🚨 UPDATE: Math & Stats have created their own webpage to showcase success and support for their program, check it out here!

Links below may be broken as UNCG scrubbed department websites of mentions of the APR process on 13-Feb-2024, all of them critical of how it was conducted. "Success" of the process definitely includes silencing all dissent, apparently. 

 Math department statement (alternate wayback machine link) on the APR and decision to cut Math graduate programs:

PUBLIC STATEMENT ON APR REVIEW RECOMMENDATIONS

The following statement is provided in response to Provost Storr’s recommendation to discontinue the Ph.D. program in Computational Mathematics. See Reactions to the Recommendations to Discontinue the Math Graduate Programs for further responses.

Provost Storrs’ proposal to discontinue the Ph.D. program in Computational Mathematics is a decision that was not supported by the recommendations of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Despite the program’s exceptional performance, ranking 6th out of 30 doctoral programs at UNCG according to the Academic Portfolio Review (APR) rubric, the Provost seems to overlook its significant contributions both on its own merits and in its contributions to undergraduate education of all UNCG students.

The Ph.D. program in Computational Mathematics is the only such program within the UNC system, addressing timeless mathematical questions in light of modern computational advances. The faculty and students in the program generate outstanding scholarship, and were responsible for over $1.3 million in external funding last year alone. Graduates not only excel in scholarly pursuits but also develop invaluable mathematics teaching skills, and are in high demand upon graduation. The program’s success is evident by any metric, not just the APR rubric, and it deserves recognition and support from UNCG. Removing this source of skilled mathematics professionals will be detrimental to UNCG, the state, and larger communities where there is a high demand for educators in mathematics, which develops critical thinking skills for all students and forms the foundation of all STEM disciplines.

The reason stated by Provost Storrs for discontinuing the Ph.D. program is “an institutional need to prioritize efforts to ensure students in lower-division math and statistics courses succeed.” Killing off one part of a department in the hopes that this will magically improve success in another is misguided. The department has made Herculean efforts targeting student success in lower-division courses, which the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences has recognized in his own review in which he states “Despite some student success issues in the recent past, the department has instituted a number of measures to rectify these problems, and considerable improvements have been evident over the last few years.” The faculty are highly skilled educators, and multiple faculty in Mathematics and Statistics have won prestigious teaching and student mentoring awards in recent years.

The widely-recognized national challenges in student preparation post-COVID are complex and cannot be addressed by eliminating graduate programs. In fact, the graduate students in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics are an integral part of the solution. During the Spring 2024 semester, they are providing 150 hours per week of one-on-one tutoring in the Math Help Center, collaborating with top undergraduate students to enhance UNCG’s overall academic environment. There is no way these hours and this expertise can be replaced by other resources on campus.

Cutting these graduate programs will not only dismantle some of UNCG’s strongest academic offerings but will also hinder student success in lower-division mathematics, which directly opposes the Provost’s stated goal. The expertise and support provided by graduate students are irreplaceable, and their contributions should be acknowledged and celebrated rather than dismissed.

For questions about this statement, please contact Prof. Stephen Tate, Interim Department Head in Mathematics and Statistics, srtate@uncg.edu.

Backed up from this page, should UNCG administration continue to remove all departmental website content critical of the APR process. <-- We wrote this predicting it would happen and it did: wayback machine archive version here.

ACADEMIC PROGRAM REVIEW

DISCONTINUATION OF ALL MATHEMATICS GRADUATE PROGRAMS

On January 16 Chancellor Gilliam announced the recommendation by the Deans to discontinue our MA in Mathematics.

As a Doctoral University with high research activity and deep community engagement, our institution serves almost 20,000 students including 3,700 graduate students.
— from the website of Provost Storrs, February 4, 2024

On January 22 Provost Storrs announced the recommendation to discontinue our PhD in Computational Mathematics.

On January 22 Chancellor Gilliam added our PhD in Computational Mathematics to the programs recommended for discontinuation. While for all other programs the number of students is given, it is not mentioned for the PhD program in Computational Mathematics. There are currently 24 students in our PhD program.

