Thoughts and Interesting Stories---Jeff Clark

Every now and then I see a title for a talk or a publication about reconciling faith and science. I never really understood the need. I do live a sheltered life, immersing myself in STEM culture. STEM culture never rules something out without a demonstrable reason. The idea of science ruling out faith or spirituality is simply bad science, often proffered by folk who don't do science. The reconciliation is often offered from the humanities as if this were a gift to us cold science types who don't know any better. Different STEM folk can speak for themselves; for me science has always been about trying to understand God's creation without prejudice but with rigor. 

One of the tasks that I have been pursuing for a number of months relates to a committee that I chair. My primary professional association, the Mathematical Association of America, has set up a committee to address student concerns that are not directly related to conferences. As students are the next generation of mathematicians we have a strong incentive to make them first-class citizens within our community. My committee identified informally some students to serve as a focus group and interviewed them in the Fall. They had a number of different concerns but one common thread was a feeling of disconnection from the MAA. This felt a bit ironic as the MAA has committed in the past year a number of resources to establishing a community framework for its members, MAA Connect. Members identify communities that they wish to participate in or are on committees for, and there is a framework for posting comments, digests of posts, libraries for sharing documents, etc. There is room for impro...

One of the joys of lasting for a while in my career is that I often get asked (formally or informally) to suggest names of folk for potentially filling positions. Nobody ever goes entirely on my say-so but I like to think that I contribute names of qualified folk to the process that might otherwise not be said. I think of this as I sit this morning putting together notes for a meeting of a Nominating Committee that I sit on for later this week. We will provide names for a slate presented to a professional organization for an election. It is the nature of this organization (for good or for bad, it cuts both ways) that there are never any nominations from the floor; they defer to our judgment and our prior confirmation that the nominees are willing to be nominated. The bylaws list the positions, responsibilities, and terms of the these officers. Each year we take the positions that are renewable, confirm whether the current officeholders wish to continue, and as appropriate shorten the l...

One of the things I have prided myself on is not quitting things. Part of it is ego (this shall not best me) and part of it is the knowledge from experience that there is more pay-off from a sustained commitment than from dipping my toes into something. One of the things that I have had to acknowledge with age is that I have less stamina now. I would not trade the small wisdom I have acquired with age to get it back but I have less physical stamina, less mental stamina, and most importantly less emotional stamina with each passing year. Part of that small wisdom is to face these changes head on and make the best decisions I can about how to proceed. For a number of years I have been a member of a support group that is confidential, and I will be vague about its details. I mostly received the support I needed at the beginning, and have stayed to try to return that support to newer folk. My participation had to do with wanting to support loved ones facing challenges that are real to them...

This term I will have a number of things (classes, office hours, meetings) back-to-back on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and very little scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I am not used to this kind of rhythm although I have had it before and will adjust to it. I am not used to having blocks of time and have adapted most of my work routine to pieces that can be done whenever it fits into my schedule. Occasionally I'll work on something more substantial and explicitly put other things on hold but that is more the exception.