[RUME] number of doctoral advisees?

Tue Feb 7 01:26:43 EST 2006

Hi TJ,

Two quickies.

First, it sounds like you have the grounds for a statistical 
breakdown of workload for math ed folks versus non-math ed folks. If 
that turns out to be inequitable, you have grounds for the request 
for a 3rd math educator.

Second, let me tell you about my one act of administrative 
brilliance.  I set up our research groups as courses! They're 2-6 
variable units depending on how much the student does.

Having the groups function officially as course accomplishes 3 things:

1. Students can get credit for their time. That way they have no 
right to complain! (Of course, they say they;re working more than 40 
hours a week, and I tell then that's not bad for a half-time job...) 
OK, so yes, they should be killing themselves, but let them get 
official credit for it.

2. That's an honest-to-god course listed for us, which means that we 
get credit for it, and it counts toward our teaching load. It's only 
fair.  (By agreement with the Dean it counts as half a course because 
of generally low enrollments, but those half-courses add up.)

3. Since the students enroll, course credit hours for the department 
go up! That means your student FTE numbers look better to central 
administration.

It's a win-win proposition. And the higher enrollments may be the 
pathway to hiring another math educator.

Cheers,
Alan

At 12:23 PM -0600 2/6/06, Murphy, TJ wrote:
>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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>Rume at betterfilecabinet.com
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-- 
##################################################
Alan H. Schoenfeld
Elizabeth and Edward Conner Professor of Education
Education, EMST, Tolman Hall # 1670
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-1670

Phone: 510-642-0968
Fax: 510-642-3769
email: alans at berkeley.edu

Home page (papers, etc.): http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/Faculty/aschoenfeld

UCB page: http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/AHSchoenfeld/AHSchoenfeld.html

DiME website: http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/research/dime.html

MARS website:  http://www.educ.msu.edu/mars