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Tri-Campus Mathematics Education Meeting 2025

This year, I organized a meeting for people interested in mathematics education at the University of Toronto. It was a tri-campus event and we even invited a few friends from York University¹. The computer science teaching faculty have had an annual meeting for ages. Last year, Mike Pawliuk ran a tri-campus meeting at UTM. In this note, I collect up a couple insights I had while organizing.

• Overall, organizing is quite simple.
  • It’s probably five hours or so spread out over the term.
  • Don’t let the organization intimidate you.
• Ask for people’s availability early.
  • Consider asking in February. Academics need tonnes of notice.
  • Collect up a list of e-mails by browsing the departmental websites.
    • “If you can’t make it work, or are not interested, could you suggest some people to invite?”
  • Consider inviting: UTStG, UTM, UTSC, OISE, York, TMU.
  • Try to get new CLTAs, LTAs, and teaching post-docs out so that they can meet their crews.
  • Propose a few dates and have people pick from those dates.
  • If you know people personally, e-mail them personally.
    • “Hey! We haven’t talked in forever. I’m organizing this thing, and I would love to see you there. How are the chinchillas?”
  • Avoid major mathematics education conferences: CMS and CMESG.
  • April and May are write-offs due to exams and post-semester decompression. August is a write-off because of pre-term ramp up and travel.
• Be courteous to your guests.
  • Ask, in advance, for people willing to introduce their departments.
  • Follow up by e-mail to remind the introducers that they’ll be introducing.
    • “Thanks for offering to introduce your department. This isn’t a big task: just talk about the department, what’s novel, what’s challenging, and where y’all are headed next year.”
  • Follow up by e-mail with people who offer to give talks.
    • “Thank you for offering to give a short talk. We’ve put it in the schedule. Do you have any tech needs?”
  • On the day of, remind people that they’ll be introducing and giving talks.
• Get information about parking at the venue as some people will drive in.
• If you’re running short talks (10, 15, 20 minutes) then be firm with the time.
• Your departmental administrative staff can work wonders.
  • They booked the rooms.
  • They got coffee, cookies, fruit trays, and meals.
  • Be sure to ask for chilled water.
  • Either do a buffet style lunch where everyone gets the same options, or put everyone’s lunch in a separate labelled box.
  • They can make a nice poster and way-finding signs for you.
• Post little signs telling people where to go. This campus might be new to them.
• The event requires almost no supplies.
  • Whiteboard, podium computer, and projector.
  • Tape dispenser.
  • Markers.
  • Name tags. (“Hello, my name is…”)
  • Chart paper.
  • Letter paper.
• The schedule doesn’t need to be complicated.
  • Gather and welcome.
  • Campus walk.
  • Introduce everyone.
  • Updates from the departments.
  • Lunch.
  • Short talks (15~20 minutes each).
  • Plan the next session.
  • Group photo.
• Getting webspace continues to be problematic.
  • UToronto webspace is tied to UTorIDs.
  • Want multiple people to be able to access and edit the page.
  • Setup a wiki? Get Wordpress site?
  • Most people, even professors, are not technical wizards.

Published: Jun 26, 2025 @ 14:45.
Last Modified: Jun 27, 2025 @ 15:29.

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