Mathematics Department

Illinois State University

FY20 Accomplishments

Our Actuarial Program continues to be recognized as one of the top programs in the world. In June, we received word that our status as a Center of Actuarial Excellence was renewed by the Society of Actuaries for another five years. This identifies us as one of 33 programs worldwide with this designation and one of 17 such programs in the United States. In addition, we have also won the Casualty Actuarial Society’s University Award for the second time. (One can only apply for this every three years.) We are one of two universities who are Centers of Actuarial Excellence and have one the Casualty Actuarial Society’s University Award twice!

Our NSF-funded summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) in Mathematics run by Professors Saad El-Zanati and David Barker has been recommended by the NSF for renewal for another three years for $433,897. This program is relatively unique in its focus on pre-service secondary mathematics teachers, its inclusion of a summer research camp for underrepresented groups of high school students in the Chicago Public Schools and it has been funded since April of 2007 noting that continued funding of this program is evidence of its value and impact. This has also inspired some expansion with a planned summer math camp approved by CeMaST run by Professors Sunil Chebolu and Jeffrey Barrett as part of the Illinois Summer Research Academy in the Summer of 2020.

Professor Krzysztof Ostaszewski was named a Distinguished Professor at Illinois State University in January of 2020. In addition, he was also named as a Fulbright Specialist in February of 2020. This is the third time he has been named a Fulbright Specialist.

We have passed a number and/or implemented a number of curricular revisions this year. This is the first year of an Accelerated Bachelor’s/Master’s Program in Mathematics that will allow students to earn both degrees within five years. We passed a revision to our Statistics sequence that will increase the emphasis on statistics and allow students more choice in choosing an additional area to concentrate on. We also added two new courses: MAT 252 – Introduction to Statistics with Applications and MAT 338 – Topics in Algebra and Related Areas.

We continue the development of international collaborations. In particular, we have started implementing an agreement with Shanghai Normal University – Tianhua College where we send faculty to Tianhua College to teach intensive two-week courses in December and in May/June. Students who successfully complete our coursework can then come to ISU to complete their Bachelor’s degree in our Statistics sequence. We successfully taught to first of these courses, MAT 145 – Calculus I, in December of 2019. This is in addition to our existing 4+1+1 agreement with Jiangsu Normal University in Xuzho, China. We have also hosted four international visiting scholars this year.

Major FY20 Objectives

Objective #1: Recruit more Tenure-track faculty

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategy 3, CAS Strategic Focus 1 & 2, ECE I.A.1, I.A.3, I.B, & II.C.3

Rationale: This continues to be the Mathematics Department’s top priority. ISU’s Mathematics Department has seen fairly stable but declining enrollment over the past five years. While we recognize that part of this is due to national trends, we are very concerned about the first and second year experiences our majors are having in their math courses. It is the student experiences these calculus and linear algebra courses that are crucial in recruiting and retaining majors and we believe it is important for the Department to provide a balance of tenured/tenure-track faculty and NTT faculty. This will give these students an opportunity to connect with professors that they are likely to have in future courses and develop research opportunities. For example, one of our professors reported in a meeting with Presidential Scholarship Finalists in Mathematics Education, one of the parents asked him about if major classes are being taught by professors, graduate students, or instructors. Given the data in the graph below as to who is teaching our foundational major courses, he had trouble answering this question in a favorable way.

In addition, with the University’s increased emphasis on recruiting international students, the Mathematics Department could be well-positioned to take advantage of partnerships and agreements with a number of universities, especially in China. We already have a 3+1+1 agreement with Jiangsu Normal University that allows students studying statistics there to come to ISU to finish their bachelor’s degree from JNU and then continue to earn a master’s degree from ISU. The number 1 request from INTO student in China has been for a pathway into our Actuarial Science major, which we did not make available to them until this fall due to concerns about staffing our advanced actuarial courses. When a contingent from Tianhua College – Shanghai Normal University visited ISU to expand their cooperative agreement with the School of Art here, of all the programs they were considering, they were most interested in our Statistics and Actuarial Science programs. INTO ISU is currently negotiating an agreement with Tianhua College and they report they are very close to an agreement. This would involve a cohort of up to 30 students coming to ISU to take our classes, which would cause considerable staffing issues of our upper division courses. We are also working on a joint agreement with Zhongnan University of Economics & Law in Wuhan, China that will allow students to do something similar to our 3+1+1 agreement with Jiangsu University.

