Federal government awards $2 million for Improving Mathematics Education in Schools project

As reported today on the Funneled Web, the Federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, has announced a $2 million grant to fund the “Improving Mathematics Education in Schools” project, an initiative run by AMSI in collaboration with industry and teachers to promote mathematics education and awareness of mathematics career opportunities, particularly in low-income areas.

See also the recent opinion piece by Jan Thomas of AMSI on a related topic.

Message from AMSI regarding proposed cuts at Victoria University

The new director of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, Geoff Prince, has written an open letter to the Vice Chancellor and President of Victoria University, Elizabeth Harman, regarding the proposed severe cuts in the mathematics and statistics departments (from 8.5 FTE to 4.5 FTE) through targeted. (We posted about these cuts in a previous post.)

Concerted pressure of this type by the mathematical community can make a difference; strong protests over similar actions by the University of Southern Queensland resulted in a significant reduction in the staff cuts, and USQ afterwards hired several maths and stats faculty (including one who had they made redundant!) after they realised that the cuts that they did enact left them unable to fulfill their mathematical teaching obligations.

The letter is provided in full below the fold.  (Reproduced with permission.)

Professor Geoffrey Prince is appointed as AMSI Director

Geoff Prince, Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at La Trobe University, has taken on the position of director of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, taking over from Phil Broadbridge.

Clay-Mahler lecture series

The Australian Mathematical Science Institute has set up a page regarding the Clay–Mahler lectures, including photos, videos, and media coverage.

I have put some of the slides of my own talks online on my blog:

1. Here are the slides for the public lecture “Mathematical research and the internet”.
2. Here are the slides for the four Access Grid Room talks, “Compressed sensing”, “Discrete random matrices”, “Recent progress in additive prime number theory”, and “Recent progress on the Kakeya problem”.
3. Here are the slides for the public lecture “The cosmic distance ladder”.
4. Here are the slides for the public lecture “Structure and randomness in the prime numbers” and the colloquium “Perelman’s proof of the Poincaré conjecture”.

Clay–Mahler lecture tour for 2009

The schedule for the Clay-Mahler lecture tour is now available.  This is a series of public lectures, colloquia, and specialist lectures at several across Australia by Mohammed Abouzaid, Danny Calegari, and myself, from Aug 3 – Oct 9.  They are being supported by the Clay Mathematical Institute, the Australian Mathematical Society, and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute.

Rebuilding the mathematical sciences

In an article today for ScienceAlert entitled “Rebuilding the mathematical sciences“, Hyam Rubinstein writes on the recent decline in mathematics education in Australia, and on how to rebuild it, in particular promoting the National Maths Strategy recently completed by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute.

(Thanks to Jan Thomas for the link.)

Open position: director of the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (AMSI)

The University of Melbourne
Department of Mathematics and Statistics,
Faculty of Science Parkville Campus
Closing date: 30th April, 2009

The Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute (www.amsi.org.au)
was established in 2002. AMSI’s mission is to “promote and
strengthen the understanding and use of the mathematical
sciences in Australia’s culture, science and economy.”

The Director provides leadership in AMSI’s strategic directions
and programs with responsibility to the Members and the Board.
Appointment to this position may be a stand-alone fixed-term
appointment in its own right or a secondment from another post.
The level of appointment will be commensurate with the skills,
qualifications and experience of the appointee. Any suitable
appointee will be at Level E.

The appointee will be able to continue to pursue an active
research program if desired and to undertake the supervision
of postgraduate students under the auspices of one of the
Member universities, subject to the agreement of the Board.
Work as AMSI Director will take precedence over research and
research supervision, with the latter representing no more
than 20% of the total commitment.

For position description and application procedure see:
http://tiny.cc/DIRECTOR_AMSI

For more information about AMSI see: http://www.amsi.org.au

Enquiries: Prof. Tony Guttman at tonyg@ms.unimelb.edu.au

[Thanks to Jan Thomas for the announcement – T.]