UT Arlington Wins AMSExemplary Program AwardAllyn Jackson

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Ph.D. student and NSF GK-12 fellow LarrissaOwens helps middle school students, while

math professor Minerva Cordero-Epperson lookson. Owens is a 4th year Ph.D. student working

on modeling of wound healing.Cordero-Epperson, now Associate Dean ofScience, directs the 5-year GK-12 program.

The University of Texas at Arlington is not elite. It’snot the flagship campus of its university system—that distinction goes to UT Austin. It’s not as wellknown as some of its neighbors, like Rice Universityand Texas A&M. It doesn’t have huge resources,especially since the economic downturn. It’s notan obvious place to find a stand-out mathematicsdepartment with a thriving graduate program. Andyet that’s just what the UT Arlington Departmentof Mathematics has become.

Over the past several years the departmenthas transformed itself by making the growthand development of its graduate program its toppriority. That goal led naturally to improvementsin other areas—such as student mentoring, theundergraduate program, and outreach—as thedepartment sought to develop a sufficient poolof well-prepared doctoral students. To supportthese activities, the department systematically

Allyn Jackson is senior writer and deputy editor of theNotices. Her email address is axy@ams.org.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1090/noti1008

pursued outside funding. As success built uponsuccess, the faculty adopted a common vision ofwhat the department could achieve and createda positive, can-do environment where teaching,research, mentoring, and service are all valued.For this outstanding transformation, the UTADepartment of Mathematics has received the AMSAward for an Exemplary Program or Achievementby a Mathematics Department.

Making the Case for MathTexas has three so-called “Tier 1” research univer-sities: UT Austin, Rice, and Texas A&M. The statehas been aiming to increase the number of Tier 1institutions, so in 2004, UT Arlington launched aninitiative to move up to that level. While there isno precise definition of Tier 1, the term generallyrefers to institutions with a high level of research,strong graduate programs, and substantial out-side funding. UT Arlington set specific targets towork toward Tier 1 status, including producingtwo hundred Ph.D.’s each year and having annualresearch expenditures of US$100 million. In 2005,with support from the state legislature, UTA waspoised to invest in areas that could help it achievethese goals.

In such initiatives mathematics sometimes lookslike a minor player compared to other areas ofscience and engineering, especially those thatappear to have more research cachet and thatbring in large grants. Jianping Zhu saw thingsdifferently. When he took the position as chairof the UTA mathematics department in 2005, hefound a great deal of potential. What attracted him,he said, was the department’s excellent reputationand its long-standing doctoral program, whichwas started more than forty years ago. Zhu knewsome successful mathematicians who had gottentheir Ph.D.’s at UTA, and he had known a formerchair, the late George Fix, who left Carnegie MellonUniversity in the early 1990s to help build upthe UTA department. UTA’s expansion plans alsomade the position attractive for Zhu. He saw thatin order to thrive the department had to align itsmission with that of the university. “From that

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point of view, it’s actually pretty easy to make thecase” for mathematics, Zhu said.

He followed three main principles. First, math-ematics is central to the university’s teachingand research efforts. All UTA undergraduates arerequired to take mathematics courses, so how wellthe department delivers on its teaching respon-sibilities has a direct impact on the educationmission of the university and on student retentionand graduation. In addition, mathematics researchunderpins a broad range of interdisciplinary re-search in natural sciences, engineering, and socialsciences. “To become a Tier 1 research university,UTA must build a strong mathematics department,”Zhu said.

Second, mathematics is cost effective. “Math-ematicians don’t require labs,” Zhu said. “Theyjust need pencil, paper, and a computer to dotheir jobs.” He continually made the case to theadministration that, compared to laboratory-basedsciences, mathematics is much cheaper.

The third principle concerns outside funding.Mathematics research grants usually are not large.“But there are scholarship grants, both at theundergraduate and graduate level, that are quitesubstantial in size,” Zhu said. Putting the focuson that type of grant allowed the department todovetail two needs: attracting more and betterstudents by offering scholarship and fellowships,and showing the university that mathematics couldbring in substantial grant money.

Small College AtmosphereZhu left UTA in 2011 to become dean of the Collegeof Graduate Studies at Cleveland State University,and Jianzhong Su took over as chair of the UTAmathematics department. Su has been at UTA fortwenty-three years and has a good perspective onhow the department has changed. Before 2005, Susaid, “we were like every other department—wewere all busy with our own research and workingwith our own students.” What really changed thedepartment, he said, was a newfound focus onimproving mentoring and support for all graduatestudents. “We are a large state university of 34,000students…but we want to create an atmospherethat is more like a small college, where the facultyand students connect,” he said. Su was graduatedirector in 2005 when Tuncay Aktosun joinedthe UTA faculty. Sharing a strong interest in anddedication to students, the two began organizingstudent mentoring sessions. Up until then, themain time set aside for students and faculty tointeract outside of class was for meetings to advisestudents about which courses to take. “We foundthat students need help, especially new students,”Zhu noted. “They need advice, and they needencouragement when they run into problems.”

