Thursday, July 17

10:30 AM-12:30 PM
Tresidder Union, Cypress Room

MS56
The Mathematical Sciences and Their Applications Throughout the Undergraduate Curriculum: An NSF Initiative Whose Time Is Now

The ability of students to succeed in today's technically oriented work environment is increasingly dependent on their understanding of the mathematical and computational sciences and their applications in practical situations. In fact, these sciences have become essential in undergraduate education for all students, including those preparing to be scientists, engineers, technicians, teachers, leaders in business and government, and, more generally, scientifically literate citizens.

Through a National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative*, seven projects involving nearly forty institutions are developing interdisciplinary materials and teaching approaches for undergraduate mathematical sciences education in context with the other undergraduate disciplines. In carrying out the projects, mathematicians are joining faculties of other disciplines in the development effort. This initiative is part of a broad NSF strategy to promote comprehensive and systemic reform of undergraduate science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education.

The results of these projects are expected to serve as national models for better integrating the mathematical sciences into other disciplines and the methods of those disciplines into the mathematical sciences. Representatives of these projects will report on progress to date and discuss some of the ways in which mathematical sciences teaching and learning are being improved and some of the issues that are being considered.

*Mathematical Sciences and Their Applications Throughout the Undergraduate Curriculum, jointly supported by NSF's Division of Undergraduate Education and Division of Mathematical Sciences.

Organizers: Lee L. Zia, University of New Hampshire; and I. Edward Block, SIAM

10:30 Creating, Sustaining, and Transporting an Interdisciplinary Course -- A Case Study from Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, UPenn
Dennis DeTurck, University of Pennsylvania
11:00 Mathematical Sciences for the Non-Math/Science/Engineering Major--Roles and Responsibilities of the Math/Science/Engineering Faculty
Daniel P. Maki, Indiana University, Bloomington
11:30 Project Intermath
Frank Giordano, COMAP; and Richard West, West Point
12:00 Mathematics and Its Applications in Engineering and Science
Ash Kapila and Robert Spilker, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

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TMP, 4/4/97
MMD, 4/30/97