NCSU, UM
Treasures from
Honored for
Bringing
ASA
Minorities into
Archives
Mathematics
T
he Department of Statistics at North
Carolina State University and Department
of Mathematics at the University of
Mississippi were honored recently as Mathematics
Programs That Make a Difference by the American
Mathematical Society.
“These two departments have outstanding records
in recruiting members of under-represented groups
and mentoring them to successfully complete their
graduate degrees,” said Alejandro Adem of the
University of British Columbia, chair of the selection
committee for the award. “The AMS Committee
on the Profession was extremely impressed with
their accomplishments, which can serve as a model
for other departments in the United States.”
The Department of Statistics at NCSU has made
diversity of students and faculty a top priority. Out
of 40 faculty members in the department, 11 are
female, three are African-American, and two are
Hispanic. In the past 10 years, 15 minority students
have earned master’s degrees and two have earned
PhDs. The department has about 160 graduate stu-
dents, including nine African-Americans and four
Hispanics; more than 50% are female.
The southern United States is home to many
of the nation’s African-Americans, and yet the
universities in that part of the country have not
historically been large producers of African-
American PhDs in mathematics. But the University
of Mississippi has started to reverse this trend, becoming August 1972 letter to ASA President-elect Jerome
a national leader in nurturing and mentoring
Cornfield reporting on the implementation of the
African-Americans in doctoral study. Over the past
study of future goals of the ASA. American Statistical
decade, 11 African-Americans have earned math-
Association Records, MS 349, Special Collections
ematics doctorates from Ole Miss. That the univer-
Department, Iowa State University Library.
sity was once a symbol of educational segregation
in the United States gives this success story
The URL for the archive is www.lib.iastate.edu/spcl/
special importance.
manuscripts/MS349.html.
To read about these programs and the award,
visit www.ams.org/prizes/make-a-diff-award.html. n
If you have questions, email spclref@iastate.edu or call
(515) 294-6672.
JUNE 2009 AmstAt News 13
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