Text of petition:
I believe that the proposed severe cuts to mathematics, statistics, and computing at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) will do severe and permanent damage to the quality of education in maths and the sciences for USQ students, at a time when the need to support such education is both urgent and widely accepted in Australia at all levels. Service teaching alone, especially at reduced staff levels, cannot deliver the level of mathematics education that the students of USQ deserve. I urge the university administration to negotiate with the Department of Mathematics and Computing to find a compromise solution that will preserve the proven capability of this department to train students and teachers in the maths and sciences at the highest levels of quality.
Please sign this petition by leaving a comment at the very bottom of this web page stating your support for the text. It may be helpful if you include your name, title, and affiliation in your remarks.
For more information about the situation at USQ, as well as other ways in which you can help out, please see the main campaign page, as well as my editorial on this topic.
This online petition is part of a broader campaign that is also contacting the media and government officials for this cause. Your signing of this petition will help, not only in directly impressing upon USQ administrators, media, government officials, and others on the depth of support for mathematics, but also in encouraging those who will be impacted by these cuts to also speak out and to spread the word. Thanks in advance for your support, and please share the link to this petition to anyone else who may be interested. Mathematicians, scientists, engineers, journalists, students, administrators, Australians, non-Australians – all are more than welcome to sign. It is particularly vital to contact USQ students on this matter, as they have been largely excluded from the official consultation process by the USQ administration.
Any inquiries about this petition should be directed to Terence Tao, or left as a comment on the home page for this campaign. [In particular, if your comment does not first appear, it may have been caught by the automatic spam filters. – T.]
On 14 April, the last day of the consultation period set by the administration, the online petition was formally presented to the USQ administration and to local government officials. Since the petition has been a visible and public show of support for mathematics, statistics, and computing at USQ, we will continue to keep this petition active beyond this date as a demonstration of that ongoing support.
For the latest updates on the status of the campaign, see the end of my blog post on this topic.
1,020 comments
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22 October, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Yang
I totally support this petition.
Yang Xu
3rd Year Actuarial Science Student
The University of Melbourne
1 November, 2008 at 8:44 pm
Aram Harrow
I support the petition.
Aram Harrow
Lecturer in Mathematics
University of Bristol
2 November, 2008 at 3:40 am
Rashed Khalid
I fully support this petition. Maths and developing math thinking skills are perhaps the most important things one can learn at university. In learning the process of proof one answers the most fundemental question i.e why something happens. Developing these habits of mind help in problem solving and creative thinking, skills which our world needs alot of.
4 November, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Richard Marschall
I support this petition, but this is the result of too many university mathematics and engineering departments becoming detached from actual practitioners in industry and commerce. If law schools were staffed by people who never presented a case to a judge and jury would you take them seriously? If medical schools were staffed by people who never treated patients or did surgery, would you bother being trained there? Then why does Australia have mathematics departments where none of the faculty have ever worked in industry? Engineering departments where only a few faculty (at best) have ever worked in the commercial world? Should anyone be surprised mathematics and engineering enrollments are down under these circumstances? I think not.
12 November, 2008 at 1:20 am
Markus Streckhardt
As a former international student and graduate of USQ’s MBA program I strongly support this petition. A sound understanding of mathematics and statistics is the foundation for science in general, regardless of the the area of experticse. Providing a less comprehensive education in mathematics and statistics is equivalent to giving graduates less appropriate tools to tackle challenges in both, science and business.
According to my understanding any institution called university has an obligation to teach students state of the art knowledge in a comprehensive way, particular when it comes to probleme solving skills.
Cutting back maths and statistics will lower USQ’s reputation in the mid term. This may lead to less enrollments in future – at least from Europe – where a general, broad and comphrehensive scientific foundation is a substantial part of university education.
Markus Streckhardt
Senior Account Manager
Eastman Chemical International AG
Switzerland
16 November, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Anonymous
I fully support this petition.
Pratyush Tiwary
Caltech, Pasadena, CA
8 January, 2009 at 1:36 am
daniel kokic
maths is the best i have done alot you know targeting maths
23 April, 2009 at 12:18 am
Rheannon Ashby
Mathematics is an essential foundation of modern society. Without it, how are we expected to progress into the future? Cutting back staff who will properly educate the prospective mathematicians of tomorrow will deteriorate hopes for the future.
I understand that there are many fields that could also be considered very important, and in essence all fields are essential, but mathematics is the fundamentals of everything – how would we build houses, build cars, computers, mobile phones and internet connections (all of which are used on a daily basis) without a sound understanding of mathematics?
I hope this contributes to the re-staffing of competent educators and mathematicians.
30 May, 2009 at 8:03 am
Clive Granger « Mathematics in Australia
[…] wrote in support of the campaign to support the department of mathematics and computer science at the University of […]
13 August, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Kerry Esmond
As an maths teacher and an ex student of USQ it is disappointing that at a time when the federal minister Julia Gillard is implementing cuts in Hecs so that more quality maths teachers and statisticians are trained this institution is cutting this departments numbers.
8 September, 2009 at 8:00 am
Jen Petana
I strongly support this petition.
Jen Pestana
Postgraduate Student
University of Oxford
27 October, 2009 at 6:45 am
Patrick Lucey
As an ex USQ student I am shocked at this course of action. I fully endorse this petition.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of Pittsburgh/
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University.
29 November, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Edwin Khoo
I strongly support this petition.
B.S. in Chemical Engineering
Stanford University
31 March, 2011 at 5:57 pm
Peter Horan
USQ is not the first.
I strongly support this petition.
B. E., M. Eng. Sci.
10 May, 2011 at 6:16 pm
Tom Brown
I like very much, and completely agree with, one of the earliest comments: “Cutting back on mathematics to save money is like the farmer’s family eating the seed corn.”
1 June, 2011 at 8:18 am
Audrius Meskauskas, PhD
I am of course not an Australian citizen but if my opinion matters this really does not look as a very wise decision that I would like to oppose as a member of the international science community. As a system biologist can for sure say that mathematics matters a lot in many other sciences.
15 September, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Harrison Jones
I endorse this petition.
Harrison Jones
Undergraduate
University of Sydney
10 September, 2014 at 6:34 pm
Anonymous
well, i am looking to get into pure maths, to become a mathematician. looks like i might have to go to some other university to get where i need to go.
however, isupport this partition
18 April, 2024 at 10:52 pm
Anonymous
Allo mr Tao. I think that there will be a depression soon. Mr Joe Biden he spend a lot of money – like a lot – like a little too much money – like we are going to die kind of money. If he get out of office at end of year we all going to die. What I mean he make not recession but depression. All over the world he make for us that we die. I think myself I no want to die so then I think maybe we get something mathematical to help us. Would be possible you might think of a new financial structure for our society that might help us to recover very soon before we die. Maybe might this be the great reset everybody talk about. Maybe you great reset. Maybe look into what I say before we die. So I think we have lost our society – like times past like Byzantine – you know what I mean? We have fallen. Might we start a new one. What you think? Ok thank you for listen. I hope you see this. I could no find another place for speak. Ok thank you.
Luciana.
19 April, 2024 at 11:24 am
Anonymous
We all going to die someday. Not sure of what you are talking about.