We also need to support our Ph.D. Program in Mathematics Education. As stated in our “Accomplishments” section, we are one of the largest producers of Ph.D.s in Mathematics Education in the nation, ranking 7th during the 2007-2016 period. Note that this is down from our ranking of 4 th nationally in the previous 10 year period. This also corresponds to a decrease in Mathematics Education faculty to support this program. (We have 10 mathematics educators on faculty this year when 10 years ago we had 15.) Note that in our secondary group, in 2013 we had a tenure denial and then hired a new faculty member on that line for FY15. Within a year that faculty member resigned and that secondary faculty member has still not been replaced. There is clearly a need for a secondary mathematics educator. Such a faculty member would also be able to teach our foundational mathematics courses.

Finally, we have now established an IBHE Center for Collaborative Studies in Mathematical Biology. This is primarily due to the efforts of its founding director, Professor Olcay Akman. He was able to establish this center without having a biomathematician on faculty. If we are to see the growth of this center as well as the growth of the Biomathematics sequence in our masters program, it is crucial we are able to hire a biomathematician. Such a faculty member could teach a biocalculus class and support a biomathematics minor at the undergraduate level. Having such a minor would help recruit students to ISU and prepare them for the demands of the medical industry. In addition, a biomathematician would also be able to teach our foundational mathematics courses.

Viewed in this context, the level of tenured/tenure-track staffing is distressing to the Department. Unfortunately, we have seen a slow decline in majors in the past five years. Still, in 2015, five tenured/tenure-track faculty either retired or resigned and did not hire that year. In 2016, we lost another two tenure/tenure-track faculty and hired one new tenure-track faculty member. In 2017, another tenured faculty member retired and we hired a new tenure-track faculty member. In 2018, two more tenured faculty retired , but we were able to hire two new Assistant Professors. This year we were authorized to hire one more tenure-track faculty member at open rank, but we anticipate the retirement of one more of our senior tenured professors. As you can see, we have never really recovered from the loss of five tenured/tenure-track faculty in 2015 and, indeed, we have lost ground on this with a net loss of six tenured/tenure-track faculty in the past four years. This will continue even if we have a successful searche this year! With at most 33 tenured/tenure-track lines in the Department, this is an 18% loss of T/TT staffing! This is having a significant effect (soon to be a devastating effect) on the Department and potentially precipitates a faster loss of T/TT staffing if the rate of hiring does not increase to start catching up with our losses. The Department should be congratulated that they have been able to minimize this effect so far, but this may not last much longer. We are also quite certain of one more additional retirement in 2019! The loss of such faculty has an effect on the first year experiences of our students which affects the recruiting and retention of not only our Mathematics majors (including Actuarial Science, Math Teacher Education, and Statistics), but the retention of other majors at the University, particularly, but not limited to, STEM majors. We continue to have troubles covering key courses within our major and in key STEM General Education courses with tenured/tenure-track faculty. As such, there is a critical need for hiring at least two more tenure-track faculty, with this trend needing to continue to sustain our programs. The rationales for the following requests are given on the corresponding PERS 936a forms.

Progress: We were not authorized to search for a tenure-track position this year. Last year both Óscar Chávez and Ayhan Kürşat Erbaş accepted our offers for mathematics education positions. Professor Chávez was able to join us, but due to circumstance beyond our control, Professor Erbaş has not been

able to start this year. We are hoping for a resolution of these circumstances so that he can join us in August of 2020, but this is uncertain right now.

