Joel, you say that physics profs teach applied math better than math
profs - to paraphrase. I can speak to that since five years ago I was
fighting to be allowed to continue to teach physics.
After 20 years I was (and remain) the junior member of the physics depart-
ment. Our dean was planning to move me to math full-time due to budget
cutbacks. Through the efforts of our physics department I am now, along
with one other physics prof, teaching ONE physics lecture, and TWO physics
labs, as is the other prof. the rest of my load is math - 9 hours.
Most of the time, most of the math profs accept me. After this switch, how-
ever, they had an opening and conducted a search for a math professor. I
was completely excluded from any of the search - no look at candidates,
no listening to demo lectures, and certainly no attending department meetings
regarding the search.
More offensive was listening to the remarks from people I had thought were
friends about how any old out-of-work engineer or physics person thought
they were mathematicians. It got fairly ugly.
I happen to teach very basic algebra & trig and I think I do a good job be-
cause I understand applied math just as I teach applied physics - which
offends some of the people on this list.
The point to this long-winded discourse is that few professionals seem to be
willing to accept cross-disciplinary teaching. People are too wedded to their
own field. They are jealous of others taking their spot in the limelight.
In defense of the math people, however, the fact that an engineer or physicist
has had a LOT of math doesn't mean that person understands how to teach it;
but then neither do some mathematicians.
Nancy Douglas
Associate Professor, Physics
about to retire or be retrenched!
College of Agriculture & Technology
SUNY
Morrisville NY 13408
douglanj@snymorva.cs.snymor.edu
As a P.S. I attempted to send this message via the reply function and it was
sent back to me as undeliverable. I am sending it by typing the address by
hand. This isn't the first time this has happened. Anyone know why?