Periodic Review of Academic Departmentsbullock/faculty_info... · Web viewWe use these data and word of mouth to determine needs. What other factors enter into enrollment planning

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Periodic Review: Department of Mathematics Self Study -- 2010

I. Context. Give a brief overview of the history of the department and describe the mission of the department.

The Mathematics Department is reaching the end of a long transition from a purely teaching mission to a mission that balances teaching and research. Until 1987 all faculty were full time teachers. Research was not required for promotion or tenure. Scholarly activity, if any, was self-motivated and largely unrewarded. Beginning in 1987 the department’s new assistant professors were hired with the expectation that they produce publishable research. The research expectation came with a lighter teaching load than that expected of pre-1987 hires. Tenure and promotion guidelines changed, but it was still possible to achieve tenure and forge a successful career based on teaching alone. For assistant professors hired with an initial research expectation foregoing research meant a return to the historical teaching load. From 1987 to the present the department has had two distinct classes of professor - those whose duties formally include research and those whose duties are exclusively teaching and service. By the early 1990’s the department was no longer hiring assistant professors without a research requirement for tenure and promotion. Existing faculty continued to conduct their careers under the older guidelines, but from this point on non-research faculty were effectively barred from promotion to full professor. Retirements and new hires had changed the mix of research and non-research faculty to roughly equal numbers. Although half the faculty were spending significant time on research, historical precedent and department leadership kept a strong focus on the teaching mission. Teaching success remained the dominant component of tenure and promotion decisions. At about this time the department committed to a pair of strategic objectives: one to create salaried, full time teaching positions to be filled by long serving adjuncts, and the other to build and maintain research groups of at least three faculty with common interests in some sub-discipline. A group in Set Theory was already established. Topology, Numerical Analysis and Computer Science were nascent. Plans were made to start a Statistics group and revive the Mathematics Education group. Over the next decade these plans were largely accomplished. By 2004 the department had achieved working research groups of at least 3 productive scholars in all the target areas except Mathematics Education. (This was still a work in progress, with two active researchers). Computer Science grew so successfully that it became a separate department. The Set Theory group included two full professors with international prominence. Other groups were younger and still building their reputations. Our conversion from a purely teaching mission was well underway, but throughout the transition we retained our insistence that teaching success figure prominently in tenure and promotion decisions. We had also established seven full time lecturer positions. Today we are a department of 23 professors and 10 full time lecturers. All of the research groups projected in the late 1990’s have been formed and achieved a reasonable level of stability. We are nearly at the end of the era in which professors were either "research" or "non-research". We continue to hold tenure track professors to the historical teaching standards but more and more emphasis has been placed on their research activity. Looking forward, the department will continue to expand its research profile while maintaining its commitment to teaching.

I and II. Background and Previous Reviews 1

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The department's mission has evolved along similar lines. Once solely focused on teaching and service, we have added more and more emphasis on research. This parallels the development of the university and fits perfectly with the institutional plan to become a metropolitan research university of distinction. However, no matter what level of emphasis is placed on research we are and intend always to be a department committed to excellence in teaching. Broadly, then, our mission is research, teaching, and service. The nature of research varies by discipline. For a pure mathematician it means proving theorems. For a numerical analyst perhaps the same, perhaps devising new numerical algorithms, certainly implementation in the form of efficient code. Research in mathematics education could be clinical studies and statistical analysis or observational studies and narrative descriptions. Across all disciplines the department's mission is to actively support and encourage research, and to ensure that it forms a significant part of every professor's career. The teaching mission must accommodate an enormously varied clientele. The department offers Mathematics and Applied Mathematics bachelor's degrees and a master's in Mathematics. We provide training and professional certification with a Mathematics, Secondary Education degree, and we offer a master's degree in Mathematics Education to practicing teachers. We deliver the foundational mathematics instruction for all the sciences and engineering; we provide the mathematical training for all elementary school teachers; we provide the core mathematics courses required of every degree program in the university; we provide (until recently, exclusively in our region) developmental mathematics instruction for all those whose prior training has not prepared them for college level work. Across this vast range our teaching mission is to serve the needs of each group while maintaining appropriate standards of content and rigor. Service activity is an essential part of each faculty member's career but highly variable in nature and quantity. Every researcher is expected to contribute to the functioning of the international community in which research is produced and disseminated. Every teacher is expected to provide guidance to students as they move along their educational paths and to collaborate in the successful execution of the department-wide teaching mission. Every faculty member is expected to contribute to the healthy functioning of the university and its colleges and departments. The departmental service mission is to deliver our fair share of all this work as it arises and as it is needed.

II. Previous Reviews

Our last program review was conducted in 2001-02. The external review was strongly positive regarding our research activity. It was also positive about our teaching effectiveness, both within the major and in service to other programs, with the exception of developmental Mathematics. This was their only major concern, although they noted several smaller items. The self study, external review report, action items, and 2005 progress report are attached.

Since that review the department has struggled with the delivery of developmental mathematics. At the time of the review we had just launched an entirely new hybrid course design. In every subsequent year concerns about student success have led to significant adjustments in course delivery with varying levels of improvement. In the last three years we have seen significant gains. The recent successes, including the creation of a full time position for a director of developmental mathematics, appear to


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have brought us to the end that period in our history. Although developmental mathematics remains an intrinsically challenging area of departmental operations it does not dominate discussions as it once did and it is not likely to be singled out as a departmental weakness.

The department offers one professional degree, Mathematics, Secondary Education, that is reviewed by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). The Idaho State Department of Education conducts a simultaneous review. The most recent review occurred in 2008-09. Both reports address teacher education as a whole, so our program is subsumed in a much larger review process. Assessment was noted as an area of concern across all teacher education programs at the institution. We are addressing assessment issues within the department as a matter of departmental planning and policy. NCATE and Idaho DoE reports are attached.


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III. Undergraduate ProgramsA. What do you do? Please describe the undergraduate programs you offer.

We offer three major programs: BA or BS in Mathematics, BS in Applied Mathematics, and BA or BS in Mathematics, Secondary Education. We also offer a Math minor, an Applied Math minor, and a newly designed Math Teaching Minor. The Mathematics degree requires core courses in Calculus, Discrete Math, Real Analysis, Linear Algebra, and Probability and Statistics, together with several more advanced courses in these or other areas. Advanced electives can be chosen to suit a student’s particular interests in various areas of pure and applied mathematics. This degree is designed to prepare the student either for more advanced study in mathematics or for careers in any of the increasingly wide variety of areas where mathematical tools and thinking play an essential role. In addition to mastering specific mathematical content, mathematics majors develop excellent general skills in problem solving and precise analytical thinking. The Applied Math degree requires similar core courses, but emphasizes computational and applied work in areas where the department has significant expertise: Cryptology, Statistics, Computational Math, Numerical Analysis and Differential Equations. The degree prepares students for jobs in areas such as statistics, mathematical modeling, computational science, business management and consulting. It also provides a strong foundation for graduate school in applied mathematics. The Math Secondary Ed degree fulfills Idaho teacher certification standards and prepares students to teach mathematics in junior and senior high schools. Students acquire a solid background both in mathematics and in the education courses required for certification. Students gain practical knowledge and teaching experience through the department's secondary mathematics methods course and a semester of student teaching in local secondary schools.

A Math minor consists of the full Calculus sequence, at least two proof writing courses, and an additional upper division math elective which could be applied or abstract. As a credential it speaks highly of a student’s motivation and gives evidence of strong problem solving and analytical skills. An Applied Math minor is the Calculus sequence, a course in Computational Mathematics, and two electives chosen from the more applied upper division offerings. The Computational Math requirement is a recent change, so students matriculating prior to 2009 can still graduate with a third elective instead. The required math sequence for most science and engineering majors is within one course of an Applied Math minor so the program has been structured to include attractive course options for those majors. The Math Teaching Minor is a new creation designed to meet Idaho Certification requirements when paired with a secondary education major from any of the science programs. It has not yet passed through curriculum approval.

B. Are you successful at what you do? Please demonstrate that each of your programs achieves the following:

1. Your program prepares your students to successfully be able to move to the next phase of their lives.

III. Undergraduate Programs 4

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Evidence is limited to (1) Alumni survey of employment, (2) Alumni Satisfaction Survey, (3) Idaho Dept of Labor employment information, and (4 ) feedback from individual students who stay in contact with faculty members. Recent surveys are attached. The data are too sparse to be very meaningful, but this snapshot suggests our graduates successfully enter the workforce, earn respectable salaries for the region, regard their degrees as important to their careers, and were largely satisfied with their educational experience. Of note:

a. Very few Applied Math majors were surveyed. This is because the degree program is fairly new and has not had many graduates. b. The employment survey combined all programs, but the satisfaction surveys broke them out. In the older survey Math Secondary Ed majors were much happier with their experience than other Math majors. In the later survey satisfaction was more even, with slightly more positive results for Math and Applied Math. c. There is insufficient volume of data to warrant action or changes at this time, but the information revealed in these surveys is of great interested to the department. Much more should be done to collect this data, including data from participants in the minor programs.

Anecdotal evidence is mostly from Secondary Ed majors teaching in the region and from Math majors who have gone on to graduate programs. This includes several who are or were in the two master’s programs in the Math Department. All anecdotal evidence is strongly positive, although clearly subject to availability bias. Department plans include the intent to set up a social networking site to better stay in touch with our alumni.

2. Your students perform well on professional exams or other standardized examinations (as applicable).

Math and Applied Math majors take the ETS Major Field Test in their final semester. In our assessment reports (see III.B.3 below) we rate graduates as meeting our outcome goal if they score in the 70th percentile or higher. That last 4 years of reports show that this occurs much more often than not. Math Secondary Ed majors take the Praxis II content exam. This threshold has been met consistently every year within recent memory. Improvements in future assessments will include storage of MFT and Praxis results in a database for better data analysis.

3. Your students achieve the learning goals of your program(s).

In 2006 the department adopted a Program Assessment Plan (PAP) based on measurement of learning outcomes for the three majors. Measurement occurs at various points in the curriculum. Annual (and sometimes semi-annual) reports detail the results for each cohort of graduates. Annual at regular intervals, but less than annually, we have revisited the PAP, making some small changes and noting larger changes that we would like to implement. The original PAP, the reports on changes or suggested changes to the PAP, and each individual report


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on outcomes are attached. Since reporting began we have had not had terribly many instances of a graduate failing to meet a significant number of outcomes. The goal most likely to be reported as not met is proof writing, which fits with anecdotal evidence that this is a possible area for improvement. Partly in response to PAP data, and partly from other motivations, the department has recently restructured its introductory proof writing course. The course cap has been lowered to allow instructors more time to coach writing, and the outcomes of the course are more tightly specified to include specific proof writing skills. These changes are too recent for us to have data on their efficacy.