Objective #2: Launch Online Graduate Program and Courses

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategies 1 & 3, CAS Goal 1.1, ECE II.A.1

As stated above, we have funding to develop an online actuarial masters program. We see a demand for this program with there currently being only one such program in existence, which is at Columbia University in New York. Columbia is not a Center of Actuarial Excellence and we believe we can deliver such a program at a lower cost. We have been working with the Provost’s Office on a funding model for this program as well as creating institutional supports for this program. This would include having the University hire an instructional designer to help with the development of such courses. Based on our last discussion with the Provost’s Office, we believe we will be able to launch this program in January 2020, but it will require Departmental efforts to make this happen.

In addition to the courses associated with the online actuarial program, we are also working to put other courses online to support our majors and our graduate programs. For example, we are offering our graduate course, MAT 422 – Topics in Geometry for Teachers, online this summer after the faculty member scheduled to teach it went through CTLT’s DART program. We have already offered an online version of our MAT 260 – Discrete Mathematics in the Summer of 2018. We are working to continue to build our expertise within the Department.

As part of this effort, we would like to offer a professional development workshop similar to the one we offered in May of 2015 that would provide Mathematics faculty to present what they have learned about online tools and lessons they have learned from their online teaching. This workshop was considered very successful in 2015 and we have repeated requests to do this again.

Objective #3: Recapitalization of the STV 125 computer lab

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategy 6, CAS Goal 2.2, ECE II.A.1 and II.C.3

STV 125 has become a multipurpose computer lab, not only having 26 computers that were purchased in 2010 (so will be nine years old in June!), but also having webcams, a large touchscreen in front of the room, microphones hanging from the ceiling, a dual screen instructor’s station, and webconferencing software available. When the lab is not being used for classes or web conferencing, students are able to walk-in during open hours to use these computers. We have also installed some specialized software in this lab for student use. For example, MATLAB is installed in this lab. Given the uses of this lab, it will be important for us to have up to date computers in this lab.

Progress: The recapitalization of this computer lab has been completed thanks to funding from the College of Arts and Sciences.

Objective #4: Improve Support for Students and Faculty through Permanent Visiting Position

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategy 5 & 6, CAS Strategic Focus 2, ECE I.B

Rationale: We are asking for a three-year post-doctoral position in Algebra that would allow new scholars to come ISU to foster research collaborations with these new scholars, with the institutions they have come from, and raise ISU’s profile. This is also a potential solution to addressing the shortage of T/TT faculty until our rate of hiring can catch up with the losses in this area. Our goal in about three years would be to find another funding source using funds generated by the online actuarial masters and joint agreements developed with universities overseas. See Appendix B for a proposal for this position.

Progress: We were not able to hire a visitor this year. This was primarily due to complications with a visa issue. Instead, we had to give four tenured faculty overloads this past fall to cover the needed classes. As we see a continued need for this position, we continue to investigate ways of funding such a position.

Objective #5: Improve recruiting and retention efforts in all of our programs

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategy 4, CAS Strategic Focus 1, ECE I.A.1

Rationale: The trend at the University seems to be to use enrollments more and more as a factor in making financial decisions. As such, recruiting and retention become important components in helping enrollment not only in our programs, but at the University as a whole. As such, we want to boost our recruiting and retention efforts. Action items that we have identified to help with these efforts are:

Developing posters for recruiting purposes Working on website revisions and materials that would attract students Make curricular revisions to increase options for student to better meet their needs. Negotiate cooperative agreements with foreign universities that will attract students to our

programs. Supporting social activities for the Actuarial Club, the Mathematics Education Club, and the

Mathematics Living Learning Community. Creating resources to support students in our Calculus sequence

Progress: The Fall census day count of students enrolled in our programs in Fall of 2019 were 342 undergraduate majors and 96 graduate students for a total of 438 students enrolled in our programs. This compares with our Fall 2018 census day counts of 314 undergraduate majors and 103 graduate students for a total of 417. Hence we saw a 9% increase in undergraduate majors and a 5% increase in overall students enrolled in all of our programs. As part of our efforts listed above, we have a revised pamphlet to distribute to prospective students, we continue to gather information about the calculus experience our students are having, while it took overloads to do it, we put three tenured faculty into Calculus I classes this past Fall, and we successfully completed our first phase of teaching an ISU mathematics course at Shanghai Normal University – Tianhua College in December. We continue to look for ways to update and improve our website in order to attract students to the ISU Mathematics Department.

