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Preserving Strength While Meeting Challenges Summary Report of a Workshop on Actions for the Mathematical Sciences (1997) / Chapter Skim
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Educating Mathematical Sciences Graduate Students
Pages 41-44

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 41...
... Despite evidence that something is wrong, that circumstances are different, our gut reaction is to stand fast, to defend the system and the values in which we believe. In a nutshell, I think this describes the current stance of the mathematical sciences community toward graduate education.
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From page 42...
... An issue related to the view of the doctorate as preparation for a job concerns the completeness of the training provided. That is, if candidates are being prepared for teaching positions, then shouldn't their graduate education reflect that?
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From page 43...
... First, there would be the terrible human waste of labeling a large group of our most talented people as failures and choking them out, ill prepared for anything. Moreover, since a good many such people often find their way into policy positions or positions in which they mediate mathematics to the public, they might turn the tables on the mathematics community, strongly affecting public funding for mathematics and universities.
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From page 44...
... It is appropriate to ask whether this change has negatively affected the nature of graduate programs in many cases. About 5 years ago T chaired a study of doctoral education for the Board on Mathematical Sciences.
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  • teaching mathematics
  • doctoral students
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  • education reflect
  • postdoctoral apprenticeships

  • negatively affected
  • hard choices
  • apprenticeships available
  • forces external
  • ill prepared

  • view doctoral
  • pursue realistic
  • doctoral program
  • mathematical vitality
  • middle course

  • human waste
  • terrible human
  • somehow reduce
  • broader training
  • particularly hard


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