Our courses are taught by faculty members with many years of experience teaching graduate students like those in our program as well as by highly-qualified industry practitioners, valued for their theoretical and practical knowledge of the material. These courses have an excellent reputation: not only are they taken by our masters' students but also by doctoral students in mathematics, computer science, economics, engineering, physics, statistics, and other fields. Our program was recently ranked in the top 20 nationally, a group which includes Carnegie-Mellon, Chicago, Columbia, NYU, Princeton, and Stanford. Tuition for our program is high relative to other graduate programs at Rutgers. Therefore student expectations are justifiably also high and so we ask you to please review the following guidelines carefully. Naturally, if you have any questions, please ask as we are glad to offer advice or assistance.
Class Policies
Academic integrity
Our program places a very strong emphasis on academic integrity. Our academic integrity code explains our view and contains links to the University policy. We cannot emphasize enough how important this issue is for everyone: students, instructors, employers, and our department. Please carefully read our guidelines on how to prevent academic dishonesty before your class commences. Please take the time to explain the main points to our students on the first day of class and at other key times during the semester (such as prior to exams or assignment of class projects). Serious incidents have occurred in the past and it is far better for all concerned to prevent them from happening.
Incomplete grades
The Graduate School-New Brunswick has a policy on incomplete (IN) grades. We advise instructors to adopt a stricter policy due to our experience with abuse of incomplete grades and recommend that you only give these grades in genuine emergencies. Under performing students occasionally remain enrolled after the deadline to withdraw with a W grade and later attempt to pressure an instructor to given them an incomplete grade, often just before or even after the final exam. Please do not provide incomplete grades in these circumstances, as they undermine exam integrity, circumvent deadlines for official withdrawal, and are unfair to students who withdrew by the deadline and lost some or all of their tuition as a consequence. Instead, seek to eliminate these situations by advising students in difficulty earlier in the semester.
Administrative Matters for Part-time Lecturers
Offer letters and payroll
All part-time lecturers and their graders and course assistants should have received a formal offer letter describing our compensation offer and their responsibilities. Please be sure that you have accepted to ensure that you will be paid on time. You will need to complete an I-9 and other forms to place you on payroll: this process is handled by Mayka Benitez with the help of our Sr Program Coordinator Supervisor.NetID and rci email addresses
Please be sure to set up your rci email address. Your chosen "NetID" (whatever precedes @rci.rutgers.edu) and associated password (not the password associated with your math email address, though you can choose the same one if you wish) authenticates your access to Rutgers secure e-services, including class rosters, Sakai, our software portal, and our library. Please contact Risa Hynes to obtain your math email address and if you have any questions about how to obtain your NetID and scarlet email address.RUID
You are eligible to obtain a Rutgers ID card (required to check out books, use the gym, etc). Please contactour Sr Program Coordinator Supervisor for instructions on how to obtain your RUID.Contact information
Please be sure that you have provided our Sr Program Coordinator Supervisor with your other email addresses (personal and work) and phone numbers (home, work, mobile).Department of Mathematics information page
Please visit the Mathematics Departmental Handbook for additional information commonly requested by new instructors.Class Administration
Class notification of delays or cancellations
If you cannot avoid being late for a class (which means any time after the scheduled start) or have to cancel class, it is critical that the class be notified immediately. If cancellation occurs before the class day, all students and any course assistants should be emailed (using the Sakai Mail or Announce tools or a RAMS class emailing list if you do not use Sakai) and the Sr Program Coordinator Supervisor notified by phone or email and asked to place a cancellation notice on the classroom door. Remember that if you do not immediately receive a copy of your class announcement, then neither did the students. Always select "high priority" when creating announcements to ensure they are emailed as well as posted on Sakai. If the cancellation occurs on the day of the class or you will be delayed, you cannot rely on email alone to notify the students. If the class is held during the evening, be aware that business hours in the Department of Mathematics are 8:30 AM until 4:30 PM, so a staff member will not be available to assist after 4:30 PM. You should have exchanged mobile phone numbers with your course assistants before the start of the semester, so you can ask them to be present in the class until you arrive, if just delayed, or announce a cancellation. If your course assistant also commutes or does not normally attend class, you should consider exchanging mobile phone numbers with a responsible student who is enrolled in the class. (Our office can assist in selecting such a student.) If a class is canceled or significantly interrupted, you must arrange to make up the class meeting.Sakai course management system
