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