Objective #6: Increase Faculty support through travel

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategy 5, CAS Strategic Focus 1, ECE I.B.2

Rationale: As faculty work to foster research programs and lay a foundation for applications for external funding, it would be good to update our current data collection equipment, including video and audio equipment and software, as well as support the dissemination of their work at conferences and other professional venues. We are currently spending a little over $27,000 per year on professional travel after curtailing one year when we spent over $33,000 on travel

Progress: The College was able to increase our travel allocation for Professional Faculty Travel to $20,300. In addition, the College has been able to support another $2,615 in faculty travel through the International Travel Grant program as well as additional funds for graduate student travel to professional meetings. This has been very helpful since we were able to increase our reimbursements amount for faculty travel by 10-14%.

Internal Reallocations and Reorganizations in FY20

Department:

Temporary Variance: The Department received $24,490.90 in variance due to various buyouts.

Permanent Reallocation: The Department reallocated $900 to support an equity increase for an NTT who earned a terminal degree. Also, the Department reallocated $3,200 for civil service upgrades.

Permanent Variance: Currently, the Department has $10,560 in permanent variance in our A/P line. Our Coordinator of Clinical Experiences had resigned effective June 30, 2020 so we are holding these funds until we get a permanent replacement for this position.

College:

Dean’s Allocation: The Department received $29,001 as a Dean’s Allocation. Of these funds, $25,001 was used for computer recapitalization for the STV 125 lab and $4,000 is being used to fund computer lab monitors for both STV 125 and STV 314.

Permanent Funding: The Department received $4,586 in permanent funding to support two civil service upgrades. In addition, we received an additional $567 to support an equity increase for an NTT who earned a terminal degree.

Temporary Funding: The Department has received $21,000 to support faculty professional travel and we have used these funds for that purpose.

Provost:

The Department has not received any Provost Enhancement Funds for FY20. The Instructional Capacity funds we have received have been accounted for on our ICAR sheet.

Foundation (Unrestricted):

Unrestricted Foundation funds have been used for student scholarships, hosting external speakers for disciplinary seminars as well as our Undergraduate Colloquium, to support the Eugenia Cheng public lecture, to purchase commodities at the end of the fiscal year, to support activities for students participating in the Summer Research Experiences for Undergraduates, support activities for the Math Education Club, fund travel for our student teachers to Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire IL, nameplates for faculty offices, support departmental activities including GA orientations and masters project presentations, reimburse professional travel at the end of the fiscal year, fund start-up expenses for new faculty members when GF funds were unavailable, and purchasing computer equipment when GR funds were exhausted

Major Objectives for FY21

Objective #1: Recruit more Tenure-track faculty

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategy 3, CAS Strategic Focus 1 & 2, ECE I.A.1, I.A.3, I.B, & II.C.3

Concise Rationale: The Mathematics Department is requesting three tenure-track hires for FY21. An abbreviated rationale is as follows:

We need more tenure-track faculty in foundational math courses to help with recruiting and student success/retention not only within the Mathematics major, but in other STEM majors as well. Note in the past five years our six year graduation rate for FTIC in the major has dropped by 6.8 percentage points and is below 40%. Our Fall to Fall retention rate for FTIC students has hovered between 64% and 71% with a retention rate of 68.5% from Fall of 2018. We believe more tenure-track faculty in our foundational math courses will help with these rates.

With joint agreements with Chinese universities in effect that target the statistics major, we anticipate more students needing upper division statistics classes, hence more tenure-track statistics faculty to meet the instructional demand for these courses.

We have an IBHE Center for Biomathematics and we do not have a faculty member trained in biomathematics. Such a hire would support this center and attract students to this interdisciplinary area.

We need tenure-track faculty to support the development of a new Data Science/Computational Mathematics sequence that we perceive a demand for from prospective students.

While addressing the current needs of the Department, we can hire in ways that will lay the foundation for a potential engineering program at ISU.

