University of Iowa Mathematics Department receives award

The Mathematics Department at the University of Iowa is the 2008 recipient of the AMS Award for an Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department.

The award citation calls the Iowa department "a national leader in recruiting and developing underrepresented US minority doctoral students in mathematics." Starting in 1995, the department made a concerted effort to recruit minority students. But it didn't just recruit the students and let them sink or swim. The department listened to what the students had to say about their struggles and achievements, what was missing from their mathematical backgrounds, and how they fit in socially. Using this feedback, the department reoriented its graduate program to make student success the top priority. In the process, it created a welcoming, supportive environment that has raised the level of achievement of all students.

Over the past decade, the University of Iowa mathematics department produced about 1 percent of the total number of mathematics doctorates granted in the U.S., and about 4 percent of those granted to students who are members of underrepresented minorities. During that time, 12 minority students received PhD's at Iowa. The year 2002-2003 was especially noteworthy: That year, three minority students received their PhDs in the department, and this number represented roughly 10 percent of the math doctorates awarded nationally to US minority students during that year. (The United States produced about 1000 PhDs that year, and 29 of them were from minority groups.) Today about a quarter of the department's approximately 115 graduate students are minority, and about 40 percent are women. The retention rate to the PhD has risen greatly.