4. Your students are retained by your program(s) and by the university. Your students proceed smoothly through your program(s) and then graduate, without unnecessary impediments.

a. Retention and Transition . Five years of data on retention and transition of students are attached. The charts aggregate all three math undergraduate programs. These can be compared to all other College of Arts and Science programs, as well as the university as a whole. As expected, the math data (being a smaller sample) displays more variance than the university data. Otherwise, compared to other departments or to the university there are no significant differences. No action is suggested by this data. There is an important open question about retention that the department will seek to answer in the future. There is a natural point in all three programs where a math major is most likely to switch to another degree plan - this is the core proof writing experience in Real Analysis. More generally, when the course work turns from mostly computation and problem solving to mostly or entirely proof writing, it is inevitable that some students will realize that math is no longer their primary educational goal. It would not be appropriate to pressure these students into remaining in a math major, but is it critical that we provide the best possible introduction and training in proof writing. First so that majors will not unnecessarily change their minds, and second so that programs that are less proof dependent (Applied Math and Secondary Ed) are not stifled. We will seek to acquire data on whether or not students who switch out of our majors do so because of the transition from computation to proof writing.b. Graduation Rate . Five years of enrollment and graduation data are attached. Comparison data are not available (except as in III.B.4.a above) but would be desirable. The first four years of data illustrate a disturbing feature – declining numbers of majors in each year from freshman to junior, combined with a very large group of seniors. The decline is a retention issue, which is not necessarily a problem (some decline is expected). But the spike in seniors suggests that students reach senior status and fail to graduate within a year. This is confirmed by data on total credit hours at graduation (attached), showing that it is very common for students to take at least a semester and perhaps even a year of credits beyond the 128 required for graduation. For some reason the most recent academic year appears more reasonable. If this persists we will


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probably not need to take aggressive action, but should the earlier pattern return it will be necessary to investigate the causes in more detail and address those that are within our control. c. Bottlenecks and Barriers. For many years our majors were small enough that bottleneck courses simply could not occur. However, recent growth has reached the point where problems are cropping up. At this time the only mechanism for detecting this is negative feedback from students or advisors. Often it can be too late to solve the problem once it comes to our attention in this way. The department is seeking to collect better data on enrollment, broken out by major and year (freshman, sophomore, etc.) to try to anticipate bottlenecks and respond more promptly. However, department responses may be severely limited by resources (as described below). Specifically, in recent semesters we have failed to provide enough seats in Linear Algebra and Statistics. For applied majors and minors, another bottleneck is emerging in Computational Mathematics. In Math Secondary Ed the existence of a cohort of more than 20 students moving through the sequence of required Math Ed courses is exceeding the designed capacity of those courses.

The bottlenecks in Math and Applied math could easily be relieved by shifting professors into additional sections of these courses, but this would require funding for more adjunct instructors in lower division courses. Such funding, serving only a single department, is not forthcoming from the university. It is likely that the department will have to devise a solution to these problems internally or as part of a broader compromise with other institutional interests.

The Math Secondary Ed program could also attempt expansion by adding sections. In this case, however, the resource constraints are more severe. First, there are only three faculty members qualified to teach the Math Ed courses for majors (although we are searching for a fourth). Second, because any cohort will take a series of four courses and some seminars, the entire sequence would have to be replicated, thus doubling the number of sections. This would nearly eliminate the option of offering any Math Ed graduate classes during regular semesters. It would also force most or even all of the Math Ed service courses onto lecturers and adjuncts. We would not have enough trained lecturers and adjuncts, so we would have to hire and train additional personnel.

If the current large cohort is not anomalous we will have to consider (1) restricting entry to the program, or (2) expanding sections, or (3) reconfiguring the curriculum to handle more students in the same number of sections. Option (2) as discussed above would severely strain available resources. At this time we do not have a specific solution in mind. Many curricular changes are currently under consideration as we adapt to changing university credit requirements, changing university core requirements, and possible


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adoption of the U Teach system. Any exploration of how to manage enrollments and meet demand will be bound up with these curricular discussions.

The Secondary Ed degree also requires courses from the College of Education. The Math Department is represented on the Teacher Education Coordinating Council. TECC allows the Math Department and the CoEd to effectively communicate about availability and timing of CoEd courses required for the Math Secondary Ed program. At this time there are no reports of difficulty with this portion of the program.

5. Your program attracts and retains students in sufficient numbers, quality, and diversity.

The Math Department does not recruit aggressively, nor does it court undeclared or related majors. The natural clientele for the Math and Applied Math majors are students whose interest is sufficient to lead them to explore math at ever deeper levels. The natural clientele for Secondary Ed is similar, but also motivated by the acquisition of a professional credential. Despite our non-recruitment strategy our enrollment growth has out-paced the university’s growth in recent years. Since we don’t recruit, we don’t target any particular demographic groups. Nor do we have data on the demographic breakdown of our majors. Rather than seek declared majors, we seek to make math interesting and attractive to other majors. There are specific courses designed with this in mind. We track enrollments in three of these, Cryptology I, Cryptology II, and Computational Mathematics, to see if they are fulfilling the aim of enticing non-math majors into advanced math electives. Cryptology has grown to the point where it routinely enrolls up its capacity (and in one recent semester, well above that). Computational Math is a very recent addition that is suddenly is very high demand. It began as an experimental course with two students in the fall of 2008. The next year it filled to its capacity of 20 students. A year later we doubled the capacity to 40 and still had students on waiting lists. Additional indicators of interest from outside the major are the numbers of declared Math and Applied Math minors and the number of graduates departing with these credentials. Both declared and graduating minors have roughly doubled in the last five years. (See attached data on non-majors.)

6. Your students receive awards, honors, grants, etc., that indicate the high quality of your program.

We are regularly represented at the annual Undergraduate Research Conference on campus. Our top undergraduate in recent years was probably Greg Barnett. His research project led to a UGRC poster, a highly competitive summer appointment at the Geometry Center of the University of Minneapolis, and a presentation at an international workshop in Suzdal, Russia.


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C. Do you have the structures, processes, and resources in place that facilitate the development and continuing function of successful academic operations? Please address each of the following questions, presenting and discussing evidence as needed.

1. Describe and evaluate the mechanisms you have in place to facilitate the assessment and improvement of your programs. Describe the process by which the department considers the results of your assessment measures and determines appropriate actions. How do you ensure that the process is sustainable and ongoing?

The department has a standing committee that sees to classroom level implementation of the assessment mechanisms described in the PAP. This committee then collects the data and reports to the chair (examples attached – see III.B.3). The process is still new, so minimal action has been taken in response. The only example would be the changes to proof writing classes described in III.B.3 The Department Assessment Committee also reports on the functionality of the PAP and the reporting process (also attached – see III.B.3). It recommends changes as it encounters problems or opportunities for improvement. In theory this practice is sustainable and should lead to a well maintained database of information on learning outcomes for our majors. In practice there are many remaining obstacles as described in the attached reports. Only part of the plan is in place, and even that is not managed as carefully as one might hope. What work has been accomplished has been done by a few members of the assessment committee as part of their service workload. It is likely that full implementation and ongoing management would require at least a one course release from teaching for a faculty member to lead the project. The department has not had sufficient resources to make this happen.

2. How do you ensure that your programs are relevant to the needs of your students and to the needs of society?

We regard it as self evident that there is a societal need for at least some segment of the populace to be well trained in critical thinking and analytical problem solving. The Math and Applied Math programs develop these and many other technical skills while providing students the opportunity to explore one of the classical disciplines of thought and inquiry. The PAP reports on the extent to which the desired skills are present in our graduates. Math and Applied math degrees also serve the needs of a vast range of employers. To quote the Sloan Career Cornerstone Center:

“The use of mathematics is pervasive in modern industry. The result is that mathematicians are found in almost every sector of the job market, including engineering research, telecommunications, computer services and software, energy systems, computer manufacturers, aerospace and automotive, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and government laboratories, among others.”

The Math Secondary Ed program aims include the same skill set, but it replaces some depth of exploration in the subject area with professional


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training. It therefore serves many of the same broad societal needs as well as the regional need for qualified mathematics teachers. Based on internal assessment mechanisms (PAP) and external feedback from the Idaho educational community, this program appears to be successful. We are exploring changes to the program due to university core revisions, university initiatives to meld Math Ed with Science Ed programs, and possible adoption of the U Teach system. However, none of these changes are motivated by our internal assessment of outcomes.

3. What mechanisms do you have in place to ensure that the instruction in your courses is of high quality?

See Appendix A. Nearly 100% of the delivery of courses for majors is by tenured and tenure track faculty, so the most relevant sections are 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b and 3.

4. How do you ensure that your coursework is high quality?

a. How do you ensure that undergraduate courses are overhauled as needed?

Courses are revised, reviewed and updated according to several processes, depending on the major program and/or the type of course offered.

All Majors – Core Courses. This is the Calculus sequence (preceded by Precalculus if needed), Linear Algebra, Statistics, and proof courses in Discrete Math and Real Analysis. The content and sequence of these courses is fairly standardized across undergraduate programs in American four-year colleges and universities. Major deviations from this standard would be considered radical redesign, if not simply unacceptable, but upgrades, content changes and shifts in emphasis are all possible. These could be triggered by any of the following:

1) Assessment via PAP (see above) indicating weak achievement in one of more learning outcomes.

2) Client departments unsatisfied with learning outcomes in one of more of these courses. Since non-majors can make up much of the enrollment in many of the major core courses, this is a primary mechanism for motivating change. This can result in changes that are not aimed at any math program goal. Processes for determining and assessing client department desired outcomes are mostly absent but the department is committed to maintaining open communication with clients and responding to their needs. This has led to some significant changes. In collaboration with the College of Engineering we have developed and alternative version of Precalculus that combines traditional instruction with computer delivery of homework and homework assessment. We have also recently launched experimental sections of Calculus III and Differential Equations designed from the perspective of Engineering and other clients. Outcomes and assessments are still not clearly defined for these courses, but work


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is underway.

