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Alexander Kurz (Jun 03 2020 at 18:44):I was interested in what Nina said about mentorship .... I dont have PhD students at the moment, so I would have a bit of capacity to mentor students on the undergraduate/graduate level ... I am also interested in what Jade said about students who are interested in category theory but do not have access to category theory inside academia ...
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:48):I think that's a great idea, Alexander: getting some students pulled into math who otherwise might not get into it.
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:49):Edray Goins at Pomona runs things like this:
https://www.mathprograms.org/db/106
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:49):The Department of Mathematics at Pomona College will offer an eight-week residential program to conduct research in pure mathematics. The program, entitled PRiME (Pomona Research in Mathematics Experience), will run from June 9 through August 4, 2019. The program is directed by Edray Goins (Pomona College) and Alex Barrios (Carleton College). During the eight-week program, students will work together on research projects in arithmetic geometry.
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:50):That was last year.
Alexander Kurz (Jun 03 2020 at 18:50):Yes, I have met some extremely motivated students, eg at the Midlands Graduate School, with interest in category theory, but working in the real world ... it is difficult for them to get into the science as outsiders ...
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:50):Edray is president of this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Mathematicians
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:51):which has a focus on Black mathematicians.
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:51):So, it's possible you could offer to do some summer mentoring as part of some program he's running - just a thought.
Alexander Kurz (Jun 03 2020 at 18:52):The Ponoma College Program looks very interesting ...
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:53):Pomona has Edray Goins and also Ami Radunskaya doing a lot of work on diversity in mathematics.
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:53):We at UCR got them to help design our last workshop on this topic.
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:54):There is definitely the problem of them being overworked.
Alexander Kurz (Jun 03 2020 at 18:54):I didnt know about the NAM ... looks like they are doing many of the things we talked about today ...
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:54):Right!
Jade Master (Jun 03 2020 at 18:55):I think I should reach out to them...
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:55):I plan to tell David Spivak about NAM, because they might be able to help find students who would benefit from ACT2020 tutorials.
Nina Otter (Jun 03 2020 at 18:55):I am attaching the article about the Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute that I mentioned during the talk: 1551-0018_2013_5_6_1351.pdf
Alexander Kurz (Jun 03 2020 at 18:55):What can we contribute wihtout giving them more work?
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:55):You may have met Edray Goins at the two UCR diversity workshops, @Jade Master .
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 18:57):Alexander Kurz said:
What can we contribute without giving them more work?
Probably it's good to ask them. Even asking them makes them do a little more work, but I think it's okay.
JS PL (he/him) (Jun 03 2020 at 18:57):Paolo Perrone brought up a great point that it is important to include those members of discriminated communities in our discussions about diversity (in this case Paolo asked about black people). So that we don't just play a hero, and really listen to them. Nina Otter also brought up an important point that we shouldn't impose or ask them to do all this work.
One suggestion is reaching out to organization who's goal is precisely to promote diversity and inclusivity in scientific and academic communities. These organization might also help educate the CT community. Sometimes these organization are paid to do this work. I believe Nina Otter had some suggestions.
Nina Otter (Jun 03 2020 at 19:07):JS Pacaud Lemay said:
Paolo Perrone brought up a great point that it is important to include those members of discriminated communities in our discussions about diversity (in this case Paolo asked about black people). So that we don't just play a hero, and really listen to them. Nina Otter also brought up an important point that we shouldn't impose or ask them to do all this work.
One suggestion is reaching out to organization who's goal is precisely to promote diversity and inclusivity in scientific and academic communities. These organization might also help educate the CT community. Sometimes these organization are paid to do this work. I believe Nina Otter had some suggestions.
I am really grateful to Paolo Perrone for bringing that up, it's a very important point. As for organizations, there is the Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute that I talked about, and I think that we should reach out to organizations supporting Black mathematicians, like the Mathematically Gifted and Black Network. Candice Price, who is one of the founders, should get back to me with some people to contact in the next days.
John Baez (Jun 03 2020 at 19:09):Nina Otter said:
JS Pacaud Lemay said:
One suggestion is reaching out to organization who's goal is precisely to promote diversity and inclusivity in scientific and academic communities.
I am really grateful to Paolo Perrone for bringing that up, it's a very important point. As for organizations, there is the Mathematical and Theoretical Biology Institute that I talked about, and I think that we should reach out to organizations supporting Black mathematicians, like the Mathematically Gifted and Black Network.
Another important one is this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Mathematicians
with Edray Goins as president. This focuses on Black mathematicians.
Nina Otter (Jun 04 2020 at 07:38):Alexander Kurz said:
What can we contribute wihtout giving them more work?
This thread gives concrete examples of things we can do without burdening our Black colleagues with our guilt: https://twitter.com/DrJasmineAbrams/status/1268168463601762304?s=20
Many of my Black friends and I have gotten messages from white colleagues asking about our well being and how they can help. Rather than burden us with your guilt, invite us to co-author papers and grants with you. Invite us to be on the symposium or be the guest speaker.
