AMS-Simons Research Enhancement Grants for PUI Faculty Committee

General Description

Committee is standing
Number of members is at least 15, appt. by President
Term is three years

Charge to Committee

The committee reviews and recommends awardees of the AMS-Simons Research Enhancement Grants for PUI (Primarily Undergraduate Institution)Faculty.

Principal Activities

The Chair’s Role

The committee chair shall be responsible for ensuring the review and process is completed on time and within the Society’s policies and procedures. The chair shall facilitate and document the review and selection process, but, if possible, should not score or vote on nominees unless needed as a tiebreaker. The chair may take part in discussion of the nominees, but should be mindful of their primary role of facilitator. The chair will work in collaboration with the AMS Staff Mathematician throughout the process.

Reporting

The Chair of the committee shall complete the chair report by providing conflict of interest disclosures, the committee’s recommendations, and a description of why the recipients were recommended. The report should include a list of recommended applications, a list of applications that are not recommended, and an ordered waitlist. The targeted numbers in each category will be communicated by an AMS Staff Mathematician based on the budget for the current year. The Chair and AMS Staff Mathematician will review these lists together to finalize awards. AMS staff will submit a summary report to the AMS Council.

Note to the Chair

In support of the AMS Mission Statement to "advance the status of the profession of mathematics, encouraging and facilitating full participation of all individuals," the committee should ensure that its processes and recommendations reflect an equitable selection of the highest quality researchers from a variety of institutions.

Committee chairs should be informed, at the beginning of each fiscal period, of the budget of their committees and cautioned to remain within the budget. Such items as travel reimbursement, accommodations, and meals for guests of any kind fall within these budgets. For the purpose of archiving the committee activities, the Secretary maintains a central file system for archiving committee records. Committee Chairs are asked to submit committee records on a yearly basis. Chairs can submit material at their discretion, and some materials that they may wish to provide are meeting minutes, agenda, and emails. Confidential material should be noted, so that it can be handled in a confidential manner.

AMS Staff Mathematician's Role

1.Serve as the liaison between the committee and the various AMS staff tasked with committee deliverables

2.Coordinate logistics of committee meetings and communications Communicate the targeted numbers in the categories of recommended and waitlisted applications. AMS recommends the committee has at least one conference call to discuss nominees and scoring. Navigating the AMS application review system

3.Assign eligible applications to committee panelists in consult with the Chair

4.May take part in discussion of the nominees

5.Work in collaboration with the Chair to finalize recipients from the committee’s recommendations

6.Work in collaboration with the Chair to submit requisite reports and documentation to the AMS Council

Committee's Activities and Responsibilities

Each application will be considered by at least two panelists and assigned both a qualitative measure (e.g., highly competitive, competitive, not competitive, or ineligible) and a quantitative measure (from a rubric). To support the evaluation of applications, the President will appoint at least 15 mathematicians, representative of the diverse application pool this grant program seeks to achieve. Should the number of applications received be greater than 110, the President will appoint additional members to the committee.

The committee will finalize recommendations of recipients, aiming to support the widest range of PUIs as completely feasible.

Timeline:

Submission Deadline: Applications are due on the third Monday in March.
Assignment of Applications: Up to 10 days after close of the submission portal
Committee Review Period: 7 weeks after receiving assignment
Chair & AMS Staff Mathematician Finalize and Communicate Decisions to Applicants: 14 weeks after close of submission portal

The committee will meet collectively, at least twice: once at the beginning of the review cycle and once at end of the review cycle. It is expected that the work of this committee can be accomplished by email and videoconference.

The committee will be responsible for disclosing conflicts of interest and agreeing to keeping this process confidential.

Conflicts of Interest

The following connections between committee members and nominees are conflicts of interest:
1.Residing at the same institution within the past four years,
2.Collaborations (co-authors, post-docs, etc.) published within the past four years,
3.Financial via direct chain of command and/or participation in tenure, promotion, salaryor forms of support by either party,
4.Member of the same center or sharing any funding contract,
5.Relationship due to immediate blood relation, current or prior marriage or civil union,
6.Current or prior students, advisees, and advisors,
7.Application or participant in the application package.

Immediately after applications are available for review, committee members should review the list of nominees and disclose to the entire committee any conflicts of interest as described above. The committee should agree on a response based on the level of the conflict. Recusal from scoring and discussion of the person with whom a committee member has a conflict is likely appropriate for most cases. In more serious cases, a new committee member may need to be identified. In less serious cases, disclosure to the committee may be considered sufficient. The chair is responsible for documenting the details of each conflict and the committee’s unanimous response in the chair report.

If the chair has a conflict as described above, they should immediately disclose it to the committee. The AMS Staff liaison will step in to head review of that application depending on the level of conflict. The committee minus the chair will vote to determine if the chair must recuse themselves from that application.

Committee members are encouraged to disclose to each other any other formal or informal connections to nominees that are not described above, as the list is not exhaustive. These situations do not necessarily require a response, but open disclosure promotes an environment of transparency across the committee.

Confidentiality and Information Security

Individuals serving on a committee must not disclose information about the committee’s business to individuals outside of the selection process. Committee business includes the committee’s deliberations, the number of applications reviewed, conflicts of interest, and other sensitive information. The recommended recipients are not official until approved by the Chair and AMS Staff Mathematician using approved AMS policies, and the recipient has been notified.

Statement on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
(as adopted by the April 2019 Council)

The American Mathematical Society is committed to promoting and facilitating equity, diversity and inclusion throughout the mathematical sciences. For its own long-term prosperity as well as that of the public at large, our discipline must connect with and appropriately incorporate all sectors of society. We reaffirm the pledge in the AMS Mission Statement to "advance the status of the profession of mathematics, encouraging and facilitating full participation of all individuals," and urge all members to conduct their professional activities with this goal in mind.

Other Activities

In 2013 The Council adopted the following general principle:

For any program, fellowship, prize or award that has a maximum period of eligibility after receipt of the doctoral degree, the selection committee may use discretion in making exceptions to the limit on eligibility for candidates whose careers have been interrupted for reasons such as family or health.

Authorization

01/2023 Council approved grant program

Past Members

A list of current and past members is available here:
http://www.ams.org/about-us/governance/committees/simonspui-past.html

AMS Program Webpage

https://www.ams.org/profession/opportunities/ams-simons-pui-research