3) Internal department deliberations resulting in a decision to examine or redesign a course. These are motivated by individuals or groups of faculty whose professional judgment suggests change may be warranted. The process would begin with either a full department exploration of a new idea or perhaps a committee level exploration of a proposed change. Recent changes to the proof writing core were partly motivated by this mechanism, although supported by data from the PAP. Other recent changes motivated this way were the shift to more applied content in Linear Algebra (balanced by the creation of a more abstract Advanced Linear), creation of a Computational Math course, and the Math Secondary Ed redesign described below. Math and Applied Math – Upper division electives. We offer upper division electives that represent deeper versions of courses from the core. These include advanced courses in Analysis, Statistics, Differential Equations and Algebra. This is partly a sensible extension of the core, and partly adherence to widespread standards for American four-year programs in Mathematics. In particular, these courses are necessary for students interested in going on to graduate work in Mathematics. Additional electives represent the research specialties within the department. Faculty are encouraged to develop courses that explore topics close to the cutting edge of their research specialty, that incorporate significant interdisciplinary content, or that have practical applied emphasis. Examples include: - Cryptology. Combines research in number theory and algebra with practical applications in computer science. - Computational Mathematics. An area of research expertise in the department and a course that provides practical training for engineers and scientists. - Ciliate Cryptosystems. Combines research in cryptology with cell and molecular biology. Ciliates are single cell organisms that maintain an encrypted version of their genome. - Upper division electives in Statistics. Practical and applied emphasis on finance and environmental sciences. New courses of this nature or updates of existing courses are a matter of individual faculty developing an interest in such a project. The department encourages and supports this by allowing part of the normal 2-and-2 teaching load to be replaced by an experimental course. In rare cases additional teaching reduction could be possible. Supplementary support in the way of teaching assistants or extra teaching reduction is highly desirable, but not often accessible within department budget constraints.

Math Secondary Ed – Specialized courses for the major. The Math Ed group has developed and now maintains a series of four courses that provide content unavailable elsewhere in the curriculum and substantial exposure to best classroom practices for secondary


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teachers. This was a long process of overhauling the program with the aim of improving the quality of the teachers the program produces.

b. To what degree do the courses in your curriculum build on one another.

In all major programs courses are sequenced to move students efficiently through the core of the major while preparing them appropriately for upper division course work. The Calculus sequence is primary. All of Calc III, Linear algebra, Statistics and Differential Equations (if required) are available at any point after Calculus II. Students are advised to take them early, since most upper division electives require at least one of these courses. Courses beyond these are more specialized into Pure, Applied, and Math Ed areas.

All majors take proof writing courses. The core sequence of Discrete Math and Real Analysis is designed to run one semester behind the Calculus sequence, meaning Discrete Math is taken in the same term as Calculus II. Majors could get some exposure to proof writing in Calc I and/or Calc II, but Discrete Math assumes no prior proof writing background.

Pure Math electives are separated into two broad groups by the proof writing ability required in their prerequisites. Most 300 level courses require only Calc II and Discrete Math. Electives at the 400 level require either Real Analysis or a 300 level prerequisite.

Applied courses at the 300 level are characterized by the fact that Calculus II and perhaps Linear Algebra contain enough content and promise enough maturity to serve as appropriate prerequisites. Most 400 level applied courses build directly on 300 level applied courses. Courses specific to the Math Secondary Ed program are built into the curriculum at strategic points. Two are designed to precede and complement 300 level courses from the general Math curriculum and are therefore lower division. Another is a technology course that draws material from the first two years of Math courses, and so it is upper division. Another is effectively a capstone experience, drawing on all of the prior three years, so it is necessarily a 400 level course.

c. Describe the methods by which the department facilitates the development and meaningful use of Course Learning Objectives in your courses.

Course content and course learning objectives are not closely monitored by the department as a whole. CLO specifications are not the department norm for guiding course structure. Exceptions to this are the recent changes to Discrete Math, Calculus III and Differential Equations, as well as the outcome specific demands of the PAP. The department is likely to move more in this direction as part of a new


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focus on assessment in general. The historical norm has been for course content to be defined by generic syllabi (attached) for lower division courses and the core 300 level courses. Content of upper division electives is left to the instructors. In most cases there are only a few instructors with appropriate area of specialization for any given elective. The Math Ed group specifies the content and learning objectives of courses specific to the Math Secondary Ed program.

d. Describe how you ensure that the quality of your distance-delivered courses is every bit as good as that of your on-campus courses.

We offer no distance, online or hybrid courses for majors. e. If large numbers of non-majors take any of the courses required of your majors, how does that mix affect effectiveness for majors?

This is the case for the Calculus sequence, and to a lesser extent in Discrete Math , Linear Algebra and Statistics. Other than creating very full classes and limited seating for math majors and other alike, it does not affect the “effectiveness for majors”. It impacts the ongoing analysis of the curriculum as described in III.C4.a above.

f. To what extent do your faculty members integrate research/creative activity into your undergraduate courses? To what extent do your faculty members integrate community engagement into your undergraduate programs and into your courses?

Integration of scholarly activity and/or community engagement in coursework is entirely voluntary on the part of faculty. In annual evaluation documents such activity is documented and draws favorable commentary, but is not otherwise rewarded or incentivized.

5. Evaluate the structure and integration of your curricula.

a. & b. Show how your curriculum maps indicate that your coursework contributes effectively to achievement program learning goals. As applicable, how well do you communicate with other departments regarding learning goals?

Curriculum maps (attached) indicate that some undergraduate goals are strongly reinforced and emphasized, while others are not. The department has just launched a review of all three programs that will investigate this situation. The goal of applying math in areas outside of math can, and probably should, be assessed in non-math courses. Efforts are underway to establish some such assessments. Two courses taken by math majors, Calc III and Differential Equations, are being redesigned to include significantly more applied content along with assessment of exactly that content.

c. If your department offers multiple programs, discuss the impact of competition for resources and for faculty time and attention.


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We are a large department, primarily due to the very high demands for service courses. We have 19 full time professor lines available for Math and Applied Math. This leaves us well supplied with manpower to offer the entire suite of courses required for our Math and Applied Math programs. A typical faculty member is usually tasked with one service course and one course for majors in each semester, which suffices to deliver the major except for the bottlenecks noted in III.B.4.c. This could easily be relieved by funding for a few additional sections of service courses, so it does not represent a likely source of intra-departmental competition.The Math Secondary Ed program is similar, but smaller. There are 4 lines devoted to Math Ed specialists, and two of the lecturer positions provide help with service courses. This is sufficient to run the Math Ed program for cohorts of up to 20 students in each year of the program. As discussed in III.B.4.c, we are currently struggling with a cohort larger than 20, which may or may not be the start of a longer term trend. If it is a trend, then we face a more serious difficulty. It is unlikely that the department could add any full time Math Ed specialists without an internal struggle over allocation of faculty lines.

It is not the case in this department that we would consider relieving pressure in one of our programs at the expense of another. Each program suffers from some amount of enrollment pressure. The present division of departmental resources is broadly accepted and mostly supported by the faculty.

d. How well does your curriculum integrate out-of-class research/creative activity and out-of-class community engagement?

The Math department’s curriculum does not address these areas. The Math Secondary Ed program includes the required year of in-service work for students to obtain certification, but this is not Math Department coursework – the courses and the in-service work are supervised by the College of Education.

6. Describe and evaluate the processes you have in place that enable effective planning of your enrollments? How successful are you at carrying out those plans? Do you make judicious use of resources?

The College of Arts and Sciences completed an enrollment plan (attached) in February of 2009. The Math Department’s section reflects thinking and practices during the fall of 2008 when the document was being written. Fall 2008 was the last semester before serious budget contractions began to impact university operations. That, combined with an unexpectedly large increase in STEM majors in just the past two years, has already rendered much of the Math Department’s plan obsolete. The current state of affairs is as follows. The vast majority of courses taught by the math department are service

courses. The number of credits for non-majors is roughly two orders of magnitude more than the number of credits offered to majors. Also, roughly half of the courses required by majors are also service courses for many non-majors. The result is that the department does very little


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enrollment planning for majors. Instead, our planning focuses on offering enough access to service courses, with the intent that this will create plenty of access for majors. For courses that are strictly for majors, single sections on either semester, annual, or biannual scheduling is sufficient, with a few notable exceptions. As mentioned previously, Linear Algebra, Statistics and Computational

Math are bottlenecks for majors. This is in part due to growth in the majors, and in part because these courses are popular with Engineering and Physics majors, especially if an Applied Math minor is involved. We would like to add sections, but resources are a constraint at this time. Math Ed courses can only serve a single cohort of a limited size. Plans

for how to deal with emerging bottlenecks are heavily dependent on the outcome of several curriculum change possibilities. Finally, even in large, multi-section courses where the small number of

math majors share space with many non-majors, we do not always provide sufficient access. This is an ongoing problem whose solution will require better forecasting of enrollment, STEM major demand, and probably more funding. At this time, we struggle through each semester, adding sections as needed when funds are made available. It cannot be said that this constitutes an enrollment plan.

7. Describe and evaluate your recruitment and retention processes. To what degree are they effective?

See III.B.5.

8. Describe and evaluate how you ensure that students are adequately and effectively advised about academic and career matters.

All declared majors that are so identified by the Boise State student data system are paired with specific faculty advisors. Students are informed by email of their advisor. Students in Math Secondary Ed are strongly encouraged to meet with advisors to plan their final two years of certification specific courses and activities. This is not difficult, since all of these majors take a common set of Math Ed specific courses and become well acquainted with the Math Ed faculty.

10. Evaluate the extent to which the department’s faculty, staff, space, budget, and other resources enable you to offer high quality undergraduate programs.

Faculty and budget limitations on our programs are described in III.B.4.c and III.C.5.c and III.C.6. We are suitably staffed for the delivery of courses for majors. We have space limitations on Math Ed courses. At this time there is one classroom that has appropriate hardware and software for the courses we believe appropriate. Any expansion of the Math Ed program would have to fit into that classroom. It would compete with service courses for Ed majors, which are also all offered in that one classroom. At this time that space is close to being scheduled at its limits, but we are also considering curricular changes that could allow for more efficient use of the space. Assessment of our programs presents another and perhaps more serious drain on faculty resources. In order to properly assess the performance


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of students, effectiveness of instruction, etc., faculty must be released from some duties elsewhere. Without seriously damaging the research mission this time can only come from teaching. Current assessment is fairly meager. Proper levels of assessment are not likely to be possible without additional funds for release from teaching. I estimate that a minimum of two courses per year of release time would be required to put in place assessment mechanisms that the department has already identified as desirable. Such funding has not been forthcoming from the university, so at this time we do not have sufficient resources to properly assess our programs.

