Math Strategic Initiatives

Create a new position to focus on well-being and community within the Faculty of Mathematics. They will work with Faculty and University partners to create initiatives that will impact the lives of students, staff and faculty; create events that raise awareness about mental health issues; and engage in community-building activities to help ensure a positive experience for everybody within the Math Faculty.

• Pilot successfully completed in 2022/23.
• Programming moved to ongoing Faculty operations, supported by the communications and events team and integrated with undergraduate and graduate student relations roles.
• The Math Community and Well-being Committee provides ongoing guidance for continuous improvement, suggests new priorities, and identifies issues for leadership consideration.

• Pilot ended in 2022/23.
• Ongoing focus is on connecting Math community members with the growing portfolio of Campus Wellness training opportunities and resources.

Create a grant that instructors can apply to for their professional development related to teaching.

• Pilot successfully completed in 2022/23.
• Moved to ongoing Faculty operations.
• Provides support to faculty in all units to participate in conferences, workshops and seminars on teaching and learning.
• The UW Math Teaching Colloquium and blog posts help disseminate knowledge gained at teaching conferences.
• Other benefits include nurturing a more scholarly approach to teaching and increasing interaction across the Faculty with respect to our teaching mission.

Establish instructional support for core and service mathematics undergraduate courses, to improve course instruction, allow instructors more time to focus on student learning and ensure greater uniformity across sections.

• Pilot successfully completed in 2022/23.
• Moved to ongoing Faculty operations.

Develop an engaging online presence for research in the Faculty of Mathematics, incorporating promotional videos and updated content to showcase the cutting-edge and innovative nature of our faculty members’ work.

• Initiative successfully completed in 2022/23.
• Professional videos and photography completed to showcase a variety of research areas and groups.
• Content and organization reviewed and updated. Ongoing updates will continue to be made in the context of the Faculty’s overall website maintenance practices.

Develop and implement a large targeted undergraduate recruitment initiative aimed at increasing the number of registered students from India to help achieve the strategic goal of further diversifying the Faculty’s prospective international student pool.

• Pilot successfully completed in 2023/24.
• Moved to ongoing Faculty operations.
• Number of applicants and matriculated students whose last school attended was in India increased over baseline.
• Dedicated recruitment staff and outreach efforts are building a foundation for continued growth through strong connections with schools and school counsellors in India. 

Conduct a holistic review of Faculty of Mathematics graduate student funding, with the parallel goals to (a) streamline the administration of graduate funding and (b) assess the appropriateness of overall graduate student funding packages and enhance those where necessary and as financially feasible.

• Initiative successfully completed in 2023/24.
• The new model for allocating graduate student funding to units is simplified, facilitates planning, and lets units determine how best to allocate the funds.
• Total funds allocated by the Faculty saw a significant increase in initial year.

Provide Math-funded International Master’s Awards of Excellence (IMAE) to help bridge the tuition differential for international research master’s students and create new prestigious scholarships to attract top students to our doctoral programs.

• Pilot successfully completed in 2023/24.
• Program funding continued in ongoing Faculty operations, integrated into the new graduate funding model (see holistic review of graduate funding, above). Under this model, units determine allocation of funds rather than mandating guaranteed IMAEs in all units.

Establish increased opportunities for interested PhD students to teach, supported by a systematic and coordinated training and feedback program.

• Pilot ended in 2023/24.
• Multiple graduate student teaching training programs are in place: the new course MATH 900 University Mathematics Teaching Techniques ; institutional programs (FUT, CUT) and the Wicked Problems course series.
• Mechanisms are in place to provide feedback to graduate students on their teaching.
• The limited number of overall teaching positions available constrains growth in opportunities for doctoral students. The focus going forward will be on improving operational processes to maximize the number of opportunities for graduate students to teach core courses.

Enhance current undergraduate scholarships by increasing the value and number of scholarships for undergraduate students.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• 65 scholarship offers accepted in five years
• Acceptance rates significantly higher than for non-scholarship offers and higher than for lower-value scholarship offers
• Average performance of these scholarship recipients well above class averages

Leverage social media channels through the intentional and regular creation of content to interest and excite more people about mathematics, statistics, and computer science and to highlight Waterloo Mathematics as a destination for top mathematical learning, talent and research.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• Multimedia projects role established and filled in April 2023
• 10 recruitment videos, 3 “Math Marvel” videos and 2 videos for social media completed in first year
• Created email video recruitment campaigns, improved social media engagement and enhanced YouTube presence

