4 Axioms
Axiom 1. Mathematical talent is distributed equally among different groups, irrespective of geographic, demographic, and economic boundaries.
Axiom 2. Everyone can have joyful, meaningful, and empowering mathematical experiences.
Axiom 3. Mathematics is a powerful, malleable tool that can be shaped and used differently by various communities to serve their needs.
Axiom 4. Every student deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.
These beautiful axioms come from an article in the Notices of the AMS "Todos Cuentan" by Ardila-Mantilla. I could write a lot about these axioms (e.g. how they can be adapted to physical pursuits as well) and also about the meaning I see behind each one. For the purpose of this page, I want to discuss Axiom 3.
The consulting firm rpk GROUP was paid $400,000 to collect data for an academic program review. This laughably flawed process ended on October 23, 2023 with a statement that no more revision to the "rubric" would be made, and just hours later another revision was made because of an obvious mathematical mistake.
Then, in a seeming race to the bottom, UNCGs Chancellor Franklin Gilliam, Provost Debbie Storrs, Dean John Kiss (CAS), and Dean Greg Bell (Graduate College) put their stamp of approval behind a host of unnecessary program cuts which include all Physics programs (thereby putting an end to the Physics Department at UNCG), and all graduate programs in Mathematics (putting our small undergraduate program at risk, and thereby also possibly ending the Mathematics Department at UNCG in the near future). While these administrators will hide behind claims of a transparent and data driven process, nothing could be further from the truth, as was asserted by whistleblower and ex-Associate Dean Chuck Bolton.
Faculty affirmed they had no confidence in Provost Storrs in a (questionably) anonymous online forum. Both Chancellor Gilliam and Provost Storrs were censured by the Faculty Senate. The Faculty Assembly of the College of Arts and Sciences affirmed they had no confidence in Provost Storrs and Dean Kiss. And Greg Bell, a mathematician by training, was Dean of the Graduate College when graduate students protested poverty wages and exploitation Fall 2023. (For more information, Triad City Beat did extensive coverage, and this website has catalogued the process.)
The graduate programs in math at UNCG are successful and we are on track to graduate 8 PhD students in 2024. It was ranked 6th out of 30 graduate programs in the University in the rubric mentioned above. Many of our graduates remain in North Carolina (defying an academic adage that says otherwise) and go in to teaching, research, and industry jobs. They are highly sought after because of the uniqueness of the PhD program in Computational Mathematics.
On a fundamental level, mathematics is the study of truth and equality. In a global age that is characterized by an attack on these, attacks on the very existence of truth and equality, it is no surprise that UNCG, formerly the Women's College, a minority serving, title IX institution is loosing access to the powerful, malleable tool of mathematics. For communities to use it to serve their needs, they must first have access to it. Gilliam, Storrs, Kiss, and Bell have made that access harder for the communities we serve at UNCG.