by Jeremy Hunt
Daily Lobo
David Madigan met with five students in the SUB on Friday to tell them why he'd be a good dean for the College of Arts and Sciences.
Madigan got his bachelor's in mathematical sciences and Ph.D. in statistics at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
He said he came to the United States from Ireland in 1990 and taught at the University of Washington as an assistant professor, becoming an associate professor in 1996.
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Madigan worked off and on for research corporations, including AT&T Labs and Soliloquy Inc.
In 2001, Madigan was hired as a professor in the statistics department at Rutgers University. He was director of the Institute of Biostatistics from 2003 to 2005.
Madigan became dean of Rutger's Physical and Mathematical Sciences department in 2005.
Madigan said he was interested in UNM because he likes New Mexico. He said he loves the landscape and has visited Santa Fe and Taos many times.
Madigan said he is excited by UNM's diversity but would like to make the faculty more representative of the student body.
Between 1995 and 2005, Madigan was the 36th most cited mathematician in the world.
The Daily Lobo asked Madigan questions about his experience and plans if chosen for the position.
Daily Lobo: What would you do to integrate departments and promote interdisciplinary study?
David Madigan: Try to maintain open communication between all the schools and all the colleges; emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary funding. We have to become more interdisciplinary - the kinds of problems society wants to solve are complex and interdisciplinary - try to provide more incentives for faculty to become involved in interdisciplinary research.
DL: How would you ensure the success and satisfaction of faculty, staff and students under your leadership?
DM: By talking to them all the time - open communication. I believe that you can't be dean or head of a significant unit in a research university sitting in your office. Open communication is critically important. You need high bandwidth of communication.
DL: What would you do to improve graduation and retention rates?
DM: That's a much more difficult question. Mentorship has to be a crucial part of the process. There's no replacement for working one-on-one with students. It's a challenge when you have many more students than there are faculty members. I've been involved in a pilot program using graduate students, and basically paying graduate students a small amount of money to work one-one-one with undergraduate students at crucial junctures. I think that has to be a part of the puzzle. There's no magic bullet. It's not like there's one thing you can do that is suddenly going to increase the graduation rate. But I think there are many things you could do to chip away at the problem. There are a lot of reasons why people drop out.
DL: How would you balance needs of undergraduate students with the needs of graduate students?
DM: I don't see a conflict there, or a zero-sum game. I think it's very important for faculty members to be involved with undergraduates and graduates. I'm uncomfortable with faculty members only teaching graduate students. I think all faculty members should be involved with undergraduate and graduate instruction. That's probably not answering the question.
DL: What experience do you have that prepared you to run a college as large and diverse as the College of Arts and Sciences?
DM: I've been dean of physical and mathematical sciences at Rutgers (University) for - this is my third year. It's less complex, but it's not so simple. There's 250 faculty, half a dozen departments and a bunch of centers and institutes. And I'm deeply involved in the arts and sciences at Rutgers, which is 800 faculty. I'm comfortable with these kinds of environments.
DL: What is the biggest challenge facing the College of Arts and Sciences, and how would you address it?
DM: Resources. It's a multifaceted thing. Obviously, working with the state to make sure the state understands the University is obviously a critical part of it. Increasing research funding; increasing training grants. And critically, fundraising. I'm a big believer in getting faculty involved with fundraising. Also, reaching out to local industry and corporations is a big part of it. You asked me the most important thing, and I think resources are the most important.
The second most important thing, and I didn't really understand it until today as I was
learning about it, is the diversity of faculty does not - the faculty are not representative of the student body. That's a huge issue.
DL: What would you do to address that?
DM: I think part of it is financial. There needs to be funding set aside for diversity hiring. Another part of the puzzle is working directly with departments to improve their efforts to enhance the applicant pool. In other words, you can't hire a diverse faculty unless you get diverse applicants for faculty positions. That doesn't happen by accident. I think it's not to be underestimated, departments having active efforts to reach out to places to attract diverse faculty.
