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University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

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Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#111

Post by sn41 »

orange_tee wrote: post #78
username90 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to sack the math department to create a machine learning department. But they still need people to teach the math classes for machine learning etc, and without the math professors they'd need machine learning professors or so who aren't as good at maths.

ML uses almost entirely applied math and stochastics: optimization, numerics and statistics. Besides that, just because they won't have faculty researching pure math, doesn't mean they cannot have applied math guys teaching pure math classes. Personally as a math graduate, I think it is better that they focus on areas they are good at. I assume the pure math department is not doing much. It is also good for the stude…

> I assume the pure math department is not doing much.

Please see my earlier comment. They once had a Fields medalist on their staff. And it was not a one-off coincidence. Leicester has a really good tradition of pure math.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#112

Post by mietek »

username90 wrote: post #41
LatteLazy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it used to be that the government paid that and students went for free or got a grant. Starting back in 2002 they cut the amount the government paid and increased what students paid. So the unis didn't get any more money, the government just saved cash. Total BS imho, but don't get me started...

UK just wanted to stop funding EU students, since EU disallowed paying for your own students and not others. The problem is that English universities are inherently more attractive so UK has way more EU students than EU had UK students making UK support a disproportionally large number of students.

> The problem is that English universities are inherently more attractive so UK has way more EU students than EU had UK students making UK support a disproportionally large number of students.

The English evidently agree this is a problem and have been doing their part to make UK universities less “inherently” attractive.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#113

Post by walkedaway »

hedberg10 wrote: post #22
inglor_cz wrote: post #12

I wonder if the end game of higher education looks like purely administrative bodies with enormous tuition that just provide the students with leisure, varsity sports and regular events on the currently hot social justice topics. I studied pure math in the Czech Rep. between 1996 and 2003. The administrative staff was about 10 per cent of the entire body of employees. Reading that administrators actually outnumber te…

Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach, administrate.

Those who can't administrate, consult.

(I always heard it as "those who can't teach, consult" but I like the administrate introduction...)

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#115

Post by bombcar »

barry-cotter wrote: post #92
woofie11 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the underlying problem is high tuition and high faculty salaries. Faculty used to be like a monastery, where scholars could live a simple life to nerd in their topic of nerdhood. Now, my alma mater pays high-tooting faculty nearly a megabuck, pays typical faculty $180k, has $200 million building projects, yachts, and what-not. Tuition went up multifold too. I'm more than happy to pay a bunch of nerds $60k per y…

> Now, my alma mater pays high-tooting faculty nearly a megabuck, pays typical faculty $180k, has $200 million building projects, yachts, and what-not. This is not relevant to the UK. Faculty do not get paid anywhere near this. They do not get paid lawyer or doctor money either, for the UK. Economics faculty who move from the UK to the US will come close to doubling their salary, as a lower bound.

To be fair to the UK/EU you’d need to compare total compensation and factor in the social net in Europe.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#116

Post by walkedaway »

foldr wrote: post #16
inglor_cz wrote: post #12

I wonder if the end game of higher education looks like purely administrative bodies with enormous tuition that just provide the students with leisure, varsity sports and regular events on the currently hot social justice topics. I studied pure math in the Czech Rep. between 1996 and 2003. The administrative staff was about 10 per cent of the entire body of employees. Reading that administrators actually outnumber te…

> regular events on the currently hot social justice topics. This is a cheap shot and totally inaccurate. Do you really think UK universities are closing their maths departments so that they can spend more on the humanities?

Not sure how things are in the UK, but in the US, this is pretty much spot on. You'll see all sorts of curriculum pop up from grade school through universities to "teach" the SJW topic du jour. If Europe hasn't gone in this direction, well, that's probably why Europeans are so much better educated than Americans.

It's gone so far that the SF school board is more worried about names of their schools named after American greats than they are re-opening schools (which have been closed in California since March).

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/san-francisco-mayor-london...

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#117

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

kleiba wrote: post #102
quonn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alphabet bought it. But it‘s a direct result of university research with the same people. Just check the field of reinforcement learning.

True, but a singular example does not save the continent.

The first place Facebook opened an AI research centre was Paris.

They certainly didn't pick it for the food ;)

I think if you look at where the researchers are, Europe does really well. As per usual though, this is poorly commercialised.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#118

Post by foldr »

walkedaway wrote: post #116
foldr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regular events on the currently hot social justice topics. This is a cheap shot and totally inaccurate. Do you really think UK universities are closing their maths departments so that they can spend more on the humanities?

Not sure how things are in the UK, but in the US, this is pretty much spot on. You'll see all sorts of curriculum pop up from grade school through universities to "teach" the SJW topic du jour. If Europe hasn't gone in this direction, well, that's probably why Europeans are so much better educated than Americans. It's gone so far that the SF school board is more worried about names of their schools named after Americ…

Isn’t this just a generic rant about so-called SJWs etc. etc.? I can assure you that US universities aren’t defunding or closing their math departments in order to add more humanities courses about hot social issues. You may not like what some professors choose to teach, but a quick glance at the numbers will show you that, if anything, everyone else is being sacrificed on the altar of STEM, not vice versa.

Your second paragraph is about schools, not universities, and I can’t see how it’s at all relevant to this discussion.

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#119

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

inglor_cz wrote: post #12

I wonder if the end game of higher education looks like purely administrative bodies with enormous tuition that just provide the students with leisure, varsity sports and regular events on the currently hot social justice topics. I studied pure math in the Czech Rep. between 1996 and 2003. The administrative staff was about 10 per cent of the entire body of employees. Reading that administrators actually outnumber te…

> leisure, varsity sports and regular events on the currently hot social justice topics

This seems like a smear of people who care about social justice by implication. Why do you suppose they are not interested in education and research?

Re: University of Leicester firing all pure math faculty

#120

Post by hogFeast »

LatteLazy wrote: post #27
throwaways885 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Limited"? UK tuition used to be much, much cheaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuition_fees_in_the_United_Kin...

Yeah, it used to be that the government paid that and students went for free or got a grant. Starting back in 2002 they cut the amount the government paid and increased what students paid. So the unis didn't get any more money, the government just saved cash. Total BS imho, but don't get me started...

Just to say, there are two sides to this problem. The UK govt had spent two or three decades before it brought in fees attempting to get universities to reduce costs...this was unsuccessful. The idea was: we can do literally nothing about this problem, so students will pay for it (and btw, the debt is a fairly soft one), and hopefully universities will cut back when students get angry at them...which has basically happened after the wave of Chinese money started running out a few years ago (and has now gone completely). Universities are digging their own graves, and hopefully something better will come out of it.

This issue is, btw, basically identical to the one for council funding. It is a very tricky area with no easy answers but, funnily enough, always ends up with the same solution (council funding in the UK is basically regressive, like university funding because there is literally no way to pressure these institutions to be responsible without user paying).

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