The Employment Center Celebrates 50 Years

A special historical exhibit marking the 50th Anniversary of the Employment Register was on display in the lobby outside the Registration area. Over the course of the meetings many people browsed the display—which included applications and feedback from years past, photographs of job-seekers and employers, charts showing employment over the decades, and a "Where are they now?" section--and a few mathematicians found themselves in the historical exhibit!

Started by the AMS and MAA in December, 1953 (later joined by SIAM), the original Employment Register was conducted by J. Sutherland Frame, who managed it with the help of other volunteers (the Joint Committee on Employment Opportunities, JCEO) until 1959. At that time, it consisted of four looseleaf binders filled with job announcements which were passed from meeting to meeting. The idea of an interview scheduling process came up in the 1960s, and the original computer programming was done by a JCEO member, D. R. Morrison. In the job crunch of the early 1970s, the print publication Employment Information in the Mathematical Sciences was created to help broadcast job openings, and so the Employment Register evolved from its beginnings as an actual paper register to being the onsite meeting place for employers and applicants at the Joint Meetings, which it is today under its new name, the Employment Center.

Over the years, applicants and employers have had some complaints about each other, and also complaints about the room, the noise, the bells, the lighting, the chairs, the schedule, etc. But for 50 years they have sat through numerous useful and less useful chats, always with the idea in mind that the right colleague may appear on the other side of the table any moment now, to form a connection that will be productive for decades. This exhibit chronicled the ups and downs of an always difficult process, and included snapshots of the careers of some individuals in the years following their Employment Register experience. The Employment Center 50 year retrospective exhibit was conceived by Diane Boumenot (Manager, AMS Membership & Programs) and designed by Stephanie Heiser (a student at the Art Institute of Boston).

Meanwhile, the 2003 Employment Center—managed by Diane Boumenot (Manager of Membership and Programs) with support from several staff from various departments of the AMS--had 432 applicants and 125 employers participating. The figures represent a ratio less favorable to the applicants than last year: both the computer-scheduled interview area and employer-scheduled interview area were busy.

--- Diane Boumenot and Colleen Rose, AMS Membership and Programs

  More highlights of the 2003 Joint Mathematics Meetings