Section NExT
James Sellers
University of Minnesota Duluth
Advising Mathematics Students Academically and Professionally
Saturday June 5, 2021, 8:30 AM
Abstract: For many mathematics faculty members, advising is a fundamental task. Yet, there is usually no training in this area for graduate students while they are earning their degrees. This was my personal experience as I left graduate school and became a college professor. With this in mind, my goal is to discuss a variety of issues surrounding advising of undergraduate students. This includes "pre-advising" (such as working with high school students and parents), advising of undergraduates considering a change to the mathematics major, advising of mathematics majors, and professional advising of mathematics students (as they look to their future after graduation). I will also share a variety of resources that will hopefully prove useful to you.
Bio: Dr. James Sellers received his Ph.D. from Penn State University in 1992. After receiving his PhD, he taught at Cedarville University in Ohio for nine years before returning to his alma mater in 2001 to serve as a faculty member and the director of the undergraduate program in mathematics. In 2008, James served as a Visiting Fellow of the Isaac Newton Institute in Cambridge, and in 2012 he was privileged to be a Fulbright scholar, teaching and completing research at the Johannes Kepler University and the Research Institute for Symbolic Computation in Linz, Austria. Currently, James has over 100 papers listed in Mathematical Reviews, and he has won numerous awards for both his teaching and his service to the mathematical community. In February 2018, James turned his attention to a new and very exciting opportunity – serving as the Secretary of the MAA! And in August 2019, he moved to the University of Minnesota Duluth to serve as professor and head of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics there.
Section NExT Coordinator:
Amy Wehe
Department of Mathematics
Fitchburg State University
Fitchburg, MA 01420
(978) 665-3253