In actuarial science, we are at the bare minimum of the number of credentialed actuaries who are full-time faculty in order to maintain our designation as a Center of Actuarial Excellence

We have lost six of our 33 tenure-track lines in the past five years, which is a loss of 18% of our TT faculty.

Extended Rationale: This continues to be the Mathematics Department’s top priority. Until this Fall, ISU’s Mathematics Department has seen fairly stable but declining enrollment over the previous five years. While we recognize that part of this is due to national trends, we are very concerned about the first and second year experiences our majors are having in their math courses. It is the student experiences these calculus and linear algebra courses that are crucial in recruiting and retaining majors and we believe it is important for the Department to provide a balance of tenured/tenure-track faculty and NTT faculty. Note in the past five years our six year graduation rate in the major has dropped by 6.8 percentage points and our Fall to Spring retention rate dropped below 70%. As such, we have made an effort to add additional TT faculty into these courses this year even at the cost of giving these faculty overloads to do this and we have seen our retention increase in FY20. While one year is not a trend, we do think this is helping to improve the situation. Putting TT faculty into these foundational classes gives these students an opportunity to connect with professors that they are likely to have in future courses and develop research opportunities. This is of interest to both students and their parents. For example, one of our professors reported in a meeting with Presidential Scholarship Finalists in Mathematics Education, one of the parents asked him about if major classes are being taught by professors, graduate

students, or instructors. Unfortunately, given the data in the graph below as to who is teaching our foundational major courses, he had trouble answering this question in a favorable way.

F12 Sp 13 F13 Sp 14 F14 Sp 15 F15 Sp 16 F16 Sp 17 F17 Sp 18 F18 Sp 19 F19 Sp 200

5

10

15

20

25

TT & NTT Teaching of Foundational Courses

TT Faculty NTT Faculty

In addition, with the University’s increased emphasis on recruiting international students, the Mathematics Department could be well-positioned to take advantage of partnerships and agreements with a number of universities, especially in China. We already have a 3+1+1 agreement with Jiangsu Normal University that allows students studying statistics there to come to ISU to finish their bachelor’s degree from JNU and then continue to earn a master’s degree from ISU. We have started our joint program with Shanghai Normal University – Tianhua College by teaching Calculus I to 42 students enrolled in a program that will allow these students to transfer to ISU to complete their bachelor’s degree in Statistics. Even if half of these students come to ISU, this will be a significant issue in terms of staffing the Statistics courses they would need. The number 1 request from INTO student in China has been for a pathway into our Actuarial Science major, which we did not make available to them until this fall due to concerns about staffing our advanced actuarial courses. We are also working on a joint agreement with Zhongnan University of Economics & Law in Wuhan, China that will allow students to do something similar to our 3+1+1 agreement with Jiangsu University. Unfortunately, plans for this are on hold right now due to the current health emergency in China.

Finally, we have now established an IBHE Center for Collaborative Studies in Mathematical Biology. This is primarily due to the efforts of its founding director, Professor Olcay Akman. He was able to establish this center without having a biomathematician on faculty. If we are to see the growth of this center as well as the growth of the Biomathematics sequence in our masters program, it is crucial we are able to hire a biomathematician. Such a faculty member could teach a biocalculus class and support a biomathematics minor at the undergraduate level. Having such a minor would help recruit students to ISU and prepare them for the demands of the medical industry. In addition, a biomathematician would also be able to teach our foundational mathematics courses.

Viewed in this context, the level of tenured/tenure-track staffing is distressing to the Department. Unfortunately, we have seen a slow decline in majors in the past five years. Still, in 2015, five tenured/tenure-track faculty either retired or resigned and did not hire that year. In 2016, we lost

