A Short History of the Mathematics Department
by Nicholas J. Rose
North Carolina State University was founded in 1889 as a land grant college called the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Engineering was added in 1895. Basic mathematics courses were offered to support these programs. However, it wasn't until 1906 before mathematics was recognized as a separate department with with Robert E. Lee Yates as head. Yates served as department head until 1932. During these years the department was strictly a service department located in the School of Engineering.
In 1931 the State Legislature consolidated all of the institutions of higher learning under one central administration. In 1936 the engineering program at Chapel Hill was closed and all engineering instruction was placed at State. This decision was an enormous boost to NC State and its engineering school and the Mathematics Department. The price paid for getting exclusive control of engineering was the prohibition of granting degrees in the humanities and sciences, including mathematics. This ban on a degree in mathematics was not lifted until 1956.
Hilbert A. Fisher served as head of the department from 1932 until 1957. In 1932 there were no PhD's's on the mathematics faculty. Fisher made the bold move of hiring 7 Ph.D.'s: J. Clarkson (Cornell), H. Park (UNC), J. Cell (Illinois), J. Levine (Princeton), R. Bullock (Chicago), L. Winton (Duke) and H. Nahikian (UNC). These men were the core of the Mathematics Department for several decades. During the Fisher years, 1932-1957 the course offerings increased from 10 to 39 and the faculty rose from 9 to 31. The number of Ph.D.'s on the faculty jumped from 0 to 11. Degree programs in engineering mathematics were started at both the Masters and Bachelors level. Research started to become recognized as an important part of the work of a faculty member. There were two sponsored research programs started after World War II-one on Combinatorics supervised by Jack Levine, and one on Rocket Science directed by John Cell.
In 1960 the School of Physical Sciences and Applied Mathematics (now College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences) was formed, consisting of departments of mathematics, chemistry, physics and experimental statistics. The first Dean was Arthur Clayton Menius. Finally the Mathematics Department had found a true home.
John Wesley Cell became head of the Department in 1957 and served until 1967. During his administration the department made big strides. A chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon was established in 1960. The Undergraduate degree program was changed from Engineering Mathematics to Applied Mathematics in 1961. A doctorate program in Applied Mathematics was established; the first Ph.D.s graduated in 1964. Sponsored research formed a significant part of the research done in the department.The mathematics department increased from 31 faculty members with 11 Ph.D's in 1957 to 67 faculty with 32 Ph.D's in 1966. Some notable faculty appointments were R. Struble (DE's), W. Harrington (Applied Math), H. Sagan (Optimal Control), K. Koh (algebra), R. Chandler (topology) and J. Bishir (probability).
In the spring of 1967 Professor Cell resigned as Head because of ill health. H. V. Park served as Acting Head for one year and Nicholas J. Rose became head in 1968 and served until 1977. Rose was previously head of the Mathematics Department at Stevens Institute of Technology.
During the Rose years the undergraduate program was revamped. An Audio Visual Center was established which provided tutoring and taped lectures of many courses. During the Park and Rose administrations a large number of faculty positions became available and this provided an opportunity to strengthen the faculty. The appointments included in Partial DE's (White, Pao, Schecter); DE's and Dynamical Systems (Franke, Selgrade, Campbell, Martin); Optimization (Kelley, Dunn); Linear Algebra (Meyer, Hartwig); Mathematical Physics (Fulp); Symbolic Computation (Singer); Analysis (Chung, Page, Paur, Silber).
Dr. James M. Ortega served as department from 1977-1980. He started a Distinguished Lecturer Series, which formalized the long-standing tradition of bringing outstanding mathematicians to the campus. Ortega made were two appointments: Jack Silverstein (probability, random matrices) and Elmor Peterson (geometric programming). When Ortega resigned in 1979 Walter Harrington was appointed acting Head. Harrington was well respected and kept the department on an even keel while a search committee looked for a new department head. Harrington started an "Awards Day" to honor undergraduate and graduate student who had won awards for outstanding achievement. This became a Departmental tradition.
An external committee reviewed the state of the mathematics department in December of 1983. The committee consisted of Professor George J. Fix (Mathematics Department, Carnegie-Mellon University), Professor Jack K. Hale (Division of Applied Math, Brown University) and Professor Richard S. Pierce (Dept. of Math, Arizona University). The committee concluded:
"The review committee feels that the Mathematics Department is essentially in good shape and serves the University well. It is in a state of transition with many new opportunities that will require some adjustment on the part of its faculty. However, with careful planning, it can look forward to progress throughout this decade."
Ernest Burniston took over as head of the department in the fall of 1980. Burniston improved the faculty in numerical analysis by hiring Bob Plemmons in 1981 and Moody Chu in 1982 to add to the faculty already here: Tim Kelley, Carl Meyer and Bob White. The increased research in this area led to the establishment of a Center for Research in Scientific Computing (CRSC). The purpose of the CRSC was to foster research in scientific computing and provide a focal point for research in computational science, engineering and applied mathematics. The Center opened in 1986 with Carl Meyer as Director. Bob Plemmons took over from 1988 to 1990. After Plemmons left for Wake Forest in 1990, the Center became inactive. Burniston also made other additions to the faculty: H. Tran and E. Chukwu (control theory, Shearer (PDE's), X. Lin (Dynamical Systems), A Kheyfets and L. Norris (Mathematical Physics), K. Misra and A. Helminck (algebra).
