News & Views item - August 2007

 

 

Maths and Stats at the University of Wollongong Boasts Rude Health. (August 22, 2007)

       The former deputy vice-chancellor for research at the University of Wollongong and as of last week Australian Research Council chief executive officer, Margaret Sheil, told The Australian's Brendan O'Keefe that the school of mathematics and applied statistics' beefing up at Wollongong  had been driven partly by a need to be prepared for the Research Quality Framework and by a sponsorship from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a popular graduate destination.

 

And she commented: "We are looking to build maths more generally; it's going to come back."

 

Mr O'Keefe points out that according to the Australian Councils of Deans of Science between 1989 and 2005 mathematics enrolments fell 34%  yet Wollongong has three times as many honours students as normal.

 

"That's because of a combination of our reputation and the fact that we've got a really dynamic group in maths," Professor Sheil said.

 

Currently Wollongong's School of Mathematics and Applied Statistics boasts:

8 professors

9 Associate Professors

10 Senior Lecturers

4 Lecturers

Unfortunately the sector as a whole is in difficulty, severe difficulty, even though as Peter Hall points out in his op-ed "Comparing Four Pillars of Wisdom" maths is the keystone for the sciences.

 

Have a look at  COAG - Numeracy - a Review - And a Draft Submission From Two Guys Who Care. And as Mr O'Keefe summarises: "The National Tertiary Education Union found that at least seven universities had cut maths staff in the past 18 months. Melbourne, La Trobe, Macquarie, Flinders, RMIT, James Cook had all cut staff. The University of New England had made two maths and stats staff redundant but they won their jobs back on appeal."