D. In what ways do you contribute?

1. Describe how your undergraduate programs contribute to the visions, missions, and strategic plans of the university and of your college. How do you contribute to the university’s initiatives on internationalization, campus climate, freshman success, and adjunct faculty integration?

Our undergraduate programs are most closely aligned with the university’s strategic goal of serving the educational needs of the community. They do not specifically address the initiatives mentioned above.

2. Describe how your undergraduate programs benefit the community, region, state, and nation. Identify any unique features that set your undergraduate programs apart from other competing or potentially competing programs in Idaho and/or in the region.

The mathematics education program prepares teachers that are then employed in school districts across the state and beyond. Our program is unique in the state in that we have a sequence of four mathematics courses designed specifically for pre-service secondary teachers. These courses address geometry, statistics, technology, and teaching methods. In addition, our mathematics education seminar brings together students at varying levels within the program, allowing us to establish a true sense of community. This number of mathematics education-specific courses allows us to develop themes of mathematical connections, reasoning, and teaching throughout the program.

More general comments are available in the answers to III.A and III.C.2 above.

E. How should you do things differently? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are opportunities and threats? What actions should you take?

1. What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that the department has in the realm of its undergraduate programs? What are your thoughts on how you could capitalize on the strengths, remedy the weaknesses, exploit the opportunities, and guard against the threats?

Strength: Computational math is growing as a relevant interdisciplinary skill and we have added faculty with this are of expertise. Course offerings have proved surprising popular.


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Weakness: demand has already surpassed our course offerings. See III.B.4.c. Strength: The highly personal and focused nature of the Math Secondary Ed program.

Weakness: The high degree of labor intensity in this program, effectively limiting it to cohorts of no more than 20 students.

Opportunity: Computational Math, Cryptology, and an emerging positive attitude towards interdisciplinary work in general have significantly strengthened the department’s relations with the university at large and positioned us a more of a partner in the university’s mission. Opportunity: Math Ed has become involved in a large process of developing STEM Ed degrees that combine math and some science. Additionally, the group is exploring a move to the U Teach system. This, too, has strengthened the department’s relations with the university at large and positioned us a more of a partner in the university’s mission. Threat: Desire to expand successful programs could force very difficult allocation decisions within the department.

It seems that any expansions or even simply building on our recent extra-departmental projects will require some creative maneuvers with budget and faculty teaching loads.

2. In what areas of your departmental operations would you like external reviewers to concentrate their efforts so as to give you the most valuable information for you to use to improve your programs?

Comparison data from other programs. Thoughts on how to allocate existing budget and teaching resources to take advantage of current strengths without cannibalizing other department programs.


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IV. Graduate Programs – Masters in MathematicsA. What do you do? Descriptions of Programs

The Master of Science in Mathematics degree provides a solid foundation in the theoretical and applied aspects of mathematics and the opportunity for concentration in an area of special interest. Students complete a required two-course graduate core sequence in mathematics and additional graduate courses totaling at least 30 credit hours. The additional graduate courses are from a selection of math courses that reflect faculty expertise in statistics, pure and applied math. Students may also take up to nine credits in another discipline. An individual program may include no more than 10 credits representing dual-listed courses and G-courses. All courses must be approved for application to the degree requirements by the supervisory committee working within constraints developed by the Mathematics Graduate Committee.

We offer 13 Teaching Assistantships each year that typically consist of seven first year M.S. students and six second year M.S. students. We have been able to fill our assistantships in all but fall 2008, when there were 12 T.A.s. Each year we typically have two part-time students that do not hold T.A.s.

B. Are you successful at what you do? How do you know? Evidence of Student Success and Program Effectiveness.

Note: If your department offers more than one program, then typically you should discuss each program separately under each set of questions in Section B. You may, if you wish, choose to lump several programs together in your discussion if those programs have very similar measures of success and effectiveness and evidence thereof.


The M.S. program began in fall 2005, and we have had 16 students graduate. This is a two-year program thus there has been an average of over 5 students graduating per year. We are aware of the experience of all but two of the students after graduation. The attached graph shows how they were placed in industry, college teaching, or Ph.D. programs. Many students were given multiple offers or had multiple interviews.

Placement of Graduates (16)

2. Your students make significant contributions to the discipline and/or profession.

IV. Masters in Mathematics 19

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a. For those programs that require a thesis, dissertation, or project, what is the expectation regarding a contribution to the discipline and presentation to a broader audience, e.g., via publication, presentation, or performance? How well have your students met those expectations? As applicable, describe numbers and prominence of publications in peer-reviewed journals, numbers of presentations professional conferences, numbers engaged in creative endeavors (e.g., exhibitions, performances, readings, etc.), % of students participating in each of those activities, and other pertinent information.

All students writing a thesis or project must successfully present their work at a defense advertised to the whole University.Four (25%) students presented their thesis work at the following national and international conferences: SIAM Mathematical and Computational issues in the Geosciences, American Geophysical Union annual meeting, Pacific Northwest Conference on Comprehensive Mathematical Modeling in the Natural and Engineering Sciences, Boise extravaganza in Set Theory, Logic in Hungary.

b. What other contributions have your graduates made to the discipline and/or

the profession, e.g., leadership positions in professional organizations.

Teaching Assistants in the M.S. program teach in the Math Learning Center (MLC) their first semester. We began an extensive T.A. training program in fall 2007, and consequently the student pass rates in the MLC have significantly improved. The acting director of the MLC indicated that 75% of the T.A.s are exceptional teachers. Two of our students served on the search committee for the associate director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Boise State University. One student currently in Law School serves as staff member for the Journal of Legislation. Another student currently in a Geophysics Ph.D. program serves as treasurer for the Geophysics club.


Our learning goals include a solid foundation in the theoretical and applied aspects of mathematics and the opportunity for concentration in an area of special interest.

Once students complete the core sequence in mathematics, they have demonstrated a strong theoretical base of mathematical knowledge. The choice of culminating activity depends on student goals. The three different types of jobs our graduates obtained show that we are able to accommodate these different interests. Those that chose to learn a deeper foundational knowledge of mathematics chose the exam or thesis option and have gone on to teach at the college level or into Ph.D. programs. Those that chose an applied direction have gone to jobs in industry or Ph.D. programs in math or other disciplines. Some students


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that have completed the internship-project option obtained permanent positions where they had an internship.


a. Highlight important trends and give context to the data sets and graphs depicting numbers of graduates from your programs in the context of the number of full-time and part-time students. Evaluate. What proportion of enrolled students graduates each year? What proportion of admitted students remains enrolled each year?

Graduation rate for full-time students by cohort

Three cohorts of students have graduated since the program began in fall 2005. The percentage of full-time students graduating each year is increasing, however, no part-time students have yet graduated.Proportion of enrolled students graduating

The proportion of enrolled students graduating is also graphed by cohort and reflects part-time students.

b. Examine and evaluate data on time to completion for your students, and do so in terms of the students in your program (e.g., full-time students will graduate more quickly than will part-time students). Questions to consider: Are your students able to graduate promptly, or are they delayed? How many of your students have left the program before graduation? Why have they left?


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Of the 16 students that have graduated, 13 graduated in two years. Two students took 5 semesters to graduate, while the 3rd was a part-time student for one year and a full time student for two years. We have had 8 out of 42 (19%) enrolled students become inactive. Three students left the program due to changes in family situations. Three students left after one semester, while two students did not finish their theses.It is difficult to determine the status of the part-time students because they do not take classes every semester and the program has only been in existence four years.

5. Your program attracts and retains students in sufficient numbers, quality, and diversity.

a. Highlight and evaluate important trends and give context to the data sets and graphs depicting enrollment data: numbers, ethnic diversity, and geographic diversity.

Ethnic diversity

Gender Diversity

Geographic Diversity


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Our program does not serve many minorities, but 31% of the students are women which is a good percentage for math students. Almost half of our students are from Idaho, 45%, but we do have a range of students from across the US and world. Last year we actively recruited international students by sending posters and letters to Universities suggested by our faculty.

b. Highlight and evaluate important trends and give context to the data sets and graphs depicting recruitment and admissions data. What proportion of applicants is admitted? What proportion of admitted students enrolls? What proportion of your enrollees had received a baccalaureate from Boise State and what proportion graduated from other institutions?

In the four years of the program 78% of applicants were admitted, while 86% of those admitted students enroll. Of those that enrolled, 26% of enrollees had obtained their undergraduate degrees from Boise State, while 74% were from other institutions.

c. What is the quality of your incoming students? Include information such as incoming GRE scores, selectivity of admission, and geographic diversity.

For incoming students, the average of the last two years undergrad GPA is 3.4. The average incoming GRE scores are 521 Verbal, 720 Quantitative, and 4 writing.

6. Your students receive awards, honors, grants, etc.

Describe awards, honors, grants, etc., received by your students and your graduates, and indicate the relevance to the quality of your programs.

Travel awards from outside the University were received by three of our graduates to present their thesis work at national and international conferences. One award was from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and two received funding from NSF.An INRA fellowship was received by one of our graduates to attend Boise State’s Geophysics Ph.D. program.

7. Additional measures and indicators of Student Success and Program Effectiveness.

If there are additional measures and indicators of student success and program effectiveness that are not covered above, you may describe those


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measures and indicators here. Also describe the results and discuss the meaning of those measures and indicators.

C. Do you have the structures, processes, and resources in place t to facilitate successful academic operations?

Note: Many of the following questions parallel those in the Undergraduate Programs Section. You should feel free to cite your answer from the UG section, as appropriate and useful. For example, if your graduate program processes are the same as for your undergraduate programs, you may answer in the graduate section with something on the order of, “Same as UG programs; see section III.C.1.” If the processes are similar but with important differences, you might describe the difference with something on the order of, “Similar to UG programs (section III.C.1) but with the following differences…”

Also note: typically a department would address the questions in Section C at the department level as opposed to addressing the question separately for each program. However there may be situations in which the latter would be more useful.

