Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!steinmetz!ge-dab!codas!killer!elg
From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: U.S. Mathematicians dying breed
Message-ID: <2376@killer.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Dec-87 01:59:29 EST
Article-I.D.: killer.2376
Posted: Tue Dec  8 01:59:29 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 13-Dec-87 17:33:31 EST
Reply-To: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green)
Organization: Bayou Telecommunications
Lines: 24

[excerpted from an AP news article in the local newspaper:]

An annual survey found that nationwide only 362 U.S. citizens got doctorates
in math during the 1986-1987 school year. The decline in graduate researchers
is blamed in large part on a decades-old shortage of qualified teachers at the
elementary and secondary level.
  "There's always been a finite pool of people with mathematical and if they
aren't interested before they enter high school they are not going to take
enough math to have the option of exploring the field by the time they get to
college. Somepeople will go into mathematics whatever the odds and obstacles.
But they don't tend to be the kind of people who become good teachers. And we
are losing anyone who can do anything else."
  It goes on to mention that the total number of math doctorates has been
steadily declining for the past 15 years.

Commentary: As a field that derives much of its substance from the
mathematical arts, CS education is in big trouble if, 20 years from now, we
cannot find people with the knowledge to teach CS students the discrete
mathematics etc. that are so important for CS students to know.

--
Eric Lee Green   elg@killer.UUCP     Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191       
{cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg            Lafayette, LA 70509             
"There's someone in my head, but it's not me...." -PF