This is just the quickest possible defense of the choices on our B List of classes.

• Mathematical Modeling is a new direction for Earlham in the past couple of years. Last year, though, an Earlham team won an international competition in mathematical modeling, which has generated lots of student interest. It would seem a shame to have to quit while we're on a roll. Further, modeling seems like a central part of the Department's current effort to grow in applied math and to reach out to the rest of the College. Finally, although modeling is the quintessential applied activity, it causes students to rub up against critical issues in pure math as side-effects of solving practical problems of importance to them. Tekla Lewin, our primary theoretician, describes her students in modeling as doing more pure math independently than any other group of students she has taught.
• Geometry hardly needs a defense. It stands at the heart of mathematics historically, has been the source of much interesting philosophy, and is an obvious course at a liberal arts college. It's required of students seeking teaching certification. We haven't taught it since Bill Fishback's retirement, and we ought to pick it up again, maybe as a gen ed course.
• Intermediate Statistics is a sequel to our most popular course. Many Departments use statistics, and too many of them have to teach it themselves. We really ought to offer more.
• Topics have always been a significant part of math at Earlham. Topics classes let us teach interesting new things in math like Fractals and Chaos. They also provide a setting for the occasional teaching of courses like Complex Variables or Topology, both of which were required for the major when I (Tim) was in school, but neither of which is a regularly offered course at EC. The chance to explore and to share beautiful subjects like Number Theory or Combinatorics is also an important part of making the Department exciting both to students and to faculty.
• Math/CS Topics are meant to include classes like Computational Geometry (an applied research interest of Mic's), Parallel Computation (a major area in CS, and a professional interest of Joy's) and Symbolic and Algebraic Computation (the design of software like Maple and a serious interest of Tim's). Bringing Math and CS students together as these courses do is a good thing, and all these areas are fields of deep faculty expertise and enthusiasm.
• Operations Research is an important area of applied mathematics with major connections to management and economics, and is the area on which Joy did her dissertation. Currently, Joy is teaching several courses on OR, including a May Term offering of internships with local companies using OR. Continuing to offer OR will help keep Joy joyful, will provide important and marketable skills for majors and non-majors alike, and will develop very interesting relations with local business.
• Symbolic Logic is one of the deepest and most beautiful areas of mathematics, saying profound things about what mathematics means. Anybody who wants to know what mathematics is about needs to get beneath math and into logic. We ought to do more logic than we do.