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Cohort

I had cause yesterday to reach out to members of math departments at five universities that have been active in the regional professional association that I have been a part of for 35 years (the Southeastern Section of the Mathematical Association of America). The contact was to describe a planned national initiative and seek (probably younger) faculty who might be interested.

Over the decades I have worked with a number of folk on such things and so I approached the task as I have done in the past: 

1) Find someone who I have worked with more than a little at the university and describe the initiative.

2) Give them a chance to let me know if they are interested while acknowledging that they are very busy.

3) Ask for contacts in their department who might be a good match. 

I think this was the first time that I have done this that I became aware of how many of my contacts have retired. This time there was only one such person in each department. Sufficient but not what I expected.

Why don't I have younger contacts in these departments? I've been out of local governance for years, and my younger contacts are at the national level which being the source of the initiative was not useful.

The people I usually turn to in my region (AL, GA, NC, SC, and TN) are like me in many ways which is why I've enjoyed working with them. Half responded immediately.

But:  wow. A large number of my local contacts have retired since I last tried something like this, and it's coming for me. That realization caught me off-guard.

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