1. Describe the mechanisms you have in place to facilitate the continuous improvement of your programs.

The graduate program went through a major re-evaluation in fall 2007. These changes were initiated by the Program Coordinator and four sub-committees were formed to review the curriculum in the areas of the core courses, statistic courses, and pure and applied math courses. The sub-committee for the core courses had faculty from statistics, pure and applied math. Attached is the curriculum change proposal, which was accepted, that outlines all of the changes. Essentially, the department determined after two years of experience that the curriculum could be streamlined and made more efficient.The result of all these changes is that fewer courses are offered, but they are more foundational and are offered more frequently. With the old curriculum, students’ education was specialized, but fragmented and depended on the year in which they were admitted. We have found that specialized material is taught in independent studies with students whom often write a thesis.We plan that every four years the program coordinator will form four committees as described above to go through a similar exercise. Four years is an appropriate time period because after this time period our courses that are offered every other year have been taught twice. Our first evaluation was after two years because the inaugural curriculum was written without experience. Since the program is more mature, we anticipate that there will not be as many changes as there was in 2007. The department’s planning document suggests that the M.S. program have three different tracks with three different sets of core courses. There is also mention of a M.S. in statistics. As we re-evaluate the curriculum in 2011 we will determine if there are enough students to offer more specialized degrees such as these.

It will be up to the Program Coordinator to form the subcommittees every four years.


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2. Describe how you ensure that your programs are relevant to the needs of your students and to the needs of society (e.g., potential employers)?

a. Each degree/certificate program a department offers serves a particular purpose or set of purposes. Describe any recent discussions your department has had regarding the purposes served by your present programs and the potential need to serve other purposes with academic programs. How have you been responsive “to the educational needs of the region” (Charting the Course [CTC])? If you have assessed the needs for your programs, describe the results of that assessment. Do you have an external advisory committee? If so what role does it play? Describe recent changes and plans for future changes in the offerings of your programs (e.g., new and/or discontinued program and emphases) and the reason for those changes.

See above. However, it is hard to assess demand when it appears that the number of full-time graduate students equals the number of T.A.s. If we had more T.A.s would we have a greater demand? The academic emphases of the 13 T.A.s seems to fluctuate by year, and 13-15 students isn’t enough to determine if we should have specialized degrees in statistics, for example.

b. With reference to Section 1 of your Program Assessment Plan and Reports (PAPRs), STUDENT LEARNING GOALS, describe the process by which you review and update your program learning goals.

The learning goals will be assessed as we re-evaluate the core curriculum. The learning goals of the culminating activities will be assessed through the success of our graduates after graduation.


a. Describe and evaluate how you assess the quality of the instruction in your graduate courses. Include specific reference to each of the types of instructor you employ, e.g., official faculty, lecturers, adjunct instructors, and graduate teaching assistants. Provide examples of instruments used and the results they yield.

Research active faculty teach the majority of the graduate curriculum. Non-research active faculty do teach some of the courses, but as we continue to hire research faculty that will probably not be the case. Graduate research faculty advise students in theses or projects, and they are all research active. 25% of our students give research talks at national and international conferences, and we hope more of their work will appear in peer-reviewed publications.

b. Describe how you make use of that assessment information. Illustrate with examples of assessment results and actions that have followed.

All graduate courses are taught by tenured or tenure track faculty, with a rare exception for special topics taught by visiting researchers. The relevant portions of Appendix A apply.


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c. Describe and evaluate how the department encourages, motivates, supports, and reinforces instructional development of your faculty members (of all types). Do your faculty members make good use of the opportunities available to them?

4. How do you ensure your coursework is of high quality?

a. How do you ensure that graduate courses are updated, upgraded, and created anew as needed?

Describe how your department ensures that graduate courses are updated and revised as needed. How do you ensure that your faculty members have enough time available and have incentives to implement major redesigns of existing courses and to create new courses? How do the Delaware benchmark numbers compare to your own?

Courses were revised two years after the program began, and we plan to continue this formal process every four years. More informally, special topics courses have been offered, but there has been less need for this since the curriculum was changed in 2008.

b. Dual-listed Courses

i. Describe departmental guidelines regarding dual-listed courses. What is required of graduate students that is above and beyond that required of undergraduate students?

This is left up to the instructor, but typically graduate students have more challenging problems on their homework and in exams, and are required to do a project.

ii. Describe your efforts to increase the proportion of graduate-level courses (i.e., not G-courses or graduate courses dual-listed with an undergraduate course). Evaluate the impact on your graduate programs of dual-listing courses.

With the new curriculum, dual-listed courses are typically offered in the fall, and the subsequent graduate courses are offered in the spring. We would like to have fewer dual-listed courses, and more specialized graduate courses, but with only 13 full-time students it is difficult to offer that many classes. We anticipate that an increase in T.A.s may increase the number of full-time students for which we could offer more graduate courses.

c. Non-traditional coursework

What guidelines do you have in place related to non-traditional courses and relatively unregulated courses such as workshops, directed research, etc.?

Faculty often run independent study courses with students who later write theses under their direction. When students enroll for these courses, or for thesis credits, they are


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required to complete a form that states the content of the course and the assessment method used by the professor. This form is signed by the professor, program coordinator and chair. During a student’s fourth semester the program coordinator often requires a statement on the form that the thesis will be completed.

d. Course learning objectives

Describe and evaluate the methods by which the department facilitates the development and meaningful use of Course Learning Objectives (CLOs) in graduate courses. How does the department ensure that CLOs are listed in the syllabi of all sections of all courses offered by the department? How does the department ensure that instructors inform their students of CLOs? How does the department ensure that instructors inform their students of CLOs?

As mentioned in III.C.4.c, we do not use CLOs as the primary driver of course oversight. The PAP (see III.B.3) rarely specifies outcomes for the Masters Program in the form of CLOs, and when it does it speaks only of outcomes for the analysis sequence that forms the core for all Masters students. Note that the PAP was written when this sequence was numbered 515/516. It has since been changed to 514/515. That means that 515 is the course where we directly measure the relevant program objective. The course learning objectives were given in the syllabus for Math 515 the last time it was taught.http://diamond.boisestate.edu/~kaiser/teaching/m515_s09/syll.html

e. Describe how you ensure that the quality of your distance-delivered courses is on par with that of your on-campus courses.

There are no online or distance-delivered graduate courses.

5. Are your curricula well structured and well integrated?

a. Contribution of Coursework to Program Student Learning Goals: Curriculum Maps

Evaluate your curriculum maps: how well do courses map to program learning goals and vice versa? For example: Do you require courses that do not strongly contribute to program learning goals? Are there program student learning goals that are not well supported by courses in your curriculum? Do required courses from outside of your department contribute significantly to your student learning goals?

Sub-committees of faculty from all sub-disciplines of mathematics represented in our department have discussed the core extensively to ensure that it address the learning goals for all students. T.A.s are required to take nine credits per semester, so they often take electives that may not be


http://diamond.boisestate.edu/~kaiser/teaching/m515_s09/syll.html

http://diamond.boisestate.edu/~kaiser/teaching/m515_s09/syll.html

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in their specific area. At this time we have not completed a curriculum map for the Masters in Math program.

b. Impact on and of other programs

If your department offers multiple programs, e.g. several graduate programs and/or graduate and undergraduate programs, evaluate the effects that those other programs have on the quality and efficiency of your graduate programs. For example, is there competition for resources and for faculty time and attention? Are there enhancements to the graduate program that result from the presence of undergraduate programs?

With dual-listed courses in the fall and a subsequent graduate course in the spring, we have found that undergraduate students are taking more graduate courses in the spring.

c. Culminating Activity

i. For each of your programs, describe the requirement for a culminating activity, such as a project, thesis, dissertation, or comprehensive examination. What are the program learning goals that will be achieved by that activity?

The choice of culminating activity depends on student goals and may be a comprehensive examination, a project with internship, or a thesis. Students interested in teaching at the advanced secondary or community college level or in transferring to a doctoral program should follow the thesis or exam options. Students interested in moving into private sector or governmental positions requiring advanced knowledge of statistics, operations research, cryptology, or scientific computing should consider the exam or project options.The project option is for those students interested in becoming practicing mathematical scientists in the private sector or in government. It must be related to the internship experience and must be presented and discussed at a public oral presentation.The thesis option is for those students interested in research and who may want to pursue a Ph.D. in the future. The thesis must be an original contribution by the student to mathematical knowledge - either a new discovery or a new synthesis of extant knowledge. The student must present and defend the thesis research at a final oral examination.The exam option is for students interested in advanced study of mathematics and who may want to pursue further study or teach in the future.

ii. Describe and discuss department expectations regarding the quality and extensiveness of each type of culminating activity.

Students who complete theses and projects have had committees of at least three people who must approve of


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their work. In a few cases, faculty from Geosciences, Engineering and Biology have served on committees.

iii. Evaluate the effectiveness of your culminating activities in achieving your stated goals.

Four students who completed theses went on to Ph.D. programs, and the remaining students who wrote theses and projects went to jobs in industry and college level teaching.During the first few years of the program only one student took the Exam option. Recently there was a sudden jump in the number of students taking the Exam option. This has prompted some internal discussion of why and may lead to program changes.

d. Community Engagement

i. What is the department’s philosophy regarding the integration of community engagement into your graduate programs?

The department encourages community engagement. Students who engage in the community are rewarded in subsequent letters of recommendation.

ii. Describe and evaluate your community engagement activities that involve graduate students.

Two M.S. students visited the Treasure Valley Math and Science Center to demonstrate on how mathematical modeling is used in the study of water flow through the subsurface. Three M.S. students led children activities at Family Math night at Longfellow Elementary in Boise.

6. Describe and evaluate the processes you have in place that enable effective planning of your enrollments.

a. Describe the processes by which you have determined the capacities for your graduate programs needed to be responsive “to the educational needs of the region” (Charting the Course [CTC])? How have you assessed the needs for your programs, and what were the results of that assessment?

It is difficult to asses the need for the program since the number of students equals the number of T.A.s. Math graduate students typically do not pay for their education, because they typically obtain T.A.s

b. What other factors enter into enrollment planning for your graduate programs (e.g., resources, change in strategic focus, etc.)?

We hope to increase the number of T.A.sc. Describe recent changes you have made and/or plan to make in the realm

of “Enrollment Planning” such as increasing or decreasing the capacity of your graduate programs. What are the reasons for those changes?

With the economic downturn there has been a large increase in inquiries about the graduate program. We anticipate that this


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spring we may have a much lower acceptance rate for T.A.s. However, we anticipate more students in the program who do not have T.A.s.

d. Evaluate enrollment, recruitment, and retention data in terms of your enrollment planning efforts. Are you being successful? What changes are needed in your plan and in your operations?