another two tenure/tenure-track faculty and hired one new tenure-track faculty member. In 2017, another tenured faculty member retired and we hired a new tenure-track faculty member. In 2018, two more tenured faculty retired , but we were able to hire two new Assistant Professors. This year we were authorized to hire one more tenure-track faculty member at open rank, but we anticipate the retirement of one more of our senior tenured professors. As you can see, we have never really recovered from the loss of five tenured/tenure-track faculty in 2015 and, indeed, we have lost ground on this with a net loss of six tenured/tenure-track faculty in the past five years. With at most 33 tenured/tenure-track lines in the Department, this is an 18% loss of T/TT staffing! This is having a significant effect (soon to be a devastating effect) on the Department and potentially precipitates a faster loss of T/TT staffing if the rate of hiring does not increase to start catching up with our losses. The Department should be congratulated that they have been able to minimize this effect so far, but this may not last much longer. The loss of such faculty has an effect on the first year experiences of our students which affects the recruiting and retention of not only our Mathematics majors (including Actuarial Science, Math Teacher Education, and Statistics), but the retention of other majors at the University, particularly, but not limited to, STEM majors. We continue to have troubles covering key courses within our major and in key STEM General Education courses with tenured/tenure-track faculty. As such, there is a critical need for hiring at least two more tenure-track faculty, with this trend needing to continue to sustain our programs. The rationales for the following requests are given on the corresponding PERS 936a forms.

Requested Funding:

#1 Applied Mathematics/Computational Algebra – annual salary = $82,503

Algebra – start up costs will total approximately $35,000. We are requesting $25,000 from the College ($15,000 in FY22, $10,000 in FY23). The remaining amount will be taken from our operating budget and our RGF agency account.

#2 Statistics – annual salary = $87,507

Statistics – start up costs will total approximately $35,000. We are requesting $25,000 from the College ($15,000 in FY22, $10,000 in FY23). The remaining amount will be taken from our operating budget and our RGF agency account.

#3 Biomathematics – annual salary = $87,507

Biomathematics – start up costs will total approximately $50,000. We are requesting $36,000 from the College ($16,000 in FY22, $10,000 in FY23, $10,000 in FY24). The remaining amount will be taken from the Mathematics Department operating budget, our Foundation account, and RGF funds.

#4 Actuarial Science – annual salary = $98,001

Actuarial Science – start up costs will total approximately $50,000. We are requesting $40,000 from the College ($22,000 in FY22, $18,000 in FY23). The remaining amount will be taken from our operating budget and our RGF agency account.

Objective #2: Enhance our Resources to Support Student Learning

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategies 1 & 3, CAS Goal 1.1, 1.2 & 2.2, ECE II.A.1 & II.A.2

Rationale: We would like to improve our learning outcomes in our lower division mathematics courses and continue to support those students preparing to be elementary and middle school mathematics teachers. For those students preparing to be teachers, it is important that we familiarize them with curricular materials they are likely to use. We also show them how to use physical objects or manipulatives to help them and their future students understand these mathematical concepts. The curricular materials for these grade bands need to be updated and we need to replace some of the sets of manipulatives that have pieces missing or are missing altogether. In addition, we would like to invest in materials that support high-impact learning in these contexts through activities and experimentation with physical objects. There are many things that we can do if we have enough quality resources. For instance, we can teach math through origami or sculptures. By using a design of origami, we can deploy large solar panels into outer space http://theconversation.com/origami-mathematics-in-creasing-33968, https://www.pbs.org/video/nova-origami-revolution-episode/). Many high level and pure mathematical subjects can be described by using sculptures (https://www.georgehart.com/sculpture/sculpture.html, http://www.ams.org/notices/201007/rtx100700840p.pdf, http://library.msri.org/books/Book35/files/thurston.pdf) A 3D printer could help us re-create appropriate sculptures to demonstrate abstract mathematical concepts. Such an approach could potentially lead to a mathematics lab for some of our mathematics classes. Indeed, a 3D printer would help us in creating physical objects that demonstrate mathematical concepts with the goal of having students eventually use mathematics to create various physical objects through 3D printing. With such resources, we could create courses that students will work on math projects that are related to their interests where students could learn mathematics from different, tangible, enjoyable views. Moreover, students could learn theoretical math through the Arts.