On February 1 Chancellor Gilliam announced that our MA in Mathematics and our PhD in Computational Mathematics would be discontinued.

RESPONSES FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS AND STATISTICS

• Response to Recommendation to Discontinue M.A. and Ph.D. Programs, January 30, 2024.

• Public statement on APR recommendations by interim head Professor Steve Tate, January 23, 2024.

Below you can find statements of support referenced in the Response to Recommendation to Discontinue M.A. and Ph.D. Programs and further letters of support that reached the department after the response was sent to Chancellor Gilliam.

DOUBTS ABOUT INTEGRITY OF THE PROCESS

There are doubts about the integrity of the Academic Portfolio Review (APR) process. 

While not on quite as grand a scale, I believe that the pending recommendations at UNCG to discontinue the BA program in Anthropology, the graduate programs in Mathematics, and the foreign language minors and courses are equally heavy-handed and capricious, decisions made by one individual in an unfair, nontransparent, and uncollaborative way
— Chuck Bolton, Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

• Associate dean, department head resigns in protest of program eliminations at UNCG at NC Newsline

• UNCG’s Associate Dean in College of Arts and Sciences resigns amidst ongoing controversial program cuts in Triad City Beat

• Updated: UNCG associate dean resigns in protest as university eyes academic cuts in the Greensboro News & Record.

SUPPORT FROM UNCG DEPARTMENTS

• Department of Biology

• Department of Computer Science

LETTERS OF SUPPORT FROM PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

• American Mathematical Society (AMS), also see news items of the AMS

LETTERS OF SUPPORT FROM GROUPS

• Speakers of the UNCG Summer School in Computational Number Theory, signed by Mathematicians from 9 countries

• UNCG Mathematics and Statistics Graduate Students

LETTERS FROM INDIVIDUALS AT UNCG

• Professor Tom Lewis, Calculus Coordinator, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

• Professor Ratnasingham Shivaji, Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Mathematics and Statistics

• Professor Jerry Walsh, Department of Chemistry

• PhD Student Xiaohuan Xue, UNCG sent as a letter to the editor.

LETTERS OF SUPPORT FROM EXTERNAL INDIVIDUALS

• Professor Steve Bozionovski, South Carolina State University

• Professor Sunil Chetty, College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University *

• Professor Alfonso Castro, Harvey Mudd College

• Professor Joshua Cooper, University of South Carolina

• Professor Amanda Diegel, Mississippi State University

• Professor Donatella Danielli, Arizona State University *

• Professor Pavel Drabek, University of West Bohemia, Pilsen, Czech Republic

• Professor Stephen Robinson, Wake Forest University

• Professor Benson Farb, University of Chicago *

• Professor Ricky E. Farr, Spartanburg Methodist College, UNCG PhD Alumnus

• Professor Lisa Fauci, Tulane University

• Professor Xiaobing Feng, University of Tennessee

• Professor Nalin Fonsenka, University of Central Missouri, UNCG PhD Alumnus

• Professor William Graham, University of Georgia

• Professor Jerry Griggs, University of South Carolina

• Professor Kevin Keating, University of Florida

• Professor Suzanne Lenhart, University of Tennessee

• Professor Emer Lopera, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Manizales *

• Professor Philip Maini, University of Oxford, UK

• Professor Sarah Mason, Wake Forest University

• Professor Peter Merkx, Wake Forest University

• Professor Quinn Morris, Appalachian State University, UNCG PhD Alumnus

• Professor Sigifredo Herron Osorio, National University of Columbia *

• Professor Stephen Robinson, Wake Forest University

• Professor Jeremy Rouse, Wake Forest University

• Professor Diana Milena Sánchez Monsalve, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Manizales *

• Professor X. Tian, University of California, San Diego

• Professor John Voight, Dartmouth College

* Letters of support that reached the department after the  Response to Recommendation to Discontinue M.A. and Ph.D. Programs was sent to Chancellor Gilliam