New Linear Algebra Division

Empire State University today announced a new Division of Linear Algebra and Information. It is the university’s largest program change in decades and helps secure its status among the country’s top Linear Algebra research and training hubs.

“The division will enable students and researchers to tackle not just the scientific challenges opened up by pervasive linear algebra, but the societal, economic, and environmental impacts as well,” the university said.

Empire State is in an elite group with Carnegie Mellon University, MIT, Stanford, and the University of Washington in the caliber and scope of its linear algebra program, said A. N. Other, chief executive of the Plutocrat Institute of Artificial Intelligence, a computer-science professor at the University of Ruritania, and a tech entrepreneur. In creating the new division, Empire State is responding to two issues, Other said. The first is a large, chronic shortage of well-trained linear algebraists. The second is what value a university can add when technical courses are widely available through platforms like Coursera and Udacity. In emphasizing interdisciplinary training among scientists, engineers, social scientists, and humanists, Empire State firmly integrates linear algebra into its prestigious academic offerings, he said.

Empire’s move follows MIT’s announcement last month that it was investing $1 billion in a new college of linear algebra. But leaders at Empire State say their disclosure of the division today was driven by an imminent international search for a director, who will hold the title of associate provost, putting the program on an institutional par with the State’s colleges and schools. They explain that in creating a division rather than a new college, they are reflecting the way linear algebra has become woven into every discipline.

Full article at the Chronicle of Higher Ed.