[RUME] number of doctoral advisees?

[Crowley, Lillie F (Bluegrass)]

Terry, I'm not at a research university and can't address most of your
issues effectively, but I have a couple of comments. I don't think
you're whining, and at least you're tenured.  

1. You're supposed to be 40% teaching. You are teaching two courses, AND
advising research students, that sounds like more than 40% to me, but
you may not be able to do anything about it. 

2. I did my Ph.D. with David Tall at the University of Warwick. If I had
been over there meeting with him once a week, or meeting with other
graduate students once a week, I would have had a much easier time of
it. Not only that, I would have finished sooner. Tell these students I
said to quit whining about being expected to attend a weekly meeting
that they aren't getting credit for. It's for their own good. They are
graduate students and should expect to be badly overworked. 

Cheers, Lillie

Lillie R. F. Crowley, Ph. D.
Professor, Mathematics
138 Moloney Building
Bluegrass Community and Technical College
Cooper Campus
Lexington, KY 40506-0235
(859) 246-6422 (Note new phone number)
(859) 246-4672 fax
Cell: (859) 230-5067
E-mail: lillie.crowley at kctcs.edu
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Rume-bounces at betterfilecabinet.com
[mailto:Rume-bounces at betterfilecabinet.com] On Behalf Of Murphy, TJ
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2006 1:24 PM
To: Rume at betterfilecabinet.com
Cc: tjmurphy at ou.edu
Subject: Re: [RUME] number of doctoral advisees?

Thanks to those of you who replied to my question of how many RUME
doctoral students it's reasonable to advise at the same time. Several
people said, "two", which is what my department chair says. And then of
course there's Alan and Shandy.

My department chair says two, but I don't know whether it should be
different for mathematics dissertations vs RUME dissertations, and
that's why I brought the question to this group. I feel like I'm
drowning and I'm trying to decide if that's because I am drowning or
because I'm a wimp. So here's some details about the situation. I'd
appreciate some perspective.

The University of Oklahoma is a Research I institution. The Department
of Mathematics has 30-ish tenured/tenure-track faculty and 70-ish
graduate students. And here's our situation with the Undergraduate
Curriculum and Pedagogy Research Option in the doctoral program, which
has 2 faculty, both of whom serve on all RUME dissertation committees:

-- 2 students writing dissertations, data collection complete, expect to
graduate 2006
-- 3 students collecting dissertation data, expect to graduate 2007
-- 2 students who will finish qualifying exams (which are written tests
in analysis, algebra, and topology) this coming summer
-- 3 first-year graduate students known to be interested in the program,
expect to complete qualifying exams in Summer 2008

10 total currently known to be interested in pursuing a PhD in RUME at
OU. There are two sets of students who could increase the tally but we
don't know about yet: pre-qualifying exam students who haven't told
anyone yet and post-qualifying exam students who might want to switch
from some other area of mathematics. And there is an unknown number of
interested students who might not pass qualifying exams, thus reducing
the number in the pipeline. I'm not sure how to think about the possible
increase or decrease in the tally as I think about what the upcoming
years look like for me.

In addition, this semester I am teaching Calculus 1 to 120 freshman and
statistics to 35 seniors. My colleague is on sabbatical but otherwise he
would also be teaching two classes with at least 35 students in each.
Teaching is 40% of our work (including work with doctoral students),
with 40% devoted to research and 20% to service.

In self-defense I decided to adopt Alan's community model (I bet this is
the first Alan has heard of that) so that the more experienced graduate
students can help take care of the less experienced ones. 
Last fall, we started meeting weekly as a group for about an hour. 
These meetings have helped me substantially, although some of the
students seem to resent being expected to come to these meetings that
don't count for credit hours. Mostly I look into my future and can't
figure out how I'm going to read all those dissertations as a committee
member and advise the ones I'm the advisor for. My eyes and brain hurt
just thinking about it.

At what point are we allowed to start telling students we can't take on
any more? What should we say to students as the reason we aren't taking
them on? For example ... are we obligated to take the five who are still
pre-qualifying exams? I got a note from one of them explaining to me
that he flew over here from Korea under the assumption that he would
finish a PhD in the Pedagogy program if he successfully completed
qualifying exams. Does the existence of the program guarantee to
students that we will work with them? The Department is of the opinion
that passing qualifying exams allows the student to enter into the
doctoral program, but does not guarantee access to any particular person
or even any particular area of mathematics. I don't know how to feel
about that stance.

Do we need a third faculty member in RUME? Or do we just need a faculty
member who isn't as whiny and wimpy as I am?

Thanks,
Dr. Teri Jo Murphy, Associate Professor
Department of Mathematics, University of Oklahoma

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