Navigating the Beginning of Your Career: Revisiting the 2023 STaR Summer Institute

The AMTE STaR Program supports the development of early career mathematics education faculty through opportunities to network and learn from leaders in the field. The STaR Program is dependent on contributions from individuals, foundations, and professional organizations for its continued operation. Contributions can be made online using the STaR Fellows Donation Page.

 

In June, the cohort of 23 new Service Teaching and Research (STaR) in Mathematics Education Fellows, STaR Program mentors, and AMTE leadership convened in Park City, Utah for the 2023 STaR Summer Institute. The 5-day annual event serves as a centerpiece of the AMTE STaR Program, an early career induction program for faculty in mathematics education, supporting Fellows in the areas of service, teaching, research, and leadership. The program provides Fellows with opportunities to network with other new mathematics education faculty beyond the participant's home institution, as well as senior and mid-career mathematics education faculty, who serve as mentors. 

In designing the details of the institute, the STaR Program Committee aimed to maximize initiative and interactions among the Fellows. To do this they provided guidelines and allowed the Fellows opportunities to lead and inform the development of the experiences they wanted or hoped to have during the STaR Summer Institute.

“I’ve always enjoyed finding ways to support colleagues, and especially emerging scholars and teacher educators,” said Matt Felton-Koestler, AMTE Associate Vice President for the STaR Fellows Program and a professor at Ohio University. “I love the energy and excitement and helping faculty develop their ideas.”

Woven across the institute were themes of service, teaching, and research, along with informal time for networking and collaboration. This was done, in part, through formal presentations on topics from STaR mentors, as well as choices of “fireside chats,” led by STaR mentors, on topics such as grants, promotion and tenure, work-life balance, and being a scholar of color.

The opportunity to learn closely from the STaR mentoring staff, “demystified a lot about our profession,” according to Juan M. Gerardo, 2023 STaR Fellow and an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati. “From changes we can make to humanize our methods courses, to navigating tenure and promotion, as well as the grant-seeking process, the wisdom shared by the senior faculty was powerful,” said Gerardo.

Throughout the institute, STaR Fellows worked in groups around common teaching and research interests, as well as manuscript review groups. For many Fellows, this was an opportunity to advance their own work and develop new collaborations. Past Fellows have reported these collaborations lasting for several years after the institute, leading to productive and sustained research teams and teaching collaboratives.

For some, this is a needed source of connection to others in the mathematics education community. “As the sole math ed faculty member at my institution it was great to engage in conversations about teaching and research and find colleagues with similar interests—something I have sorely missed since my doctoral program,” said Siddhi Desai, 2023 STaR Fellow and an assistant professor of mathematics education at Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Whether through the formal agenda for the institute or the informal interactions, the key to the STaR Program is the development of a network to support scholars in navigating the beginning of their careers.

“The STaR program normalized many of the questions and challenges I'm encountering as an early career faculty member and offered strategies for working through them,” said Rosie DeFino, 2023 STaR Fellow and an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse,

“I think the Fellows appreciated the time to share their challenges and triumphs with others and to learn new approaches,” said Dorothy Y. White, STaR mentor and a professor of mathematics education at the University of Georgia, who will also be delivering the Judith Jacobs Lecture at the 2024 AMTE Conference.

Supporting more than 430 early career mathematics education faculty since its inception in 2010, the STaR Program now has former Fellows serving in various leadership roles—at their institution, in their profession, and in the STaR Program itself. For Jen Wolfe, a 2010 STaR Fellow and an associate professor of mathematics education at the University of Arizona, serving as a mentor for the STaR Program was a “full circle moment.”

“As someone who went through STaR and benefited from the collaborations and friendships, I was eager to continue to learn from and with up-and-coming early career mathematics teacher educators,” said Wolfe.

The 2023 STaR Fellows cohort and staff will meet as a group prior to the 2024 AMTE Conference in Orlando, Florida, to reconnect and to report on the progress of their collaborative work.

Applications for the 2024 STaR Fellows cohort were due in November. Each year, the number of STaR Fellows able to be supported is dependent on contributions from individuals, foundations, and professional organizations. Contributions can be made online using the STaR Fellows Donation Page. Note that AMTE is a not-for-profit organization, so your gift may be tax deductible. If you have questions, please reach out to AMTE STaR Fundraising Chair, Matthew Campbell.