by Daniel Maxin

The 2009 edition of MathFest in Portland, OR saw the conclusion of the year-long Project NExT fellowship for three junior faculty members in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science: Sara Crawford, Daniel Maxin and Lara Pudwell. Another member of our Department, Shane Drew, started the program as a new fellow for Project NExT 2009-2010.

Project NExT is a professional development program geared toward early career faculty. It consists of a series of workshops, sessions and numerous networking opportunities that address typical concerns facing the new faculty. In order to maximize the personal interaction among fellows, participation is kept small which makes the admission into the program rather competitive. Project NExT fellows have a separate conference program at the MathFest and the Joint Meetings giving them the opportunity to organize their own sessions and workshops which are not listed in the general program. The three 2008-2009 fellows used this opportunity and organized three sessions during the program on “Designing New Courses”, “Outreach Programs to K-12 Schools” and “Undergraduate Research Programs”. They also participated in several workshops such as “Teaching Introductory Statistics Focusing on Activity Based Learning”, “Undergraduate Research-How to Make it Work”, “Grant Application Process”, “The Use of Technology in Teaching” etc.

Although the official program concluded after one year, the Project NExT fellows keep in touch with each other and there are already plans to organize a permanent interest group for Indiana fellows who will meet regularly at the MAA section meetings in an attempt to build a permanent professional network which is, ultimately, the main goal of the Project NExT program.