In spite of the dominance this year of teaching and administrative issues, the research environment in the Department remains lively as indicated by the number of publications and the extent of collaboration with outside bodies. The Department is in a unique position in the Faculties: it is part of the School of Mathematical Sciences and the research of the Faculties and Institute components of the School are closely integrated. Most members of the Department are part of and play an active role in the various research programs of the SMS. However the strains caused by the increased teaching and administrative load carried by members of the Department is clearly having an effect on the research output of the Department.
The change in the normal size of units from 2000 meant that all our later year courses had to be restructured. With the restructuring of our later year courses we have also arranged the courses into recommended sequences to provide students with a range of options to support other studies. Although the number of units offered has dropped slightly, it is difficult to reduce the numbers further without compromising the range of service course we offer or damaging the honours program. Indeed it can be argued that we need to extend the range of service courses- mathematical biology and computational modelling are areas of growing demand.
Our first year units had been changed recently and the enrolments in these units has been encouraging, with numbers increasing considerably. The increased numbers in first year honours courses was particularly pleasing and preliminary enrolments indicate that the flow on to second year has been good. Although later year numbers dropped as a flow on of low enrolments in previous years, student numbers rose considerably overall. A new development for the University that the Department participated in was the introduction of Extension Courses. The Department made its first year honours courses available to well qualified college students and although the number of students who enrolled was very small, the experience was rewarding for all who participated.
Brian Davies' book , `Exploring Chaos: Theory and Experiment' appeared late in the year. It is based on a popular unit developed by Dr Davies and is being well received- the only review so far published says it 'is a book that ought to be in every physics library (and, of course, in every maths library)'.
Although the number of fourth year honours students in mathematics has remained reasonably stable, the numbers of students in the earlier years of the course have been declining rapidly. The reversal of this trend should flow on to increased numbers in our fourth year honours. We benefit greatly from the contributions of colleagues in other areas of the University, especially those from the Centre for Mathematics and its Applications. We are grateful for their support and the breadth they add to our program. This year two students were awarded University medals and, as usual, our honours students have no difficulty obtaining entry to postgraduate programs in the best universities worldwide. They are also attractive to employers in a wide range of areas. Because of the increasing difficulty of offering high level theoretical courses to small numbers of students we have begun to collaborate with other universities to offer honours level units by videoconferencing. We plan to begin in 2000 by offering units in mathematics jointly with Sydney and in astrophysics jointly with Monash. The technical problems involved in offering such units are considerable, but if successful such units will greatly increase the range of options available to honours students.
In collaboration with Computer Science and other science departments, a start has been made on setting up a program in Computational Science. A core coordinated stream in Scientific Computation has been established within the offerings of the Science Faculty and the next step will be to incorporate computational components that are discipline based (for example in physics or biology).
The structure of the Department will change significantly before teaching begins in 2000. Two staff (Belinda Barnes and Jianke Li) have finished their fixed term appointments and the two longest serving members of the Department (Haralds Petersons and Martin Ward) will have retired. All have made valuable contributions to the teaching and research of the Department and their contributions will be missed. The importance to the Department of new appointments is becoming critical and it is greatly regretted that we will not be able to replace any of those leaving. John Hutchinson was promoted to Professor.
This year has been a difficult but successful year for the Department. The added strains of losing the equivalent of three staff members combined with the financial stringencies imposed upon us will make 2000 an extremely difficult year.