About BEAM

The mission of BEAM is to create pathways for students from low-income and historically marginalized communities to become scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and computer scientists. Led by staff with these same technical backgrounds, BEAM believes that pathways to STEM careers are created through community, individual support, and access to advanced work that typically lies outside most school curricula. We work to directly support students and to transition them to other supportive enrichment programs that enable their future success.

BEAM's model provides continuous support from middle school through college graduation, including intense academic summer programs for middle school students (after 6th and 7th grade), weekend classes and mentoring, and STEM-focused support through college. Our program includes not just access to learning advanced math but also support finding and applying to other opportunities, including support with college admissions and financial aid. In addition to our academic content, bringing students into community is a key part of our mission and all of our work is designed to support that goal.

BEAM has grown from a small summer program serving 17 students in the summer of 2011 to a year-round, national program, serving 420+ students at six summer program sites and 600+ students in year-round programming in New York City and Los Angeles this school year. In addition, our BEAM National pilot program now reaches over 500 elementary-aged students in seven different states, working to create a new nationwide pathway modeled on our local work.

With our recent strategic plan, our team has committed to transforming the organization from a successful startup to a more mature and scalable organization that can drive change across the country.

About the role

This summer, be part of a transformative experience for students from low-income and historically marginalized communities with exceptional potential in math.

Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM), a project of the Art of Problem Solving Initiative, Inc., is seeking enthusiastic mathematics instructors for a month-long residential summer camp, BEAM Summer Away. This camp is a foundational piece of our mission as it represents the beginning of a 10-year support commitment (Pathway Program) for our students. At BEAM Summer Away, faculty teach their own courses to curious middle school students from low-income and historically marginalized communities and help us to build a community of math-lovers. Ideal Faculty candidates include college or university professors with strong teaching backgrounds and middle or high school teachers with strong mathematics backgrounds. Junior faculty positions are also available for graduate students and early career teachers.

What You’ll Do:

As a Faculty member, you are a key component of the structure of our program. It is important to us that students are presented with challenging mathematical topics and that they are at the center of the math that happens in the classroom. Our students are inquisitive and enjoy working hands-on, discovering deep mathematics to grow as mathematicians. In a BEAM classroom, students work to discover patterns, connect with each other over their discoveries, make conjectures, and share arguments in favor of or against those conjectures with classmates and their instructor. You’ll support that by:

Teaching interesting mathematics courses to engaged middle school students. Courses at BEAM Summer Away can be:

Pure math such as number theory, combinatorics, graph theory, or logic;
Applied math such as circuit design, programming, astrophysics, or genetics; or
Problem solving, either Strategic Math Thinking or Solving Big Problems

Preparing class materials that allow students to do mathematics (rather than hear about mathematics)
Leading classes designed to provoke student curiosity and inquiry; ideally, this would be done via activities built to allow students to explore/develop the math directly through their work (as opposed to copying examples and applying them) and where students are given time and space to productively struggle and to get through that struggle
Supporting student learning, growth, and love of mathematics by being an engaged member of the community during camp, including but not limited to:

Supporting evening free time, independent study, relays, and other camp activities typically at least 4 days a week
Eating meals with students and colleagues to support community building and fostering strong relationships between staff and students
Attending a field trip (such as a hiking trip, field day, or day at Six Flags!)

Attending staff meetings (typically 2-3 times a week) that include time for building community amongst summer staff, engaging in professional development, and aligning on upcoming priorities

BEAM Summer Away is a camp, so it isn't a typical office or teaching job, but we think that's one of the great things about working with us! Our faculty live onsite and enjoy meals and evening free time with their students: this fosters a strong, positive relationship between enthusiastic learners and faculty who get to share their love of mathematics with them each day.

Who You Are:

Strong candidates will work well on a close-knit team and will be able to bring unique curriculum perspectives to the program. Experience with mathematics curriculum design for middle school audiences, with students from low-income or historically marginalized backgrounds or at Title 1 schools, and with other extracurricular outreach programs (such as math summer programs or math circles, MATHCOUNTS, programming workshops, or similar) are all beneficial. We will provide mentorship, textbooks, and other resources as needed. Beyond the classroom, we expect that faculty will create a fun and inclusive community with the students.

We’re interested in hiring people who are committed to growth. Faculty often return to work with us for multiple summers, and the feedback we get is that working for us allows them to identify and tackle growth opportunities that translate to their year-round jobs. We believe that we have as much to learn from our students as they do from us!

Details:

Location: Faculty live on a college campus near NYC or LA with the students, counselors, and other program staff for the duration of the program.

Program dates:

The CA dates (for our LA students) will be June 20 - July 17, 2024
The NY dates (for our NYC students) will be July 4 - July 31, 2024
All BEAM Summer Away Faculty are also required to attend a pre-program Course Planning Training to be held over Zoom on May 4th. Asynchronous materials to complete before the live Zoom meeting will be available in late April.

Compensation: $6,000 for Faculty for the time that the program runs. We will also provide room, board, and a transportation stipend. We do have a Senior Faculty position with $7,800 compensation for candidates who have grown with us over multiple summers or are exceptionally strong fits for the role. Eligibility for the Senior Faculty position will be assessed during the Faculty hiring process.

Applicants must be authorized to work for any employer in the US. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment Visa at this time. International graduate students able to obtain CPT or OPT are welcome to apply.

Application Process and Deadline:

The initial step is to submit your application, including resumé and responses to a few short application questions, via our online portal. When your application is complete, we will follow up with next steps.

Our process will include submitting a course proposal that outlines the objectives and a sample lesson from a course you would like to teach at BEAM this summer. We believe in the importance of demonstrated ability and providing opportunities that allow candidates to demonstrate relevant skills for the role throughout our process. For more specifics on what we’re looking for in this next stage, you can refer to this document. The final step of our process is a final interview with the hiring lead for Faculty positions.

For more information and the application, contact us at Bruce@beammath.org or visit our website at beammath.org/beam-summer-away-faculty-info. For information on working at our non-residential summer day camps in both Los Angeles and New York City, check out our BEAM Discovery postings!

We are excited to announce that applications are now being accepted on a rolling basis until positions are staffed. This means that there is no fixed deadline for submitting your application, and we will review applications as they are received. While there is no specific deadline, we encourage you to apply as soon as possible, as positions may fill up quickly.

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Given the length of the program, every day counts. We ask that applicants be available for the duration of the program, although we understand that unexpected circumstances that may arise during the program itself. If you have questions, please reach out.

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Did you attend any mathematics and/or teaching conferences this year? For example JMM, NCTM, SACNAS, Mathfest, USTARS, etc. *

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If we invite you to the next step, we’ll ask you for more information on what you would cover and what your class would look like. Right now we’re just getting a sense of the math interests you’d want to share with middle-schoolers. This can be just a paragraph; it need not be long or complete.

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