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MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES. Department Meeting September 23, 2011 9:15 AM – 10:50 AM CBC C114. Endless Meetings. USC/WICHE Workshop Held Friday September 16 at CSN (9am-4pm) Largely oriented to improving retention Complete College America Held Wednesday September 21 in Chicago (9am-5pm)

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MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES

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  1. MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES Department Meeting September 23, 2011 9:15 AM – 10:50 AM CBC C114

  2. Endless Meetings • USC/WICHE Workshop • Held Friday September 16 at CSN (9am-4pm) • Largely oriented to improving retention • Complete College America • Held Wednesday September 21 in Chicago (9am-5pm) • Emphasis on remedial math and English • NSHE Remedial Math Workshop • Friday, October 7, 2011 at TMCC (Reno, NV) • Drs. Ananda, Bellomo, DuBose attending (possibly also Carl Reiber). • Put together by Jane Nichols, Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs (just like last year) • “Report” sent to Jane Nichols early this morning

  3. Complete College America • Dr. Uri Treisman, Professor of Mathematics and Executive Director of the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin • Building 3 major pathways: STEMway, QUANTway, STATway (replacing algebra in the last two and “fixing” how algebra is taught in the STEMway). • Hopes to develop bridges between these pathways, citing that student success in math encourages students to continue (possibly moving to STEM). • Using PeopleSoft, etc. to gather statewide information. • Believes he has evidence that placement tests such as Accuplacer provide useless information. Diagnostic testing is needed. (Involved with SAT in past) • Re-architect student support services (e.g. Advising and Learning Centers) • Productive struggle/persistence • Believes he and this group are involved in the a “joyful conspiracy” to develop the “Big bang theory of education.”

  4. Complete College America Some common themes presented • Algebra is bad • Learning algebraic symbol manipulation takes years, often resulting in students quitting college (in particular community college), thus stopping upward mobility and sometimes leading to downward mobility (suggesting algebra is at the heart of the failure of economic recovery). • Few students take calculus and/or higher mathematics while algebra is oriented to prepare students towards calculus • Much of what is done is based on folklore • Long chains of remedial courses results in failure • Simply by students just stop attending, instead of “actually failing” • Example presented: (.55)(.76)(.79)(.86)(.83)=23% • Working around articulation (CA among the most difficult) • Myra Snell used that which body decides what is college algebra is not well-defined, so as to offer a “new” statistics course requiring college algebra.

  5. Complete College America • To bring forward change, CCA works at the state level so that change is mandated from above. Their belief seems to include that individual instructors cannot create sufficient change. • The state of Nevada was very close to receiving a large grant from CCA and was therefore invited to participate, cost paid by CCA. • I believe the Nevada team (of 8) was put together by VC Jane Nichols. • English only had 2 faculty, one from UNLV Stephen Brown and one from UNR. • Math had 5 (UNR Christopher Herald, UNLV, two from TMCC, one from NSC). • TMCC Chair seems to be wearing down.

  6. Expect to get a better idea of intent with respect to these endless meetings at the October meeting • I believe defense is important here and transforming some ideas presented into something useful • Hope to get the 30-credit rule in the Regents’ Handbook enforced • UNLV and (I believe) CSN both independently included this issue at last Friday’s meeting • Jane mentioned PeopleSoft should be helpful with respect to this at last Friday’s meeting (before it was impossible to enforce) • I kept re-directing UNLV towards Math 95/96. • Also hope to keep pushing on requiring SAT/ACT scores (possibly again citing the Regents’ Handbook) and any serious attempts at retention, improving core education, etc. require funds generated by DMS remain in DMS. • Today is the Chairs’ monthly meeting (12:30-2pm), so hopefully the President reveals more.

  7. Wait list Exhausted (skip) • 2 GA’s withdrew during last few weeks • Chemistry uses own funds to cover some GAships so as to cover their courses. • We need to compete with both Chemistry and Life Sciences concerning instructional needs for GAs. • I had planned to go over budget < $10,000 • Can we locate any GAs still being used for non-instructional purposes in the other colleges???? • Some Chairs in other colleges don’t seem to understand students are being turned away because of no instructor being available • Spring 2011 external review of Graduate College

  8. DMS Graduate Program (Skip) • Wait list exhausted • Good news: GSC had the wait list in place and we were able to cover course load • Bad news: Need more applicants to make our GAships more competitive. • Probably related: Graduate School policy started requiring International applicants to pay for their transcripts to be translated. • Maybe we need some kind of pre-application process (Nichole had a better name for this)

  9. Meeting Agenda Call to Order  Announcements  Approval of the September 9, 2011 Meeting Minutes  Committee Reports (Merit, Personnel, Graduate, Undergraduate, Advisory) Proposed Bylaws changes  Undergraduate Catalog Revisions New Business  Adjournment

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