Customize resources for instructors to support students in developing teamwork skills and confidence working in groups, and to enhance the considered incorporation of group work in courses.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• 5 teamwork skills modules developed and pilot-tested in several COMM, CS and ACTSC courses
• Instructor and student feedback used to refine modules
• Temporary Scholar website established to host the modules

The Master of Mathematics for Teachers (MMT) program seeks to engage teachers who are Indigenous or who are teaching in Indigenous communities to encourage mathematical education and continuous learning. This full scholarship opportunity is designed to eliminate financial barriers that may exist for interested teachers and to increase awareness of mathematics amongst Indigenous teachers and the Indigenous communities they serve.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• 15 students have accepted scholarships over 4  years
• 3 scholarship recipients have graduated
• Scholarship application deadline moved in response to participant feedback

Host an annual showcase event that incorporates a series of programs and activities to meaningfully engage external partners with faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and their research.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• Inaugural event April 2023: 32 external partners registered; over 150 total attendees on day 1 and 80 on day 2
• Based on inaugural event experience, refined to a one-day event with a singular theme (Mitigating Risks of AI) in November 2023: 47 external partners registered; over 200 total attendees

Establish a committee to research, discuss and evaluate possible options for enhancing undergraduate assessment practices in Math to: enhance student learning; encourage greater student engagement; and increase the quality and pedagogical value of feedback provided to students.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• Established Enhancing Assessment Practices Working Group and Educational Research Assistant role (1 co-op term/year)
• Enhancing Assessment Practices published for instructors
• Artificial Intelligence in Math Assessment created about the use of GenAI in assessments
• Literature review of assessment in STEM courses and small-scale literature review of universal design for learning (UDL) and assessment
• Systematic examination of assessment in all syllabi from Math Faculty courses
• Assessment-level data collected from all math core courses
• Survey of Math students in 2022/23 and assessment-related questions developed for Math students in the fall 2024 Student Experience Survey

Introduce new strategic research awards to support specific researcher needs: to reduce obstacles for researchers to lead large collaborative projects; and to mitigate the effects of personal life events that are disruptive at critical career stages.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• Bridge Support and Project Leader awards established and launched
• 1 Bridge Support Award provided in 2023/24

Increase the number of Mathematics Undergraduate Research Awards (MURA) for undergraduates –including international students and top students from other universities –to engage in research opportunities with our faculty members, enriching the undergraduate experience, the research environment, and graduate recruitment efforts.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• 36 additional MURAs awarded in first two years
• 53% of all MURAs awarded were to international students, enhancing access to research opportunities for students excluded from the NSERC USRA program
• MURA website updated in 2023/24 for increased clarity and leveraging of all related programs

Develop and implement a multi-pronged approach to increase the number of Black applicants to Faculty of Mathematics programs. This will include targeted recruitment, scholarship and outreach offerings.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• Dedicated Undergraduate Recruitment Officer hired in October 2023 to focus on reaching a predominantly Black prospective student audience
• Global reach expanded with on-the-ground recruitment in Trinidad, Barbados, Jamaica, Bermuda, Bahamas, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa
• Domestic efforts enhanced through connections with school boards and community groups
• Scholarship applicants who identify as Black more than doubled from 2022 to 2024

Establish a sustainable system to group first-year students into “M section” cohorts to help establish peer relationships in first year to help foster well-being and community building for the remainder of their undergraduate careers.

Achievements to May 2024 include:

• Faculty of Mathematics Data Scientist engaged to develop a means of assigning students to course groups
• Potential models to create cohorts developed and tested using previous year data
• First iteration of M sections, aligned with scheduling practices and leveraged for Orientation groupings, is expected to be in place for the Fall 2024 incoming class

Launch a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship program, which in a steady state will bring six outstanding postdoctoral fellows to the Faculty of Mathematics.

Program paused in spring 2024 due to financial constraints.

Achievements prior to the program being paused included:

• 35 nominations, 19 offers and 6 hires in the first 3 years of the program
• 2022 cohort: 1 AMATH, 1 CS; 2023 cohort: 1 AMATH, 1CS, 1 PMATH; 2024 cohort: 1 CS

Reinvigorate the previous DDVP program to bring a leading international researcher in mathematics, statistics or computer science to Waterloo to be resident for one academic term and to offer a public lecture and full-term course.

Program paused in spring 2024 due to financial constraints.

Achievements prior to the program being paused included:

• Dr. Mostafa Ammar joined the Cheriton School of Computer Science in Fall 2022
• Dr. Sanjeev Khanna joined the Cheriton School of Computer Science in Winter 2024
• Dr. Philip Maini selected in 2023 to be hosted by Applied Mathematics in Fall 2024