We feel we are successful, and as we graduate successful students there will be greater demand for our program.How does your department’s number of distance offerings compare with Delaware benchmark data? How do distance enrollment numbers mesh with your enrollment plans?


e. Judicious use of resources

Examine enrollments in your graduate courses. Examine the curricula for your programs. Could you make more efficient use of faculty time while preserving quality? That is, do you have “boutique” courses and/or low enrollment courses that could be discontinued or offered less frequently? Are there ways of consolidating and/or streamlining your curriculum? Describe any recent changes you’ve made.

We made the program more efficient in 2007, see attached curriculum change proposal. The efficiencies did not appear to harm the program, and the more frequent offering of fundamental courses improved our program.

7. Describe and evaluate your recruitment process. How effective is it?

a. Describe plans you have regarding recruitment and admissions.

b. Recruitment activities

i. Describe and evaluate your graduate program recruitment activities. Questions to consider include: Who is responsible for recruitment activities? How are inquiries from students handled? Is someone designated to respond to them? How quickly does that response occur? Is there follow-up? What media are used (email, phone, letter, brochures) to advertise? Does the department make use of the names of minority students from the Western Name Exchange or purchase names of students who have taken the GRE or GMAT? Does the department follow up with prospects provided through the electronic brochure? If eligible, does the department advertise the availability of GEM Hi-Tech Scholarships to out of state prospective students? Does the department make use the Graduate Residential Scholars Program as a recruiting tool? Are prospective students brought to campus for a visit?


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The Graduate Coordinator handles recruitment and inquiries. Email and phone responses occur within one week. There is no follow-up unless the prospective student requests it. Email, phone, letter and posters are used to advertise. Postcards are sent to all minority students on Western Name Exchange, and to students who provide addresses on electronic brochure. The Graduate Coordinator plans to email follow-up all those prospective students whom were sent postcards to remind them of the February 1 deadline.We have had two students participate in the GRSP and it is advertised on our website. Prospective students are not brought to campus, but local ones often come to campus and meet with the graduate coordinator.

ii. Discuss the effectiveness of department’s website in facilitating recruitment. Questions to consider include: Is the site updated regularly? Do students regard it as user-friendly? Is it easy for prospective graduate students to find information about potential advisors and contact information for the program director? Are assistantships advertised?

The website went through a major re-design by printing and graphics Fall 2007 to help with recruiting. The site is updated regularly by the graduate coordinator and all information for prospective and current students is available on the web. This includes research interests of faculty and their contact information. T.A.s are advertised, along with GRSP information on the website.

iii. What strategies, if any, do you use to recruit from the community, from outside the community, and/or internationally? Have you been successful?

We have purchased advertisements in American Mathematical Society publications. This Society also publishes a list of T.A. stipends by institution, free of charge. Each year we have also sent letters and posters advertising our program to approximately 150 national and international universities. Since we have a new program, the intent was to obtain name recognition at different Universities. Now that our program is more established, we will most likely not continue sending posters. With the recent economic downturn, we receive approximately 10 inquiries per month about the program, mostly through email, although local inquiries are sometimes made by phone.

iv. What attempts, if any, have you made to recruit members of under-represented groups? How effective have they been?

Each year we send postcards with information about our department to each student on the Western Name Exchange


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v. How have your recruitment activities affected the composition of your admitted students, the geographic areas from which you’ve successfully recruited, your full-time/part-time ratio, etc. Couch your evaluation in terms of your stated plans for graduate enrollment and in terms of the CTC goal of “Recruit … an academically-prepared and diverse student body.”

Since we have a new program, it isn’t clear how recruitment activities have effected the composition of our students.

c. Evaluate your recruitment data in terms of your enrollment management plan. Are you being successful? Are you responsive to the needs of the region? What changes are needed in your plan and operations?

8. Describe and evaluate your student support operations. How effective are they?

a. General

i. Evaluate your responses to the “graduate program activities” questionnaire. What changes should be made to enhance the ease with which your students navigate your graduate program?

ii. Evaluate your web-based and print-based materials. What changes do you plan in the near future?

Since we recently spent a lot of time on our web presence, we do not plan any major changes in the near future. It is the responsibility of the graduate coordinator to keep the web pages updated.We think the posters sent to departments were not very effective, and we will discontinue sending them. However, we will continue sending postcards to students who indicate interest in our program, and will follow up with emails to them.

b. Advising

i. Describe how your department makes information available to students. Do you have a student handbook? An extensive website? Orientation sessions? Other? Describe.

In fall 2007 we began one full week of T.A. training before the semester begins. This includes two sessions of training for new students whom are not T.A.s. This occurs every Fall, but we have had some students arrive Spring 2009, for which we offered two days of training before the semester began. Information for current students is available and kept updated on the web.

ii. Describe the manner in which students are initially linked to their advisors. Describe the manner in which graduate advisory committee members are chosen. What qualification criteria must committee members meet?

The graduate coordinator is the initial advisor for all students. The coordinator remains the advisor for students that choose the exam option.


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In the first Fall semester of the students’ program, they are required to enroll in the graduate student seminar. In this seminar, all students are exposed to research opportunities in the department, and what is involved in writing a thesis or project. Faculty members are invited to give talks about their research or internship opportunities at this seminar. Students are then encouraged to contact the faculty if they would like to do a thesis or project with them. Once a student has an advisor, together they decide on the remaining advisory committee members. The majority of the committee members must be from the math department, and they must have graduate faculty status.Students are required to determine their culminating activity by the beginning of their third semester.

iii. Describe the responsibilities of the advisor and the supervisory committee. How often do they meet? What is their role in monitoring academic progress of the student, and what remedial actions are taken if progress is not satisfactory?

Each semester students are required to complete a checklist form, which is attached and have their advisors sign it. Students must achieve at least a 3.0 each semester, and if they obtain less than that for two semesters they are withdrawn from the program by the Graduate College. For thesis or project credits, advisors give grades of P, IP or F. T.A.s are funded for two years, and only two of our 16 graduates have been given one extra semester.

iv. How do your advisee per advisor numbers compare to Delaware Study benchmark data? What does that tell you about the broadness of participation of faculty members, and the workload of faculty members?

We have had 10 advisors for our 16 graduates. Unfortunately, two of these 10 advisors have gone to other universities. We currently have 14 research-active faculty, so 57% have advised theses or projects.

9. Evaluate the extent to which the department’s faculty, staff, space, budget, and other resources enable you to offer high quality graduate programs.

a. Faculty

i. Discuss trends in the % of courses taught by various types of faculty, and compare to Delaware benchmark data.

ii. Enter in the table(s) below the number of faculty in various categories who routinely participate in the program as graduate course instructors, student advisors, or supervisory committee members (Note: routine participation reflects an active and ongoing effort in teaching and/or mentorship, as determined by the department chairperson). Complete a separate table for each graduate program.

The information in the table comes from close inspection of


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individual thesis committee rosters, which is still possible since the program is fairly young. It is not collected routinely and not generally available as a departmental metric. The judgment of “routinely” falls to the program coordinator. Individual faculty members communicate their graduate program involvement to the chair in their annual evaluation documents. This becomes part of their overall evaluation, but the chair does not make an assessment of whether it constitutes “routinely participat[ing]”.

iii. Is participation by tenured or tenure-track faculty from other academic departments required to deliver the program?

No, but we encourage interactions with faculty from other departments through classes and advisory committees.

iv. Discuss the sufficiency in numbers and expertise of your faculty members in terms of being able to carry out the delivery of your graduate programs.

It seems to be sufficient at this point.

Name of Program: Masters in Mathematics

(one table for each program; copy as needed)

# of graduate faculty members

who serve as advisors

# graduate faculty members who serve as

graduate committee members

# of graduate faculty members who serve as

instructors for your department’s graduate

coursesTenured or Tenure-track Faculty in your department

8 13 14

Tenured or Tenure-track Faculty in other departments

1 3 0

Research Faculty 0 0 0Clinical Faculty 0 0 0Adjunct or Affiliate Faculty and Lecturers 1 0 0

v. For those programs in which a high level of scholarly activity is an important foundation for the graduate program, assess the scholarly productivity of each of your participating faculty members. Give measures of publication productivity, publication impact, grant funding, presentation at conferences, exhibitions, performances, etc.

See VIII.B.1 for discussion of research productivity. Although difficult to quantify, productivity of the faculty involved in this program appears to be more than sufficient.

b. Staff

Describe staff support for your graduate programs and evaluate the sufficiency of staff support.

The program relies on departmental staff for support. This is discussed in III.C.10 and VIII.C.6.b.


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c. Facilities and Equipment

i. Describe and evaluate workspace, e.g., laboratory space, available to students in your programs, both for in-class and out-of-class work.

T.A.s have office space and computers, but other students do not have work space. We should have a common room where graduate students can work.

ii. Describe and evaluate equipment and supplies available to students in the program. If your department makes use of special course fees, include that information in your evaluation

iii. Describe and evaluate computers, access to the internet, etc., available for students in your graduate programs.

Students without T.A.s have access to the computer lab MG104, which is also used by undergraduate students. Students with T.A.s have computers at their desks with most mathematical software available to them. We should have a computer lab for graduate students.

iv. Describe and evaluate the office space available to students in your programs.

All 13 T.A.s share a single 664 sq. ft room. The room is subdivided into 4 areas, each with more than one occupant. The functional space available to each person is about 6ft by 8ft. If we have any RA’s supported on grants we try to find vacant spaces created by faculty on leave retired and not yet replaced. This is unsustainable and represents a significant barrier to growing the program.

d. Library

Discuss and evaluate the sufficiency of library resources needed to support your graduate program.

e. Budget

i. Describe the budget that is specifically devoted to your graduate programs. How much funding is devoted to travel, research expenses, publication costs, etc., of graduate students?

Most of our students that have traveled to conferences have been able to secure outside funding. For those students who gave presentations but couldn’t secure funding, the department paid for their travel out of the travel funds that are used for all faculty and staff in the department. If there were travel grants available to graduate students through the department, this may encourage them to present their work nationally or internationally.

ii. Evaluate the sufficiency of your budget for producing high quality graduate programs.

In order for our program to grow, we need to offer more teaching assistantships. To recruit higher caliber students we need to have at least one permanent research


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assistantship through the department, rather than rely on faculty grants. Also, see C.9.f below.

iii. Describe reallocations of funds that you have made to enhance your graduate programs.

Beginning with the summer of 2008 we shifted $6000 from other department activities to support two summer research awards for graduate T.A.s. These awards allow T.A.s to continue their thesis or pre-thesis study without interruption between their first and second year in the program.

f. Graduate Assistant Support

i. Comment on the adequacy of the size of graduate assistant stipends. How do they compare with stipends at your peer institutions?

