Letter from the Chair 2021
Alumni and friends of the Mathematics Department,
What a year it’s been! Ever since that fateful day in March 2020, all math classes have been conducted as virtual affairs. The change was rather abrupt and could have been a disaster but for the flexibility and ingenuity of math faculty and staff. We recognized right away that nothing can replace the collaborative face-to-face experience that is the centerpiece of our major. It required an incredible effort and sacrifice to reproduce our usual practices as much as possible online — but we rose to the challenge.
While we eagerly await a return to the chalkboards in Building 38, our pandemic operations have made me nothing but proud. Similar observations can be made about our students. Community building and the benefits of peer-to-peer instruction and collaboration — not to mention the encouragement of shared experiences — are difficult to manufacture over Zoom, but math majors are finding a way. Our students have certainly justified our high opinion of their abilities.
The usual activities in the department continue apace though modified by the pandemic. For example, honors during our Spring 2020 Awards Ceremony, usually a banquet, were conferred by many celebrity guests from within and beyond the department, including a special congratulatory shoutout from math Ph.D. Winnie Cooper. We had 25 students and seven faculty members participate in summer research projects with virtual meetings and presentations and I see many interesting senior projects and master’s theses come across my desk digitally. Faculty members' individual research projects also continue. Again, though constrained by circumstances, the department has performed admirably.
A big issue on (virtual) campus lately has been growing Cal Poly’s leadership as a data science and analytics innovator in research and education. The Math Department is part of this campus-wide effort and recently submitted a $1.3 million dollar grant proposal to the National Science Foundation to support data science course development. We look forward to what will happen next with this important undertaking.
Finally, I'd like to once again thank everyone who has supported the department financially. Your gifts have a direct impact on the quality of our program. For example, Math 351 Typesetting with LaTeX; Math 370 Putnam Exam Seminar; and Math 371 Math Modelling Seminar are important classes for the major but cannot be funded via the state budget in 2021-22. Thanks to donor support, though, we will still be able to run these classes next year. We are incredibly grateful for the flexibility and opportunity provided by your generous donations.
Please keep in touch and let us know what you’ve been up to. Once we're all back and live, we'd love to see you at the department office if you're ever on campus.
