UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES COMMITTEE MINUTES

2001:Apr 10, Sept 12, Nov 13

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, Mar 9, Apr 13, Oct 12 , Nov 9, Dec 7,

2005: Jan 27, Mar 10, Oct 26, Dec 9

2006: Feb 15 , Apr 5 , Oct 25 , Nov 15

30 January 2007

Members Present: Allen, Geller, Larson (chair), Petrova, Rojas, K. Smith, Stecher

Ex-Officio Members Present: DeBlassie

Special Guest:  David Kerr

The meeting began at 2:30 p.m. There were four topics put up for discussion: Topics – Aggieland Saturday, Freshman Majors Meeting this Spring, Changing Math 222 to Math 322, Continuation of Mentor Program. Below is a summary of each.

Topics-

Aggieland Saturday. This year's event will be held on Saturday, February 17th from 9:00am - 3:00pm.  The department will have resource tables set up in both the MSC and the Chemistry Building during the day to greet prospective students, hand out flyers, and receive contact information.  Volunteers will be solicited from both undergraduate students and faculty.  David Kerr will be the departments keynote speaker at 9:00am in the Chemistry Building.  The talk is titled, "Search Engines, Matrices and Random Walks: The Mathematics Behind Google."  Math majors will be encouraged to attend and all students signed up to attend will receive an email announcement of the talk.  Drs. Rojas and Kerr will work together to create a new poster and a video slide show to display at the resource tables.  This event has been a good recruiting tool in past years and with over 2,000 signed up to attend this year, it should be a successful recruiting event this year.

Freshman Majors Meeting in Spring.  Committee agreed that having a meeting for the freshman is a good idea and a date in late February or early March will be selected.  The agenda will be similar to the one from 2005, with a main speaker, problem solving contest, prizes, etc.

Changing Math 222 to Math 322.  Dr. Allen presented the rationale behind his request to change Math 222 to Math 322.  The first reason is that if the course is a 3xx number, then its classified as junior level and the subvention from the state comes back to the University at a higher level than currently.  The second reason is that with the new 3xx number our math major course will be equal to or higher in theory than the Engineering version of the course, Math 304.  Also, if the course is changed to 300 level, it will make it less likely that transfer students can get credit for it from junior colleges since it will be a junior level course here.  Not all junior colleges teach this course, so it should not affect that many incoming tranfer students.  Dr. Geller suggested that the course number be changed to Math 323 so that it will be in line with its 400 level equivalent, Math 423.  The committee agreed to use the Math 323 number and pursue the change in course number.

Continuation of Mentor Program.  The committee decided to have Donna Hoffman remind current mentors to contact their mentees at least once per month and to assign current freshman a mentor from the list of current menors, with their consent to take on a few more mentees.  Dr. Allen will work on reviving his e-mentoring software project that he started last fall and see about trying that venue as a way to mentor students via FAQs and information posted online.

 
The meeting adjourned at 3:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Donna L. Hoffman