Creating a Ph.D. mathematician starts withstudents of young ages. Theresa Jorgensen, awinner of the University of Texas SystemRegents’ Outstanding Teaching Award and co-PIof the NSF GK-12 program, works with middleschool students on the mathematical game ofSet during the UT Arlington Math Day.

When it became clear that students were reallybenefiting from the mentoring sessions, otherfaculty began to get involved. These sessionshave helped the whole department become moreclose knit, fostering a welcoming atmospherewhere students feel supported and problems areaddressed early.

When Aktosun started at UTA, the graduateprogram was doing fairly well. It had twenty totwenty-five students, and in the previous decadehad granted an average of three Ph.D.’s peryear. But noting the low proportion of domesticstudents, Aktosun saw untapped potential. He ledan effort to apply to the Department of Educationprogram called Graduate Assistance in Areasof National Need, which supports departmentalfellowships for graduate students who are U.S.citizens, nationals, or permanent residents. Thedepartment succeeded in getting its first GAANNgrant, which ran from 2006 to 2010 and totaledUS$633,000; a new application brought a secondGAANN grant of US$653,000 for 2009–2012. Themathematics department was the first unit on theUTA campus to receive a GAANN grant. Since thenseveral other UTA departments have successfullyapplied for GAANNs.

The GAANN fellowships prompted the math-ematics department to revamp its recruitingmethods. “In the old days, we were just wait-ing for students to apply,” Su remarked. “Butin the last ten years, we have been doing a lotmore to reach out.” The department establishedan annual GAANN Day, during which prospectivestudents visit the department and interact withfaculty and graduate students. Also invited arefaculty from nearby institutions who might wantto send their talented majors to the Ph.D. program

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at UTA, a tactic that Aktosun called “recruiting thementors.” Establishing a sense of trust with thesementors is one key to successful recruiting. “Thosementors are like the parents [of the students],”Aktosun said. They want to send their studentsinto a supportive graduate program that valuesand nurtures students’ talents. Many mentorshave come to trust UTA in exactly that way. “Weare going to support [the students], and we aregoing to graduate them,” Aktosun said. “Theirpotential is going to be used in a maximal way.”The efforts have paid off. In 2010 the departmenthad fifty-two doctoral students, twenty-nine ofwhom were U.S. citizens or permanent residents,twenty were women, and eight were members ofminority groups traditionally underrepresented inmathematics; efforts to increase these numbershave continued.

Much of what the department learned a lot aboutrecruiting came from the National Alliance forDoctoral Studies in the Mathematical Sciences. Thealliance aims to maximize educational and researchopportunities for talented students from under-represented groups. The UTA graduate program isnow one of twenty-two alliance members that workwith about one hundred eighty undergraduatementors nationwide to ensure that students areplaced in programs where they will thrive. As aregional leader in encouraging underrepresentedgroups in mathematics, the UTA department isnow helping to organize a regional Gulf StatesAlliance that will work with the National Allianceto maximize opportunities for students who livein states around the Gulf of Mexico.

In addition to improving recruitment, the UTAdepartment made a few key changes to better serveits graduate students. One small change madea big difference in the atmosphere: interspers-ing faculty and graduate student offices, whichprompted many to leave their doors open moreoften and to chat more. The department revisedthe structure of the preliminary examinations toallow students to take the exams in an orderbetter suited for academic progress. This changemade the exam structure more student-friendlywhile maintaining the quality control the examsprovide. There are now review sessions for thepreliminary examinations, in which more-advancedgraduate students help newer ones to prepare. Thedepartment offers many other opportunities forgraduate students to act as role models, includ-ing through its various outreach programs. As aresult, the graduate students feel a real sense ofbelonging and make substantial contributions tothe department’s overall success.

A new component of the graduate programis a professional development course in whichgraduate students learn basic career “survival

skills” such as communicating effectively, bothorally and in writing; working in a team setting;and applying for grants. “Part of the reason for thesuccess of the doctoral program is that we providegood professional development, so the studentshave found good jobs,” Zhu noted. “Our doctoralstudents find jobs in a variety of professions,from banking to insurance to actuarial science, togovernment jobs, to tenure-track faculty positionsin colleges and universities.”

Success with Outside FundingIn addition to GAANN, the department receivedfrom the National Science Foundation (NSF) a five-year GK–12 grant, which supports eight graduatefellows per year. The GK–12 program is a partner-ship of three groups—university faculty, graduatestudents, and schoolteachers—that aims to boostschool student interest in science, technology,engineering, and mathematics. One GK–12 activityhas graduate students explaining their research tothe school kids. It’s a big challenge. The graduatestudents spend a couple of weeks over the summerdeveloping their presentations with the help oftheir faculty advisors and the schoolteachers. Surecalled the experience of one of his own graduatestudents, whose research concerned a diffusionequation. There was no point in writing downthe equation for the 9th-graders, but maybe hecould show them the solution, which is an expo-nential function? No, said the teacher, exponentialfunctions do not arise until the 11th grade. Thestudent finally came up with a way to explain whata diffusion equation is by likening it to a line ofpeople with buckets passing a quantity of waterdown the line. “It’s important for mathematicsPh.D. students to have the ability to communicatewith society,” Su remarked. “That way, they canmake a bigger impact with their research.” Becauseof the intensive collaboration involved, he noted,the GK–12 program “really bonds the faculty andthe students together.”

