for women finishing their PhDs in the mathematical sciences
August 19-21, 2007
The United States Military Academy, West Point, NY
Thanks to all the participants, mentors, Ruth Haas and the West Point Department of Mathematics members who took part in our workshop.
The first CaMeW was a great success!
Materials from this workshop are found below. Enjoy!
Our flier advertising the August 2007 session
This MAA/Tensor Foundation and West Point funded workshop is aimed at women in the mathematical sciences who are near the end of their PhD programs. The goal of this program is to educate women on the job search process. This will be achieved through a 2-day conference held at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY and organized by a group of five mentors, women who have recently finished their own PhDs and who now work in academia. These women will share their experiences of finishing their degrees and navigating the job search. They will offer varied viewpoints. The conference will consist of workshops on various topics that will be useful to anyone about to go on the job market for the first time. The workshop discussions will include topics such as balancing finishing the dissertation with the job search, deciphering job ads, and preparing application materials. In addition to having time to work on materials, each participant will give a short talk in her research area that could form the basis of a colloquium talk during a job interview. The conference will include a keynote address from a successful senior woman mathematician.
The goal of this conference is for each participant to come away from the workshops with a good understanding of the process of finding a job and mentors on whom she can call over the next year as well as a group of peers from across the nation who can provide additional support. This will be an empowering 2 days for all involved!
All participants will be reimbursed for travel and lodging expenses (shared hotel room).
While there exist a handful of very successful programs for mentoring and encouraging female and minority undergraduate mathematics majors and women entering graduate school in mathematics, there are currently no national programs to assist women in navigating their final stages of graduate school. This workshop seeks to fill this void. Workshop participants will benefit from a program tailored to meet their needs during this critical time in their career, as they transition from graduate school to the workforce. The goal of the workshop is to support women as they begin their careers as professional mathematicians in an organized fashion.
Each of us (the program directors and mentors) have been involved with mentoring programs at various stages in their careers and has found them to be incredibly rewarding. They recognize the need for women to be encouraged to discuss the stressful time in their lives when they are finishing their dissertation and making decisions about the beginning of their professional careers. While we have individually mentored women friends and acquaintances as they finished graduate school over the last few years, we decided to reach out to more women and do so in a way that would bring graduate students together for support. As one of us was told this year by a friend who just accepted a tenure-track job, "I really, really appreciate all your help through this. I felt really alone here over the last couple of months, and it was so great to have someone to talk to who could offer good advice and understanding."
We hope this will be the first of an annual workshop to be held for years to come. Each year a group of junior women in mathematics will be invited to run workshops for finishing PhDs in order to offer varied perspectives on this stage in their careers.
Materials from the 2007 workshop
The following links are for presentations from the workshop, materials handed out during the workshop, and other potentially useful information.
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Presentation on kinds of jobs
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Presentation on application materials part 1
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Presentation on application materials part 2
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Presentation on the interview process
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Helpful and fun websites (including links to the ones from Ruth's talk)
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Article "Tips for the Job Search" by Heather A. Lewis and John S. Caughman (Notices)
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Article "Applying for Jobs: Advice from the Front (and the Rear)" by Annalisa Crannell (AMS website)
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Article "How to Give a Good Colloquium" by John E. McCarthy (AMS website)
The first CaMeW workshop was held Sunday, August 19th through Tuesday, August 21st 2007.
The final workshop agenda.