Our stipends have not increased in the four years of the program. They were competitive when we started, but now they are not.

ii. What is your strategy for making the best use of graduate student stipends? Include a description of the responsibilities of graduate assistants who are receiving stipends.

With the budget cuts last year we re-evaluated how the T.A.s are spending their time. We determined that we are using them effectively, and at the same time contributing to their training as teachers.First year T.A.s teach Math 108, which is a computer assisted course. They meet with their class four hours a week; one hour in the classroom and three hours in the computer lab. They are responsible for all of the bookkeeping, but exams and the syllabus are made for them. They meet once a week for one hour with the Director of the Math Learning Center, and take a one credit class “Teaching College Mathematics”. Each first year T.A. also tutors 11 hours a week in the Math Learning Center.Second year teachers typically teach one section of Math 143 which is three credits taught in traditional lecture style. They are responsible for the syllabus, exams, and all other aspects of the course. They are paired with a full-time instructor during the semester who mentors them on homework assignments, exams and syllabus. The mentor also visits their classroom at least once a semester. Each second year T.A. also tutors 5 hours in the Math Learning Center.Two years ago we had one T.A. who struggled as a teacher in the classroom, and that person was assigned to do analysis of assessment statistics for the department.

iii. Comment on the number of assistantships in your programs. Is that number sufficient? What would you do with more?


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We have 13 T.A.s and typically the same number of full-time students. We have an increasing graduation rate for these students (see graph), so we believe that if we had more teaching assistantships we would graduate more students. New T.A.s would perform the same jobs as current T.A.s, in which case the department would not hire as many part-time instructors.

iv. Comment on the adequacy of the number and size of endowment-funded and otherwise externally funded fellowships available to students in your department. What are your plans in this area? For example, do you have plans to increase the size of endowments for department fellowships?

We do not have any endowments.

10. If there exist other departmental structures, processes, and resources that are key to the successful implementation of graduate programs and that the department wishes to describe and discuss, do so here.

D. In what ways do you contribute?1. Congruence with and Contribution to University and College Visions, Missions,

Strategic Plans, and initiatives

a. Describe how your graduate programs are congruent with and contribute to the visions, missions, and strategic plans of the university and of your college.

Our graduate program develops and enhances research in the department through the work the students do with faculty advisors. If we want to recruit good research mathematicians we need to have at least a good masters program, and many do not consider Boise State because we do not have a Ph.D. program.Our graduate program also serves graduate programs in the sciences and engineering. Most of these programs require their students to do graduate level mathematics.Our graduate program promotes and advances interdisciplinary work. Graduate students are encouraged to do interdisciplinary work which is a good way for faculty from different disciplines to work together. The students can facilitate the collaborations, as it takes a lot of time for faculty to learn the different disciplines. Our graduate program supports undergraduate research through the dual-listed courses.Our graduate program expands community engagement through internships, and the job placement of our graduates.The extensive training of our T.A.s benefits the education of the undergraduate students in the Math Learning Center.

b. Describe how, within the realm of your undergraduate programs, you contribute to the university’s initiatives on internationalization, campus climate, and adjunct faculty integration.


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2. Contribution to the community and beyond

a. Describe how your graduate programs benefit the community, region, state, and nation.

25% of our students have obtained jobs in the local industry, and thus contributed to the economic health of the region. In addition, another 25% have gone to teach at the college level in Idaho, thus half of our graduates choose careers in the state.Alternatively, 45% of our incoming students obtained their undergraduate degrees in Idaho (26% are from BSU).

b. Identify any unique features that set your graduate programs apart from other competing or potentially competing programs in Idaho and/or in the region and/or nationally.

Our students are required to have a strong theoretical base with our analysis core, and they are encouraged to do interdisciplinary theses and internships. Thus they are receiving an education that prepares them for many opportunities.


Note that in Section X, you will be asked to bring forward the most important responses from each of the following and to further prioritize responses from other sections of your Self Study.

For each of the following, order your responses based on priority.

1. What are the most important strengths that the department has in the realm of its graduate programs? What are your thoughts on how you could capitalize on those strengths?

2. What are the most important weaknesses that you have identified? What are your thoughts on how to remedy those weaknesses?

3. What are the most important opportunities you have identified? What are your thoughts on how you might exploit those opportunities?

4. What are the most important threats you have identified? What are your thoughts on how you would guard against those threats


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V. Graduate Programs – Masters in Math Education

A. What do you do? Descriptions of ProgramsList the graduate programs offered by your department, including certificates. For each, give a brief, one paragraph overview that includes general descriptions of the purpose(s) of the program, the target audience(s), the number of credits required, and the options available within the program(s).

The curriculum of the Master of Science in Mathematics Education is designed to enhance the preparation of middle school, junior high school, and high school mathematics teachers. Since high quality preparation of teachers requires the integration of mathematical content and pedagogy, courses within the program are designed to extend candidates’ understanding of both mathematical content and issues related to the teaching and learning of that content. Because of the varied backgrounds of the candidates, a student’s course of study is individually designed in consultation with the graduate committee to expand his or her existing knowledge and to assist the candidate in situating his or her particular grade-level content within the larger body of mathematics. Because of the differing goals of candidates for the degree, there are two options available to students.

The Master of Science in Mathematics Education requires coursework (at least 27 credits) and a culminating experience consisting of either a thesis or a project (3-6 credits). A thesis must be an original contribution by the student to the state of mathematics education or mathematical knowledge, using a mixed method research approach that includes both a qualitative and a quantitative component. The culminating experience for both options includes a public defense of the work.

B. Are you successful at what you do? How do you know? Evidence of Student Success and Program Effectiveness.

Note: If your department offers more than one program, then typically you should discuss each program separately under each set of questions in Section B. You may, if you wish, choose to lump several programs together in your discussion if those programs have very similar measures of success and effectiveness and evidence thereof.


Present and evaluate information on the success of your students after graduation. Questions to consider include: How do you measure success? Are your graduates able to secure employment in fields for which your program should have prepared them? Are they successful at gaining admission to subsequent graduate and professional schools? Are students satisfied with the education they received? Are employers impressed with the education your students received?

Approximately 98% of the candidates participating in the Master of Science in Mathematics Education currently hold paid teaching

V. Masters in Math Education 39

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positions. Candidates completing the program influence their peers and districts with current ideas and research that focus on teaching mathematics for understanding. Alumni surveys collected through the College of Education show that employers are impressed with the increased effectiveness of our graduates. Our graduates gain professional development, rather than entry to employment in the field.

2. Your students make significant contributions to the discipline and/or profession.

a. For those programs that require a thesis, dissertation, or project, what is the expectation regarding a contribution to the discipline and presentat

b. ion to a broader audience, e.g., via publication, presentation, or performance? How well have your students met those expectations? As applicable, describe numbers and prominence of publications in peer-reviewed journals, numbers of presentations professional conferences, numbers engaged in creative endeavors (e.g., exhibitions, performances, readings, etc.), % of students participating in each of those activities, and other pertinent information.

All candidates writing a thesis or completing a project in the Masters of Mathematics Education successfully present their work at a defense advertised University and District wide. In addition, many candidates present at conferences of the Idaho Council of Teachers of Mathematics and at parent-group meetings.

c. What other contributions have your graduates made to the discipline and/or

the profession, e.g., leadership positions in professional organizations.

In the current economic state of the country, the public schools have suffered greatly from budget cuts. Candidates in the Masters of Mathematics Education come to believe in the aspects of teaching mathematics for understanding. As such, candidates have written grants, have lobbied districts, and have lobbied parent groups for funds necessary to improve the quality of students’ learning experiences and to support teaching of mathematics with understanding.


Refer to Section 1 (STUDENT LEARNING GOALS) of your Program Assessment Plan and Reports (PAPRs), to Section 2 (THE ASSESSMENT PLAN), and to Section 3 (WHAT HAVE YOUR ASSESSMENT MEASURES TOLD YOU). Also refer to any additional information you may have in this regard. Evaluate the extent to which your students are achieving the learning goals of your programs.

The Masters in Mathematics Education participates in NCATE. As such, the goals for the master’s degree are listed according to candidate expectations within this evaluation system. Candidates demonstrate their understanding in both formal and informal settings. Across the curriculum, evaluation includes an examination of appropriate conceptual understandings of mathematics and research-based practices in teaching.


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ADVANCED CANDIDATE PERFORMANCE DATA: SOURCES OF EVIDENCE

PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS

Professional ArtifactsCurriculum units, professional presentations

Formal Written AssessmentsExams, skill presentations, group project work, analysis papers, reflection papers

Formal Non-written AssessmentsLesson activities (creation and/or presentation), mini-lessons, verbal skill presentations, group presentations

Informal AssessmentsParticipation in discussions, in-class activities, professional dispositions

1. Advanced program candidates are committed to all students and their learning.*denotes evidence directly related to issues of diversity

MATHED 591 or 593

*EDUC 510, 539, 550

*MATH 547

MATHED 523, 524, 525

MATHED 510

2. Advanced program candidates know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects.*denoted evidence directly related to content knowledge

*Required graduate MATH credits

MATHED 523, 524, 525

MATHED 523, 524, 525

MATHED 523, 524, 525

3. Advanced program candidates are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning.

MATHED 591

MATHED 510 MATHED 523, 524, 525

MATHED 570

4. Advanced program candidates think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.

MATHED 591 or 593

MATHED 510 MATHED 523, 524, 525

MATHED 523, 524, 525

5. Advanced program candidates are members of learning

MATHED 598 MATHED courses


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communities.6. Advanced program candidates are able to utilize technology in their field of practice.

MATHED 570MATHED 524

MATHED 570MATHED 524

MATHED 523


This information is available in the data within each candidate’s file folder in the department office. Data are available; they have not been compiled.

a. Highlight important trends and give context to the data sets and graphs depicting numbers of graduates from your programs in the context of the number of full-time and part-time students. Evaluate. What proportion of enrolled students graduates each year? What proportion of admitted students remains enrolled each year?

b. Examine and evaluate data on time to completion for your students, and do so in terms of the students in your program (e.g., full-time students will graduate more quickly than will part-time students). Questions to consider: Are your students able to graduate promptly, or are they delayed? How many of your students have left the program before graduation? Why have they left?