Robert H. Martin, Jr. replaced Burniston as department head in 1989 and served until 1999. Martin wanted to re-activate the Center for research in computational science. He found the ideal candidate in Tom Banks who had an impressive academic record and was an alumnus of NC State. Banks joined State as University Professor and Director of the CRSC in 1992. Dean Whitten, put considerable resources into the Center and the Mathematics Department. The Center grew rapidly in activity and prestige. In 2003 the Center had 50 Associated Faculty and Postdoctoral Researchers and 28 graduate assistants and fellows.
In 1994 the CRSC started the Industrial Applied Mathematics Program (IAMP), which is now co-sponsored by the Mathematics Department. The main goal of the program is to provide substantive non-academic research-related experiences for graduate students, postdoctoral and faculty participants. In the 2000-2001 academic year the program involved approximately 23 projects, 14 faculty, 4 postdocs and 20-25 graduate students.
Martin continued to upgrade the faculty. He made appointments in the fields of numerical analysis (Gremaud, Scroggs, Ibsen), applied mathematics (Smith, Ito, Li) biomathematics (Lubkin), Symbolic Computation (Hoong, Kaltofen) and stochastic processes (Fouque).
In 1997 an external review committee evaluated the mathematics department. The committee concluded: "Our first finding is that the NC State Mathematics Department has improved greatly in research quality and external recognition in recent years. Our second finding is that the mathematics education at NC State is overall of a high quality. The Committee was impressed with the dedication of the department to the educational component of its mission. The fruits of this attention were apparent to the Committee."
In 1999. Burniston agreed to take on a second term as department head while a search for a new head proceeded. It was thought it would only take a year or so to find a new head; it actually took three years.
In 2001 a Financial Mathematics Masters Degree Program was approved. This program involves the departments of Mathematics: Statistics, Agriculture and Resource Economics, Economics, and Industrial Engineering. J. P. Fouque was the first director of the program.
In 2000 a bond referendum was approved to upgrade Harrelson Hall, which had been the home of the mathematics department since 1960. Burniston, together with faculty members M. Shearer, C. Meyer, Dean Solomon and Associate Dean Fornes convinced the administration to use the bond referendum to build a new building. Some outside money was added to the State funds so that the building would house both Mathematics and Statistics. This building is now under construction and should be ready for occupancy in January 1909. During 1999-2002 several new faculty were appointed: Zenkov (Non-linear Control Theory), Medlin (Control Theory), Szanto (symbolic computation), Pang (stochastic systems), Olufsen (biomathematics), Chertok(numerical methods for PDE's).
From 2002-2006, the department went through an number of people serving as head or interim head. In 2002 Bernard Mair was appointed as department head, took a leave of absence in January, 2003, returned in August, 2003 and resigned in June, 2004. J. Fouque served as interim head in Spring 2003 and again in 1904-05. L. Helminck served as interim head in 2005-2006 and was appointed head in 2006.
By almost every measure the faculty was very productive in research. During the calendar year 2003 there were 89 faculty publications and 145 talks given at professional meetings. The new research grants for 2002-2003 academic year totalled $2.9 million and the total research expenditures was $4.05 million for the same period. Although the number of Ph.D. graduates nationwide is rather flat the mathematics department Ph.D. output is growing. There were 10 Ph.D. graduates in calendar year 2002 and 16 in calendar year 2003.
In spite of all of the confusion of department heads the department continued to function. Several new faculty were appointed: Bakalov (Lie Algebras, field theory), Kogan ( DE's and variational problems), Labate (harmonic analysis), Lloyd (Mathematical Biology), Reading (Combinatorics), Koev (Numerical Linear Algebra).
In 2005 Helminck obtained support for REU (Research experience for undergraduates) which brings undergraduates to the campus during the summer to participate in research activities supervised by faculty members. This program has continued each year since. Helminck obtained support for two additional summer programs: REG, a research experience for early graduate student and S-STEM, a university wide program for needy undergraduate and graduate students, in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
The department has always taken its teaching responsibilities seriously. In 2006 the Mathematics Department was selected by the university as the winner of the Departmental Award for Teaching and Learning Excellence. Since 1965 the university has given out outstanding teaching awards to faculty and about 40 mathematical faculty have received these awards. In addition the department has set up assistance and guidance programs to help graduate assistants become good teachers.This program has been praised by many other universities and was specifically pointed out as a program that "could be a model for many other departments" in the report of the External Review Committee in 1997.
The mathematics department has two special professorships: Tom Banks is Distinguished University Professor and Drexel Professor of Mathematics. and Tim Kelley is a Drexel Professor of Mathematics.
Members of the department have won numerous national honors for teaching, research and service. Some of these are listed below.
2001 - Stephen Campbell elected to Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
2003 - Tom Banks won the W.T. and Idalia Ried Prize of SIAM for work in differential equations and control theory.
2006 - Bojko Bakalov was awarded the Hermann Weyl Prize (citation) at the 26th International Colloquium on Group-Theoretical Methods in Physics.
2007 - Jack Silverstein elected as Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
2007 - NCSU alumnus Robert Bryant elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Finally, several conferences honoring faculty members have been held:
On November 9th and 10th, 2002 a Mid Atlantic Algebra Conference was held in honor of the retirement of Kwangil Koh and Jiang Luh. Professor Barbara Osofsky of Rutgers University gave the principal address.
On May 15, 2003 the students, friends and collaborators of Carl Meyer celebrated his 60th birthday with a conference on Matrix Analysis and Applied Linear Algebra .Talks were given by many prominent linear algebraists including Gene Golub, Hans Schneider, Mickey Neumann, Ilse Ipsen and Robert Plemmons.
On February 22-23, 2008. a conference "The Geometry and Analysis of Dynamical Systems", was held at NC State in honor of the 60-th birthdays of Xiao-Biao Lin and Steve Schecter.