Are University Budget Cuts Becoming a Threat to Mathematics?

Abstract

Mathematics as an area of study occupies an important place in higher education. Due in part to its utility in other disciplines as well as its role in student learning, institutions of higher education (IHEs) often have large numbers of mathematics faculty with different balances of teaching and research in different ranks and appointment structures. Most flagship IHEs, especially state land-grant institutions, have large undergraduate populations taking mathematics courses in many cases built around the widespread use of calculus and the connections between mathematics and science, technology, and engineering. These connections have made mathematics departments essential to universities\cite{olson2012engage} and emphasized the critical role math plays in supporting student success \cites{reinholz2020time,calcscience} in all areas of post-secondary education. We tend to take that essential nature of mathematics at the undergraduate level, and for research universities at the graduate level, as a given, but that characterization no longer holds for some IHEs.