II.B.
How to Develop Ideas through Seminars and Workshops?
It is fun and rewarding to have others around you with whom you share mathematics. This includes colleagues and students. One good way to form such a group is to hold seminars of varying sorts. You can run a seminar on your own research. You can invite colleagues to speak on their related research. You and others can discuss open problems that you would like to work on. You can also hold reading seminars. If you have several students learning a new field, have them lecture to other students and faculty interested in the topic. These can be informal seminars with lots of questions asked and students needn't feel they understand everything to lecture. They will learn during the process. There should be some social interaction among members of the group. Even in a commuter atmosphere, lunch and ``coffee or tea'' before or after the seminar encourages discussion and familiarity so that people in the group become comfortable talking about mathematics with one another. If you have a congenial group in your department, it will become known and attract new students and new faculty.