We are a working group continuing from the ICERM workshop of the same title.
We have an active Slack group! Link to join
Subscribe below for occasional updates about events and opportunities!
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBA
Planning for Summer 2022
In response to the pandemic in early 2020, cities implemented states of emergency and stay at home orders to reduce virus spread. Changes in social dynamics due to local restrictions impacted human behavior and led to a shift in crime dynamics. We analyze shifts in crime types by comparing crimes before the implementation of stay at home orders and the time period shortly after these orders were put in place across three cities. We find consistent changes across Chicago, Baltimore, and Baton Rouge with significant declines in total crimes during the time period immediately following stay at home orders. The starkest differences occurred in Chicago, but in all three cities the crime types contributing to these declines were related to property crime and statutory crime rather than interpersonal crimes. After discussing this research project, I will then talk about my experiences as an interdisciplinary graduate student and provide some insight regarding how best to "make it" in graduate school. (co-hosted with UM-Dearborn Mathematics Colloquium)
Social justice in research and teaching potluck. Come share DEI teaching or research tips with peers!
Has Black Lives Matter influenced police lethal use-of-force? A difference-in-differences design finds census places with protests experienced a 15% to 20% decrease in police homicides from 2014 through 2019, around 300 fewer deaths. This decrease was prominent when protests were large or frequent. Potential mechanisms behind the reduction include police agencies obtaining body-worn cameras to curtail force and depolicing following a so-called ‘Ferguson Effect.’ Fewer property crimes, but more murders, were reported to agencies with local protests, yet the property crime clearance rate fell. Demographic imbalance by protest status and limited variation in treatment timing warrant a cautious interpretation
Continuation of Part I: Social justice in mathematics is an important area of pursuit. However, sometimes getting the financial resources to pursue important work can be challenging. This is where NSF Grant on Racial Equity in STEM Education can help. This grant is an open slate and can provide funding opportunities not just in the classroom but also towards research that can affect outcomes of racial equity in STEM. During this hour, AJ and Ranthony will lead a discussion about the details of the grant, its scope, and some ideas towards applications. Hopefully small interest groups could be formed to apply together. The first application deadline was July 13 but the next one is October 12 so it's a great time to start thinking about your application. If you have ideas you'd like to pursue, or if you'd like to hear more, please join us for this discussion! All are welcome. Feel free to share this information and invite others who may be interested as well.
Students interact with content from math classes in a variety of ways. They may print them out, read them on their phone, or even use a screen reader. Being able to create content that can be easily accessed in all formats is a tenant of universal design. More generally, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people. In this workshop, I will present some basics from both WCAG and UDL. The majority of the time will be spent workshopping different text editors and tools that facilitate a coherent workflow for creating accessible documents easily. Please bring any documents you would like reviewed or questions you may have.
Social justice in mathematics is an important area of pursuit. However, sometimes getting the financial resources to pursue important work can be challenging. This is where NSF Grant on Racial Equity in STEM Education can help. This grant is an open slate and can provide funding opportunities not just in the classroom but also towards research that can affect outcomes of racial equity in STEM. During this hour, AJ and Ranthony will lead a discussion about the details of the grant, its scope, and some ideas towards applications. Hopefully small interest groups could be formed to apply together. The first application deadline was July 13 but the next one is October 12 so it's a great time to start thinking about your application. If you have ideas you'd like to pursue, or if you'd like to hear more, please join us for this discussion! All are welcome. Feel free to share this information and invite others who may be interested as well.
What exactly is the role of mathematics in government? How can mathematicians be more involved in policy decisions? Join us this Thursday for an informal discussion with Dr. Karen Saxe about some of these questions and more. Dr. Saxe has years of experience working and advising politicians. She was the 2013-2014 AMS congressional fellow, took part in the commission to redraw Minnesota’s congressional districts in 2010, served as a science and technology advisor to Minnesota senator Al Franken, and is currently the director of the AMS Office of Government Relations, based in Washington DC. Dr. Saxe will tell us about her experience working with policy makers, give us some advice about how to connect with government, and answer any questions that we may have.
We are setting up 10 minute blocks for those who want to ‘lead’ a session related to a topic of their choice. We say lead loosely because this is very flexible! Here are some examples of how we envision that you could use the 10 minute slot:
One direction to teach a semester-long course on Redistricting and the associated mathematics is to examine all of the content with the idea of "fairness" in mind. What makes a map "fair" is certainly subjective which offers a space for rich discussion in the classroom. In my class, the goal is to provide students with as many authentic tools as possible to equip them with the knowledge and skills to produce maps and their own definition of "fairness" while bringing light to the relationship between politics, policy, and quantitative reasoning. I will share my course content and assessments and provide space for us to share additional resources with each other and reflect on our own definitions of math and "fairness."
I discuss how I got started and the process that brought me to here. I will briefly discuss the methods we and other have developed over recent years. I will manly give some perspective on the unexpected journey it took me one and some of the marking posts along they way. I hope to make this more of a discussion.
This will be an informal presentation, giving an overview of some of the topics involving mathematics, redistricting, and detecting gerrymandering. We’ll define the landscape of the issues around redistricting and gerrymandering, and talk about some of the various ways that mathematicians are studying those issues. We’ll also briefly touch on my thoughts on how to get involved in this work, and how one can develop coursework based on these topics. I hope the presentation will open up conversation and discussion so that we can focus on discussing the issues of most interest to the audience.
Planning for Summer 2021.