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Keeping Your Research Alive

Introduction

It feels good to discuss a topic which I have thought a great deal about and for which I have a great affection for. As if it were yesterday (now almost twenty--five years ago!) I remember the transition from graduate student to faculty member, the stunning new demands on my time, the responsibility for curricular matters I'd never thought about, the energy level necessary to do my job. The foremost question I had about my professional career was whether I would even have one! And I wanted one!!

Before introducing the panelists I'll give a definition (for local use only) and make three observations.

• By professional career I mean my niche within the community of professional mathematicians. Specifically I'd like to put a bit of distance between what we're discussing today and my role as classroom teacher. For the record, I believe that classroom teaching is very professional and very important, I love it. But today's discussion is focused on the role of a mathematician outside the classroom.

  During my first few years this meant my niche within the community of research real analysts and it still has that meaning for me. But my niche has grown to mean much more, and I'll discuss that growth in my remarks below,

• For me, teaching and research are very different worlds. Different types of demands, different needs, different environments, and indeed different colleagues. And I live in both worlds, I have great enthusiasm for both worlds and I think that this situation is ``OK''. So in my St. Olaf way, that is my first point.

  Live in two worlds, but be of one spirit.

• At one of the recent NSF presentations, the moderator issued the ``fact'' that to be effective, a department of mathematics needn't have teacher--scholars, but merely have some teachers and some scholars. Don't believe it! My own opinion is that

  the teacher--scholar model is far more dynamic and effective.

  And this is because by living in two worlds you become the link between the excitement of cutting edge mathematics and your students. It is through you that mathematics comes alive, not just the mathematics of one-hundred years ago but the mathematics of today and the mathematics of the future. And it is precisely because you embody that link between past and future mathematics that your students can see themselves becoming part of the mathematical enterprise. This is one reason why a lively professional career is important. (It can also help with getting tenure!)

• My last point is that

  the program I've outlined above is manifestly impossible to attain!

  But you can make a good approximation and have a great deal of fun doing it. Set yourself some high goals, but be tolerant of yourself and most important, have a good time with what you do.

Today's panel consists of a variety of mathematicians from a variety of schools. The common denominator is that everyone of these folks takes their teaching and their professional work very seriously. (They also take themselves not seriously at all!) They are

Margaret Murray, Virginia Tech

Lew Lefton, University of New Orleans

Terri Lindquester, Rhodes College

Paul Humke, St. Olaf College