UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE MINUTES
2002:Feb 5, Mar 5, Apr 2, Sept 23, Oct 30, Dec 4
2003: Feb 19, Mar 26, Apr 23, Sept 17, Oct 22
2004: Feb 10
9 March 2004
Members Present: Geller, Larson (chair), Lewis, Pilant, Sivakumar
Absent: Lima-Filho, Stecher
Special Guests: David Manuel
The meeting began at 10:00 a.m. There were six topics put up for discussion: Scholarship Management Plan, New Course Requests, Spring Majors Meeting, Freshman Mentoring Report, Career Fair Report, and Other Business. Below is a summary of each.
Scholarship Management Plan.Dr. Larson informed the committee of the need to create a formal scholarship management plan to administer all scholarships controlled by the Math Department. This is due to the increased number of endowed scholarships, particularily the Koss family scholarships. A subcommittee will be formed with members being Dr. Mike Pilant (chair), Dr. Al Boggess, Dr. David Larson, Rhonda Faust, and two other faculty members to be named later.
New Course Requests. Sue Geller chaired a subcommittee with other members, Paula Cohen, Doug Hensley, and Matthew Papanikolas to develop a course description and syllabus for Math 427 – Introduction to Number Theory. The course will be proposed to run in Spring 2006, to be taught by Paula Cohen and offered every other year. The committee discussed the prerequisites and decided on: Math 220, 222, Jr/Sr status, or consent of instructor. Math 427 will replace the second section of Math 423 that will no longer be needed due to the changes in the BS degree plan. Therefore, this new course should not create any staffing problems. Dr. Lima-Filho is still working on a new Topology course, with the difficult task of selecting a text. Dr. Sivakumar mentioned a new Brooks Cole text as a possibility.
Spring Majors Meeting. Dr. Larson expressed a desire to hold a mandatory math majors meeting either at the end of March or first of April to discuss the new BS degtee plan, announce the offering of Math 409 this summer and possibly brief students on VIGRE course offerings for this summer and possibly next fall.
Freshman Mentoring Report. Mentors on the committee reported an average of three student contacts last semester. The retention figures look promising with only 11 freshman and 1 transfer student changing majors this spring. The committee agreed to continue to mentor their current students at least until the end of the sophomore year while taking on an additional 5-6 students next fall. Additional mentors will be recruited if need be.
Career Fair Report. Feedback from students the week after the Career Fair has been positive. They appreciated having the fair set up in the Blocker Building. On the downside, only about 20% of the 300+ majors were in attendance. Efforts will be stepped up to increase attendance in the future Presentations will take place in Blocker 156 to better facilitate attendance from students. Booths will be set up by companies in the hallways outside Blocker 156.
Other Business. To increase awareness of job opportunities for majors, Dr. Larson put out for discussion the idea of creating a Math 481 – Career Opportunities and Advances in Mathematical Sciences course at the Jr/Sr level. He suggested hosting talks from different career fields periodically throughout the semester, and possibly incorporating some writing into the course so that it could be classified as a 'W' course. Dr. Lewis expressed concern for the academic content of such a course and will provide Dr. Larson with some guidelines from the Faculty Senate on 481 seminar course creation.
The meeting adjourned at 11:30 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Donna L. Hoffman