Requested Funding: $7,000. This would break down roughly as follows:

Two 3D printer & supplies = $2,000 Updated Curricular Materials = $3,500

Replacement/Updated Manipulatives = $1,500

Objective #3: Curricular Revisions to Expand Opportunities for our Students

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategies 1 & 3, CAS Goal 1.1, ECE II.A.1 & II.A.2

Rationale: In recent years, enrollment in programs in the Mathematics Department has remained relatively steady, with some recent success with increasing recruitment and retention. Still, we would like to see the number of students enrolled in our major to increase and we are looking for ways to better meet the needs of our student and the needs of employers. Data Science and Computation Mathematics is one of those areas where we see opportunity to grow in a way that is consistent with student interest. This would require partnering with the School of Information Technology and we have started collaborating with them on designing a sequence targeting these areas.

In addition, as we see increased interest from students wanting to study mathematics, we are planning to revisit our more traditional mathematics courses and how they are sequenced. Some of these courses were designed at a time when the focus was different and there was an effort to conform to what other programs were doing. Some of these were designed when enrollments were at a low point and people were hoping to attract students into some of our courses. We need to revisit some of these courses and the sequence students would take them.

Requested Funding: None.

Objective #4: Launch an Online Actuarial Masters Program and Support Online Offerings

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategies 1 & 3, CAS Goal 1.1, ECE II.A.1

Rationale: As stated above, we have funding to develop an online actuarial masters program. We see a demand for this program with there currently being only one such program in existence, which is at Columbia University in New York. Columbia is not a Center of Actuarial Excellence and we believe we can deliver such a program at a lower cost. We have been working with the Provost’s Office on a funding model for this program as well as creating institutional supports for this program. The Provost’s Office recently hired an instructional designer to help with the development of such courses. We are also looking at establishing an online program coordinator in the Department to assist in establishing not only the online Actuarial Masters program, but to coordinate the development of other such programs. We are working with the Provost’s Office to make sure a viable, self-sustaining funding model for such a program is established, but we anticipate we can start offering this program sometime in 2021.

Requested Funding: $8,000 for a course release for an Online Program Coordinator.

Objective #5: Increase International Partnerships and International Scholar Support

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategies 1 & 3, CAS Goal 1.1, ECE III.C.2

Rationale: As the University makes a strategic effort to increase the international student population at Illinois State University, programs in the Mathematics Department seem to be a good fit for this effort. Indeed, Actuarial Science was the number one requested program in China from INTO students before we opened this program up to INTO. We are now one of two ISU programs at Shanghai Normal University – Tianhua College, the other being the School of Art, with the current cohort at Tianhua College planning to come to ISU to study statistics. We collaborate with universities in Germany and Ghana. In the past year, we have also had interest for joint programs from other universities in China, from universities in Thailand, and from a university in Senegal.

Requested Funding: $5,000 for travel to help in negotiating and establishing these programs.

Objective #6: Support Visiting Faculty Positions

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategy 5 & 6, CAS Strategic Focus 2, ECE I.B

Rationale: We are asking for a three-year post-doctoral position in Algebra that would allow new scholars to come ISU to foster research collaborations with these new scholars, with the institutions they have come from, and raise ISU’s profile. This is also a potential solution to addressing the shortage of T/TT faculty until our rate of hiring can catch up with the losses in this area. Our goal in about three years would be to find another funding source using funds generated by the online actuarial masters and joint agreements developed with universities overseas.

Requested Funding: $20,000 to fund a research release equivalent to 8 credit hours for such a faculty member to supplement the IC funds to cover the teaching of classes for the mathematics major.

Objective #7: Support Faculty and Student Travel

Strategic Plan Alignment: Math Strategy 5, CAS Strategic Focus 1, ECE I.B.2

Rationale: As faculty work to foster research programs and lay a foundation for applications for external funding, it would be good to update our current data collection equipment, including video and audio equipment and software, as well as support the dissemination of their work at conferences and other professional venues. During FY19, we spent $31,480 of GR funds on professional travel and this year we have spent $19,091 at the time of this writing. While we are grateful for this increased travel funds this year, we would like to continue and perhaps increase this level of funding for FY21.

Requested Funding: We are requesting $25,000 in temporary funds to support faculty and student travel.