Heads of Departments of Mathematical Sciences

Minutes of Committee Meeting of 8th April 1999, held at 
Keele University

Present:
Prof. K Houston (Chair)
Dr W Boyd
Prof D Brannan
Prof W Bruce
Prof J Erdos
Prof M Everett (Treasurer)
Prof L Fletcher
Dr T Gethins
Dr C Goldie
Dr A Lepper (IMA rep)
Prof R Moffett
Dr S Ryrie (Secretary)

Apologies
Prof V Isham (RSS rep)
Dr N Steele (Vice-Chair)

1.	Welcome to new members. 
The Chair welcome Bill Boyd, Bill Bruce and Charles Goldie 
to their first meeting of the Committee.

2.	Minutes of meeting of 8th January 1999.  
These minutes were approved.

3.	Matters arising from the minutes not otherwise on 
the agenda.
Minute 2:  The surveys by E Kopp and K Houston were not yet 
complete.

4.	Membership:  
The meeting noted that there were no members from any 
Scottish institution.

The meeting agreed that individual members would 
represent it on other bodies as follows:
 
Joint Mathematical Council:  JE (replacing SR)
 
Computers in Teaching Initiative:  TG.
  
In addition, the meeting agreed that individuals would have 
"watching briefs" on the activities of other bodies as 
follows:
QAA:  WB
ILT:  LF
QCA:  DB
TTA:  NS

The meeting also agreed to nominate one of its members(RJM 
for 1999/2000) to act as informal liaison person with CPAM. 


5.	Treasurer's Report
The meeting agreed that KH and ME should become signatories 
to the HODOMS bank account, and asked ME to undertake the 
actions necessary to achieve this.


6.	Subject Benchmarks
The meeting noted that the QAA will probably establish a 
"mathematics panel", to be responsible for "benchmarks", 
within the next two years, but that it was not yet known
whether there would be a "subject association".  The 
meeting agreed that it would be beneficial if the 
mathematics community were to give early consideration to 
benchmarking, in order to raise awareness of the issues and 
perhaps to influence eventual QAA guidelines.  With this in 
mind, it welcomed the establishment by the Presidents of 
IMA/LMS/RSS of an ad-hoc group to consider the issues 
involved in benchmarking, and particularly welcomed the 
invitation to send a representative to the first meeting of 
that group (on 12th April).  The meeting agreed that JE 
would represent it there.


7.	HODs Database
The meeting noted that KH is compiling a database of 
"Departments of Mathematical Science" and their Heads, and 
agreed that this should include related departments such as 
(for instance) statistics or OR.  KH will continue to 
collect, collate and verify data until the database is 
ready for use.
 

8.	QCA Consultation
The meeting agreed that DB would attend the next QCA 
consultation meeting (in April or May).


9.	Communication
Agreed that an electronic HODOMS newsletter, perhaps once 
per term, would be useful.  SR to action.
Agreed to accept NS's offer of maintaining the HODOMS 
website at Coventry, with thanks to Mike Atkinson for 
maintaining it at St Andrews for some years.  SR to contact 
NS to put the move into effect.


10.	Unity of the Mathematics Community
The meeting noted the recent exchange of letters with each 
of the IMA, the RSS and the LMS, and also noted the support 
expressed by Jane Benham (TTA) and Prof. Henry Beker (IMA), 
within their presentations to the HODOMS conference, for a 
"single voice" for mathematics, a view which the meeting 
shared.  
The meeting agreed that it should continue to present the 
case for a "single voice" as and when opportunities present 
themselves, but that further approaches to the three 
societies are unlikely to be productive at this stage.


11.	Dates of Future Meetings
Committee meetings on 23rd September 1999 and 6th January.

We agreed that the HODOMS Conference in 2000 should be at 
Easter in Birmingham; SR to check the dates of BMC/BAMC and 
to liaise with KH to set a date.
(but since then the possibility has been aired of holding 
it at Leeds along with the BMC - matter still to be 
resolved.)




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Dr Stephen Ryrie
Faculty of Computer Studies and Mathematics
University of the West of England
Bristol    BS16 1QY    UK
Email: Stephen.Ryrie@uwe.ac.uk
Tel. (+44)(0)117 976 3992    Fax (+44)(0)117 976 3858
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