Calculus Reform
During 1985-86 I served as President of the Mathematical Association of
America (MAA), a professional organization of 30,000 college and university
mathematics faculty. This assignment not only took me to Washington, DC
on a regular basis, but provided opportunities to visit and speak
at college campuses across the country.
At that time the development of computing was creating a crisis of
confidence in calculus and with it a significant
decline in undergraduate enrollments. The community's response came to be known as "calculus reform." In 1987, the National Research Council convened a national convocation to address these issues. Calculus for a New Century is the enhanced proceedings of this convocation. Its subtitle became the slogan of
undergraduate reform: to make mathematics "a pump, not a filter" in the
pipeline of American education.
(One of the major outgrowths of this
movement is the "OZ" calculus text developed at St. Olaf by my colleagues Arnold
Ostebee and Paul Zorn.)
Once calculus reform got underway, other issues quickly surfaced,
including teacher preparation, computational
science, program assessment, effective pedagogy, and--more recently--quantitative literacy. These were
addressed through a variety of programs, committees, projects, and
forums, and led to two volumes of curriculum reports and recommendations
that I edited for the MAA: Reshaping College Mathematics and
Heeding the Call for Change. These reports documented the
rationale and provided motivation for many reform
efforts in undergraduate mathematics.
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Resources for Reform
To support the emerging recommendations for change, and with help of
grants from the National Science Foundation and the Exxon Education
Foundation, I led a team of approximately 150 mathematicians to expand and
update a decade-old list of recommended volumes for undergraduate libraries. In 1992 these recommendations were published by the MAA in three volumes: for four-year college libraries,
for two-year college libraries, and for high school and public libraries.
This Basic Library List
has now been mounted on MAA OnLine
where it is available for searching over the internet.
Two recent projects, both sponsored by the MAA, continue the national effort to strengthen undergraduate mathematics.
Math and Bio 2010: Linking Undergraduate Disciplines
reports on strategies for preparing mathematics and biology undergraduates for careers in the "new biology"
where sophisticated mathematical and computer techniques are required to interpret voluminous
data from genomics to epidemiology.
Strengthening Assessment in Undergaduate Mathematics
(SAUM) is both a volume of case studies and
a website derived from an NSF-supported project designed to
support mathematics departments seeking to meet accountability expectations by documenting
what their students learn. The web site includes links
to a previous report on assessment (Assessment Practices
in Undergraduate Mathematics), recently revised
Guidelines for Assessment of Student Learning,
and a bibliography of web sites and published reports
on assessment of undergraduate mathematics.
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Related Professional Service
2002-05 Steering Committee, Supporting Assessment in Undergraduate Mathematics (SAUM).
2000-01 International Conversation on Liberal Arts Education, National Council on Education and the Disciplines.
1999-00 Chief Organizer, Working Group on Mathematics Education in Universities, International Congress on Mathematics Education (ICME-9), Tokyo/Makuhari, Japan. August, 2000.
1995-00 Chair, NSF Visiting Committee for Long Island Consortium for Interconnected Learning.
1996-00 Chair, Advisory Board for Focus and MAA OnLine, Mathematical Association of America.
1992-96 Committee on Opportunities in Science, American Association Advancement of Science.
1992-96 Coordinating Council on Education, Mathematical Association of America.
1990-92 Executive Committee, Project Kaleidoscope.
1989-89 Consultant for {\it Fifty Hours}, National Endowment for Humanities, Washington D.C.
1988-91 Chair, MAA Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics (CUPM).
1988-90 Chair, Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS).
1988-90 Chair, MAA-AAC Task Force on the Undergraduate Mathematics Major.
1986-89 Advisory Committee, Division of Mathematical Sciences, National Science Foundation.
1989-89 Chair, Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP).
1982-88 Secretary, Section A (Mathematics), American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science.
1985-86 President, Mathematical Association of America.
1980-86 Trustee, Consortium on Mathematics and Its Applications.
1984-84 Council of the American Mathematical Society.
1976-92 Board of Governors, Mathematical Association of America.
1973-80 Committee on Publications, Mathematical Association of America.
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