Students and most instructors and their teaching assistances find Sakai to be a very convenient way to distribute class materials and syllabus; homework assignments, grades, and solutions; exam grades and solutions; class announcements; and end-of-semester instructor evaluations. Sakai is simple for instructors or their assistants to set up and maintain, requires no knowledge of html, and can be edited and updated using any web browser. We strongly encourage adoption of Sakai by all instructors teaching courses in our program.Class meeting times
Evening classes are normally scheduled to meet 6:40-9:30 PM. Plan to be in the classroom ten minutes before class and twenty minutes before class if you need to set up any technology. Allow extra commuting time on your first day. Double check your class meeting time and location as listed on the university's Schedule of Classes and our Office Hour Page and consult our travel directions page if needed.Do not end class early. One ten minute break during a 2 hour, 50 minute class is standard, though two shorter breaks, between five and ten minutes, may be more practical. If you are a part-time lecturer, with limited on-campus office hours, students will be even more inclined than usual to use the breaks or period before class to ask questions but please do not lengthen the breaks or delay the class start to try to accommodate them at those times.
Enhanced classroom facilities
Our courses are normally scheduled to meet in enhanced classrooms containing a data port for laptop connection, a data projector, and screen. Some, but not all, rooms also have a sound system and wireless microphone and a desktop computer. If any technical issues arise on during your class, enhanced classroom support staff are available on call until 10:00PM.Software
Licensed software commonly used by our instructors is available for download from Rutgers' software portal, including Mathematica, MATLAB (plus all toolboxes), Office, Visual Studio, and others. If you need CDs or DVDs to install some programs (such as MATLAB), please contact us.On-campus office hours
Regular faculty members normally schedule at least three office hours per week. Remember that many of our students work part or full time, so try to schedule office hours at a time working students have some chance of being able to attend. Please be aware of our typical program course meeting times when scheduling your office hours and try to stagger them, if necessary, to avoid a conflict. Office hours for most courses taken by our students and contact information for instructors and assistants are posted on our website. Students should be notified of any office hour changes or cancellations, just as they would with class cancellations.Off-campus office hours
If their commute does not permit another solution, part-time lecturers typically schedule an office hour just before class, either in the part-time lecturers' office (Hill 101) in the Hill Center (ask the Sr Program Coordinator Supervisor for a key) or a classroom. Part-time lecturers with limited on-campus office hours should be prepared to try and answer more questions than usual by email or phone. You may also wish to consider scheduling weekly Skype conference calls or online chat sessions.Syllabus, grading policy, and class attendance
As we recommend that students prepare for each class in advance and understand the overall structure of the course, please provide a written syllabus at the beginning of the semester, and advise students of our MSMF Class Policies. Your syllabus must include the midterm date as well as a date range for the final exam. Also provide a written grading scheme and class attendance policy. We recommend the following grading schemes:Core courses
- 5% attendance. Use a Excel spreadsheet roster to develop a sign-in sheet and periodically check by calling names to prevent students from signing in on behalf of their friends.
- 10% homework. Regardless of our warnings, students will copy homework from fellow students or from previous years' solutions. Rather than issue warnings to students to not copy homework solutions from other sources (generally futile), emphasize to students that homework will have little material impact on their final grade and urge your graders and assistants to provide detailed feedback but grade leniently.
- 40% midterm exams (two 80 minute exams, in class).
- 45% final exam (3 hours, in class).
- 5% attendance. Use a Excel spreadsheet roster to develop a sign-in sheet and periodically check by calling names to prevent students from signing in on behalf of their friends.
- 15% homework. Assignments for electives may vary more from year to year, so more weight can be given.
- 40% midterm exams (two 80 minute exams, in class).
- 40% final project (3 hours, in class).
