeah, I agree. Um, all right, right. Um, okay. I mean, I'll continue to meet with the DFC throughout the semester and just and the Academic Year and just kind of keep you updated on where we're sitting. Um, and let you know. DFC members have. I was. I was the only one who really was talking with my thoughts. Does any DFC members all have any other contribution to make to that? Yeah, I. I. I think even though, you know, I. I made a request, but I think the. The founding. The. I mean, the priority should be on the new FA members on loans. And if we want the Trav to give a presentation to the conference, we should give the priority to those people. That's mine. And other than that, yeah, you talked about those people, you know, who have not tenure yet. Yeah, well, one thing I'll add to that, though, is in the recent many years, we have been giving pretty good

startup funding to the new hires, yeah. And so just because your startup funding runs out after two years, part of the reason for startup funding is that you're going to become increasingly independent. Like Andy Wilson applied for one of these AMS travel grants, so did Eric Stura, and they both got it. And so there's sort of, you know, those startup funds I think need to be taken into account even if they've expired, you know, that you're supposed to use those wisely. You know, is it two years or three years for startup money? Two, two, two years, two years, okay. So yeah, that's what I mean. After two years, they may need to use them, the tral B from, right? Well, they do, but you know, I'm saying there should be somewhat of an expectation when we give people startup funds that they're going to use those to, you know, become increasingly independent. So for, you know, like, you know, we're, we're, we're different than we were now that we give startup funds a lot different, no, yeah.

yeah, yeah, yeah, and some of them are right. Some of them have had some success in, um, you know, in finding additional ways to get funding for their research. Um, I also think just some of the, some of them are, are, you know, they get invited talks and their, and their travel is covered by the institution that's inviting them. Yeah, which, which is really good. Um, so, um, but yeah, okay. Um, a couple of other, I guess the only other thing, there's not a whole lot that's been put into the spreadsheet, um, in terms of, uh, travel requests and, and what expenditure requests. Um, it was, it was mostly like new, the new faculty that have dedicated startup accounts had put their requests in, but those are, you know, funded from a separate account, so it's not a problem. Um, Laura did put in a request on behalf of, um, The Faculty on the ground floor of the math and stats building for some, uh, to have some nice small bulletin boards outside of their offices so that they can post announcements and things. So apparently, facilities is getting much

more um strict about you know what you can post and wear um and so if you don't have a dedicated bulletin board um you know they'll they'll rip stuff down and so um I think it was about $450 total um which I think is completely appropriate to be able to have you know those faculty offices have little bulletin boards. They're not super big but they're um kind of similar to what other faculty have on the top floor of the MS building um and then there's um potentially we may try to expand our overleaf um subscription Department subscription just to increase the number of licenses um. We have three so our our subscription with overleaf expires in April. We still have three unused licenses so we're just going to pretty much dish those out whoever wants them first come first serve um but I I would like to see if the department is interested in you know now that we have even more new tenure track faculty um you know if if they would like some additional licenses um and well I myself.

have started using Overleaf now that I'm back into trying to write papers and everything. Um, and I think the fact that we hired all these new people, I think there is going to be a demand for it, is my impression. So, I think everybody uses it these days, all anyone who's writing math papers. Yeah, it's the most common way to collaborate. Yeah, I've been using it for the last few years. Okay, yeah, it's very convenient. Yeah, yeah, I guess when we get updated pricing from them, um, I don't know, maybe we want to like increase our subscription, buy an additional 10 licenses or eight licenses. I'm not exactly sure. Um, Laura's been in contact with them, but um, I will, you know, I'll share the cost, but it shouldn't be outrageous. I think it'll be pretty reasonable for the amount of usage that it gets. So, okay, all right. Okay, well, thank you very much for your time, um, and uh, and and

your recommendations on the search committee. So, I'll send you an email right now before I forget with those recommendations. Okay, but of course, we completely understand if you choose differently because it's really your decision. So, yeah, and I mean, I think there's a nice thing is that we've got a good pool of people that are willing to work. I just don't want to, you know, have too many people overburdened, you know, make sure that, like you said, there's a good distribution of ranks and research areas represented, and then people that are going to do a good job that, you know, um, because those are really high-impact committees. You want to have somebody who's really organized and willing to take on the. So, do you plan to get those started right up? Yeah, yeah, um, you know, I today, today I'm completely gridlocked, but I'm gonna try and um, get them formed up and reach out to people, you know, over the weekend and hopefully have them in place.

early, early next week. Yep, so okay. All right, thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks. Okay, take care. Okay, bye. Right.

DFC Meeting 20240906 103808 Meeting Recording

DFC Meetings

Search Committee Recommendations Discussion

The team is discussing recommendations for the search committee, needing to choose five people.

Eric Stura is eager to chair the assistant professor search committee, and there is a desire to include at least one tenure track person on the lecturer search committee.

The team aims to avoid selecting the same members as last year's committee while also considering new volunteers.

The recommended candidates for the committee were Julia, Tim, Winnie, and Ikel, with Sunny as the fifth option.

However, only Tim, Winnie, and Julia were officially selected for the committee.

The need for a lecturer's recommendation was emphasized, but none were selected, which surprised the group.

They discussed potential candidates for the assistant professor committee, considering Eric, Jennifer, Andrew, and Osma, with Andrew also being a number theorist.

Committee Recommendations and Meeting Overview

The committee discussed volunteer nominations for various positions, agreeing to give Pedro a chance to learn and choosing Martin for the tenure track and J for the assistant professor role.

The group reviewed the ads for the upcoming year and decided to meet as needed, rather than on a set schedule.

Eric joined the meeting to discuss the budget and hiring committees, with the recommendations for the search committee to be sent via email.

The lecturer search committee includes Eric Stura, Osma, Jeu, Andrew, and Jennifer, with a focus on diverse research areas.

The chair search committee has been formed, but the official announcement of its members is pending.

The lecturer search committee's recommended members are Pedro, Sunny, Martin, Kell, and Dustin, with Dustin potentially taking on the chair role.

Supporting New Tenure-Track Faculty and Budgeting Challenges

The administration is considering offering additional tenure-track lines to departments as a negotiation tool for chair candidates.

There is a shortage of office space for new hires, with all current offices and Building D at maximum capacity.

The budget for supplies and travel for the rest of the year is $36,000 each, with a plan to use $8,000 for on-site interviews and the remaining funds for equitable distribution of travel funding for faculty.

The speaker is overseeing travel funding for faculty, with five dedicated startup accounts and 25 faculty members without explicit funding.

There has been a low submission of travel requests, making it challenging to budget effectively.

The speaker aims to support untenured tenure track faculty and is open to the DFC's input on equitably distributing travel funding.

The distribution of funding for faculty travel is uneven, and efforts to secure funding should be taken into account.

Invited talks and presentations of research are prioritized for travel support, with a focus on building the university's reputation.

Startup funding for new hires is provided to help them become independent, and there is an expectation to use it wisely.

Funding and Resource Requests in the Department

Some faculty members have successfully secured additional funding for their research and have their travel covered by inviting institutions.

There have been few requests for travel and expenditure, primarily from new faculty with dedicated startup accounts.

A request for $450 to install bulletin boards outside faculty offices has been made, and there is a plan to expand the Overleaf department subscription to increase the number of licenses for new tenure track faculty.