UTA faculty member Minerva Cordero-Eppersonis the principal investigator on the US$2.8 millionGK–12 grant; coprincipal investigators have in-cluded Aktosun, Su, and Zhu, as well as three otherUTA faculty members: James Epperson, TheresaJorgensen, and Hristo Kojouharov. All have a strongcommitment to teaching; Cordero, Epperson, andJorgensen each received the Regents’ OutstandingTeaching Award from the University of TexasSystem. Epperson directs the UTA MathematicsTeacher Preparation Academy, which has receivedabout US$1 million from the Texas Higher Educa-tion Coordinating Board. These are just a few of theUTA mathematics department faculty who havesuccessfully pursued grant opportunities; since2011, 80 percent of the faculty have had grants.

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While improving its doctoral program has beenthe department’s top priority, it did not forgetabout its mathematics majors. To improve supportfor these students, the department successfully ap-plied for two major grants from the NSF: an S-STEM(Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering,and Mathematics) grant of US$483,000 for 2008 to2012 and a UBM (Undergraduates in Biological andMathematical Sciences) grant of US$780,000 for2008 to 2013. Both grants support scholarships,mentoring, and other activities designed to enrichthe learning experience and enhance preparednessfor the job market or graduate school. The depart-ment has also received grants from the NationalResearch Experience for Undergraduates Programof the Mathematical Association of America, whichsupports REU programs aimed at students fromunderrepresented groups.

Grant money surely helps, but other zero-costimprovements have also made a difference. Forexample, the department gave the undergraduatestudent organization a bigger office where stu-dents could hang out and plan activities. Thismade them feel that “they truly have a home inthe department,” said Zhu. The department alsoincludes math majors in as many graduate studentactivities as possible. The attention to the under-graduate program has yielded results: the numberof mathematics majors jumped from around onehundred in 2005 to around three hundred today.“We would like to have more,” Su said, noting thatthe job opportunities for math majors are good inthe Dallas-Fort Worth region.

The department cultivates future math majorsin programs such as the Mid-Cities Math Circle,headed by Dimitar Grantcharov, and an annual“Calculus Bowl” for high school students, run byKojouharov. Every year the department collabo-rates with Riverside School, a local middle school,and the Rotary Club of Fort Worth to organize a“Math Camp”: Three hundred 8th-graders and theirteachers come to the UTA campus for half a dayof activities designed to spark students’ interestin mathematics. Over 90 percent of Riversidestudents are Hispanic, and most are poor. Formany of them the UTA Math Camp marks theirfirst time on a university campus. Aktosun saidthat when he looks at those 8th-graders, he thinks,“In six or seven years, they will be our math majors;in a decade, our doctoral students.”

The UTA mathematics department is so goodat everything it does it has become a testingground for innovative programs on the campus.When there is talk of carrying out a pilot program,“the university says, ‘Let math try it, and we’llsee if it works,”’ Su said. “We are energetic, weknow what we are doing, and we make sure theprogram is carried out.” Being the one that tries

Mentoring of undergraduate students in theMath Department’s S-STEM program, supportedby the NSF. Math professors Ruth Gornet(standing) and Hristo Kojouharov (right) are at aSURGE working lunch meeting, where mentoringand math activities take place.

new, innovative programs gives the department anedge. “It’s a way that we can make our departmentstand out from the crowd.”

A Horse, Not a MaverickWhen he first came to UTA, Zhu found that somefaculty were trying to revise the departmentalpromotion policies so that for professors in areasof mathematics where job prospects for newPh.D.’s are more limited than in other areas, thecriterion of having Ph.D. students would not bepart of promotion decisions. “The argument was,we can’t get students,” Zhu recalled. Today, withthe growth in the graduate program, such worrieshave disappeared, along with much of the turf-protection mentality that produced them in thefirst place. “Many of the divisions and frictionsthat were really obvious years ago are now lessobvious,” he noted. “We all realize we have ourdifferences…but we see that if we work together, webuild a stronger program, and it benefits everyonein the department.”

The motto of UT Arlington is “be a maverick”.Aktosun is not fond of this motto and its implicationthat accomplishment comes only to those who goit alone. The real work is done not by mavericks,but by horses, he said. “We were able to createa good environment where everyone contributes,and everyone in the end benefits because theirneighborhood becomes a nice neighborhood tolive in—the department becomes a desirable placeto be,” he said. “Those incentives that benefit thecommunity are what drives the horses rather thanthe incentives that drive the maverick.” The moral:“Don’t be a maverick. Be a horse.”

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