- Dr. Jasmine Abrams (@DrJasmineAbrams) Nina Otter (Jun 04 2020 at 08:08):I was wondering whether it could make sense, for people who would like to volunteer to do this, to explain in a short sentence what our particular background is, so that once we set up some mentoring scheme, we could be matched with students or academics that have gone through or are going through a similar path. I appreciate that this might mean that we might reveal some potentially very personal things about ourselves that we have not previously shared, but in the spirit of what @Christian Williams said yesterday it could be a first step in making this platform more about the people in ACT, and maybe even more importantly, to make this community even more about the people who are in it. If we want to do this, I think that it would be important to agree to some level of confidentiality, in that sense that personal details shared here for the purposes of mentorship would need to remain on this platform. This might be problematic to enforce, and so what I suggest might not be feasible. I am curious to hear your thoughts on this.
Morgan Rogers (he/him) (Jun 04 2020 at 11:51):I personally feel privileged enough that I find it unlikely I would make a good mentor in the sense of representing (and therefore being a relatable role model) for someone from a minority group. However, I suspect that description holds for a majority of people potentially reading this, and that's a lot of empty hands who, based on earlier discussion, may struggle to help without putting some amount of organising burden on someone else.
Morgan Rogers (he/him) (Jun 04 2020 at 11:51):So let me float an idea: How would people feel about a dual mentorship scheme? People from MGaB and NAoM already run the kind of mentoring scheme that was being discussed, and (I suspect) we don't have the diversity of background here to provide massive manpower to that kind of scheme. But what we have here in this community is a lot of expertise and interest in category theory specifically. So how about organised collaboration? We pair willing folks here with someone who is already willing to act as a mentor with a relevant background at MGaB or in NAoM. By supporting them, they might be able to take on two mentees instead of one (for example). Meanwhile, we learn and engage with their mathematical interests while enabling them to engage with category theory through us, laying the foundation for the kind of collaboration that Dr Abrams is describing in the tweet quoted above. And by getting involved in a thoughtful way (that I hope enough people are conscientious enough to manage), we can learn about the experience of minority students without imposing our guilt on them.
Nina Otter (Jun 04 2020 at 19:57):[Mod] Morgan Rogers said:
So let me float an idea: How would people feel about a dual mentorship scheme? People from MGaB and NAoM already run the kind of mentoring scheme that was being discussed, and (I suspect) we don't have the diversity of background here to provide massive manpower to that kind of scheme. But what we have here in this community is a lot of expertise and interest in category theory specifically. So how about organised collaboration? We pair willing folks here with someone who is already willing to act as a mentor with a relevant background at MGaB or in NAoM. By supporting them, they might be able to take on two mentees instead of one (for example). Meanwhile, we learn and engage with their mathematical interests while enabling them to engage with category theory through us, laying the foundation for the kind of collaboration that Dr Abrams is describing in the tweet quoted above. And by getting involved in a thoughtful way (that I hope enough people are conscientious enough to manage), we can learn about the experience of minority students without imposing our guilt on them.
I like this idea.
Morgan Rogers (he/him) (Jun 05 2020 at 13:43):If those you get in touch with at Mathematically Gifted and Black are receptive to the idea, I would be happy to put some of my own time into assisting with organisation and logistics of it.
Daniel Geisler (Jun 05 2020 at 20:28):A beautiful thing I learned from working with the developmentally disabled is the power of the team approach for helping people. I certainly can't teach category theory, but I could be a person with street credibility who could join in the learning process. Also I know what good running systems look like and I'm still connected with people inplementing them.
Daniel Geisler (Jun 06 2020 at 09:23):@[Mod] Morgan Rogers @Nina Otter I would be happy to build and host a website for a mentoring project.
Nina Otter (Jun 06 2020 at 17:32):Daniel Geisler said:
[Mod] Morgan Rogers Nina Otter I would be happy to build and host a website for a mentoring project.
@Daniel Geisler thank you! I would suggest to try to talk about this on a video call. Can anybody who is interested in talking about the mentorship like/comment this post?
Blake Pollard (Jun 10 2020 at 14:21):We might be able to find some good resources via this report from the American Institute of Physics: https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/aipcorp/files/teamup-full-report.pdf
Daniel Geisler (Jun 14 2020 at 03:32):Please check https://categorytheory.world/index.php?title=Main_Page , https://categorytheory.world/index.php?title=Mentors and https://categorytheory.world/index.php?title=Category_Theory .
Feel free to send me any information to input.
Morgan Rogers (he/him) (Jun 14 2020 at 11:16):Cool! What do I need to send you to get added to the lists?
Daniel Geisler (Jun 14 2020 at 12:54):@[Mod] Morgan Rogers
Just PM me on Zulip.
Daniel Geisler (Jun 14 2020 at 19:39):In a surprising but very cool development, @David Tanzer has fixed us up with an Instawiki installation that supports LaTeX and Tikz. Check out https://wiki.functorialwiki.org/ . I've shut down the MediaWiki I had put together.