A candidate can complete the course work for the Masters of Science in Mathematics Education in two summers and a regular academic semester designated to research. However, completion time is not a good measure of the success of the degree program. Given that our program is aimed at practicing teachers, our enrollment patterns might be considered atypical. Frequently, we have students enrolled in our courses who are not currently interested in completing a graduate degree. Some of these students later choose to complete the degree, but this delayed entrance into the program creates skewed completion time numbers. For example, on paper it appears that a current candidate will complete the program in less than a year. In contrast, another student was nearing completion when he was called to active duty with the National Guard—his time to completion on paper is seven years. The nature of our target population makes stories such as these more the rule than the exception.

A better measure of the program includes an examination of why a candidate didn’t complete the program. To date, all candidates not completing the program have either moved out of the state for economic reasons or changed degree programs because of interest in a different career direction—becoming more interested in technology than mathematics.


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5. Your program attracts and retains students in sufficient numbers, quality, and diversity. Highlight and evaluate important trends and give context to the data sets.

a. Highlight and evaluate important trends and give context to the data sets and graphs depicting enrollment data: numbers, ethnic diversity, and geographic diversity.

Since the Masters of Science in Mathematics Education program does not have a funding component with which to draw teachers from more diverse regions, the candidates in this program reflect the population of Boise and Idaho in general.

b. Highlight and evaluate important trends and give context to the data sets and graphs depicting recruitment and admissions data. What proportion of applicants is admitted? What proportion of admitted students enrolls? What proportion of your enrollees had received a baccalaureate from Boise State and what proportion graduated from other institutions?

100% of the candidates who have been admitted to the program enroll in course s.

c. What is the quality of your incoming students? Include information such as incoming GRE scores, selectivity of admission, and geographic diversity.

The admission requirements include three letters of reference and a letter from the candidate. Candidates often have previously taken courses from one or more of the faculty. The professional education requirements for admittance into our program include a strong mathematics background and teaching certification.

6. Your students receive awards, honors, grants, etc.

Describe awards, honors, grants, etc., received by your students and your graduates, and indicate the relevance to the quality of your programs.

7. Additional measures and indicators of Student Success and Program Effectiveness.

If there are additional measures and indicators of student success and program effectiveness that are not covered above, you may describe those measures and indicators here. Also describe the results and discuss the meaning of those measures and indicators.

As part of an NCATE review process, the Masters of Science in Mathematics Education faculty are currently participating in creating a University-wide assessment structure that will be used to track and evaluate all students enrolled in any education-related graduate program. This tracking structure is in the design phase.

C. Do you have the structures, processes, and resources in place t to facilitate successful academic operations?

Note: Many of the following questions parallel those in the Undergraduate Programs Section. You should feel free to cite your answer from the UG section, as appropriate and useful. For example, if your graduate program processes are the same as for your


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undergraduate programs, you may answer in the graduate section with something on the order of, “Same as UG programs; see section III.C.1.” If the processes are similar but with important differences, you might describe the difference with something on the order of, “Similar to UG programs (section III.C.1) but with the following differences…”

Also note: typically a department would address the questions in Section C at the department level as opposed to addressing the question separately for each program. However there may be situations in which the latter would be more useful.

1. Describe the mechanisms you have in place to facilitate the continuous improvement of your programs.

With reference to Section 3 of your PAPRs, WHAT HAVE YOUR ASSESSMENT MEASURES TOLD YOU and to Section 4, WHAT ACTIONS HAVE YOU TAKEN, describe the process by which the department considers the results of your assessment measures and determines appropriate actions. Is the work accomplished at a department retreat? By a subcommittee? Annually? Etc? Illustrate with examples the kinds of information provided by your assessment plans and actions you have taken in response. What changes to your curriculum do you anticipate in the near future? What are the reasons for those changes?

The PAP (attached in Section III.B.3) discusses department level guidelines.

a. The assessment and improvement of our educational programs must be an ongoing, sustainable process. Describe how you ensure that your assessment/improvement process is sustainable and ongoing.

As a faculty in a research university, the mathematics education research group at Boise State University has a fundamental responsibility for developing, investigating, and disseminating new knowledge and model programs as a part of our own scholarship. We fulfill that mission through carefully planned programs of study for graduate candidates that build on an individual’s undergraduate preparation and include graduate study in teaching, research, and mathematics. We meet regularly to discuss any program or teaching related issues that arise. For example, we have been involved in efforts to create additional mathematics certification options at the state level. The creation of these options and the supporting courses has prompted us to reassess our program and its alignment with these options. We anticipate a restructuring of the program in the near future to take full advantage of this alignment.

2. Describe how you ensure that your programs are relevant to the needs of your students and to the needs of society (e.g., potential employers)?

a. Each degree/certificate program a department offers serves a particular purpose or set of purposes. Describe any recent discussions your department has had regarding the purposes served by your present programs and the potential need to serve other purposes with academic programs. How have you been responsive “to the educational needs of the region” (Charting the Course [CTC])? If you have assessed the needs for your programs, describe the results of that assessment. Do you have an


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external advisory committee? If so what role does it play? Describe recent changes and plans for future changes in the offerings of your programs (e.g., new and/or discontinued program and emphases) and the reason for those changes.

Although the Masters of Science in Mathematics Education is in the College of Arts and Sciences, the faculty participate in NCATE reviews and collaborate with the faculty in the College of Education. This review process includes attending to regional needs. Currently, the state is exploring certification options, to include increased qualifications in mathematics (as mentioned above). Our ongoing review of the program includes considering such movements at the state level so that we are positioned to deliver appropriate courses and professional development opportunities.

b. With reference to Section 1 of your Program Assessment Plan and Reports (PAPRs), STUDENT LEARNING GOALS, describe the process by which you review and update your program learning goals.

The faculty of the Masters of Mathematics Education program meet on a regular basis, and update goals as the need arises. During formal NCATE reviews and departmental reviews, we have time to examine and evaluate our ongoing program assessment. Being a small group of faculty responsible for the delivery of a program has its advantages.


a. Describe and evaluate how you assess the quality of the instruction in your graduate courses. Include specific reference to each of the types of instructor you employ, e.g., official faculty, lecturers, adjunct instructors, and graduate teaching assistants. Provide examples of instruments used and the results they yield.

To ensure high standards of quality, all courses are informally and formally evaluated using both candidate and faculty feedback. This is possible because of our small numbers of both faculty and candidates. Our candidates and faculty typically develop professional relationships. All courses are currently taught by official graduate faculty.

b. Describe how you make use of that assessment information. Illustrate with examples of assessment results and actions that have followed.

During our last bi-weekly meeting, we discussed removing a 3-credit required course from our curriculum, MathEd570 Advanced Mathematics Using Technology. We determined that the content of this course would provide authentic pedagogical content knowledge through its integration into three other existing courses, MathEd 523 The Teaching of Algebra, MathEd 524 The Teaching of Geometry, and MathEd 525 The Teaching of Calculus. We will develop a curriculum change to this effect, improving our curriculum and omitting a required course from our program. This is one example of the restructuring that we anticipate as we consider alignment with state initiatives.


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c. Describe and evaluate how the department encourages, motivates, supports, and reinforces instructional development of your faculty members (of all types). Do your faculty members make good use of the opportunities available to them?

The department encourages faculty development by providing travel funds to professional meetings and arranging schedules to allow for collaborative group work time. Our group, as mentioned previously, uses regularly scheduled time for research and for program development.The MATHED courses are taught in a room that has recently been upgraded to include a SMART board, clicker response capability, and a classroom set of laptop computers. Several training sessions have been provided for the faculty.

4. How do you ensure your coursework is of high quality?

a. How do you ensure that graduate courses are updated, upgraded, and created anew as needed?

The Mathematics Education Faculty Research Group responds in an ongoing process. This process works for us because we are a small tight-knit group.

b. Dual-listed Courses

i. Describe departmental guidelines regarding dual-listed courses. What is required of graduate students that is above and beyond that required of undergraduate students?

The number of dual-listed courses in our program is minimal. When they are scheduled, graduate students typically are required to complete an additional, research-based paper or project.

ii. Describe your efforts to increase the proportion of graduate-level courses (i.e., not G-courses or graduate courses dual-listed with an undergraduate course). Evaluate the impact on your graduate programs of dual-listing courses.

In the design of a candidates program for a Masters of Mathematics Education, the only acceptable G-course is Math490G. This course is a secondary methods course in teaching mathematics and would only be appropriate for students who hadn’t taken a mathematics-specific secondary methods course in their undergraduate program. This course is seldom, if ever, appropriate for our candidates’ programs.

c. Non-traditional coursework

What guidelines do you have in place related to non-traditional courses and relatively unregulated courses such as workshops, directed research, etc.?

Workshops do not count towards the coursework required for a candidate’s program.


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d. Course learning objectives

Describe and evaluate the methods by which the department facilitates the development and meaningful use of Course Learning Objectives (CLOs) in graduate courses. How does the department ensure that CLOs are listed in the syllabi of all sections of all courses offered by the department? How does the department ensure that instructors inform their students of CLOs? How does the department ensure that instructors inform their students of CLOs?

Mathematics Education faculty share syllabi, philosophies of teaching, methods, readings, research interests, and ideas to improve and deliver courses on a weekly basis, if not daily. We write, edit, and follow CLOs as a group within the department.

e. Describe how you ensure that the quality of your distance-delivered courses is on par with that of your on-campus courses.


5. Are your curricula well structured and well integrated?

a. Contribution of Coursework to Program Student Learning Goals: Curriculum Maps

Evaluate your curriculum maps: how well do courses map to program learning goals and vice versa? For example: Do you require courses that do not strongly contribute to program learning goals? Are there program student learning goals that are not well supported by courses in your curriculum? Do required courses from outside of your department contribute significantly to your student learning goals?

There are no courses in the program that do not strongly contribute to the Masters of Mathematics Education program learning goals. Objectives are addressed across courses and each required course addresses some objectives. See the program objectives table above and the attached curriculum map.

b. Impact on and of other programs

If your department offers multiple programs, e.g. several graduate programs and/or graduate and undergraduate programs, evaluate the effects that those other programs have on the quality and efficiency of your graduate programs. For example, is there competition for resources and for faculty time and attention? Are there enhancements to the graduate program that result from the presence of undergraduate programs?

The faculty teaching in the two programs do not compete for the same population of students. The programs basically draw from different populations, those students who have been awarded TAs or RAs and practicing teachers for whom it


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wouldn’t make sense to give up a job to take an RA or TA position.

c. Culminating Activity

i. For each of your programs, describe the requirement for a culminating activity, such as a project, thesis, dissertation, or comprehensive examination. What are the program learning goals that will be achieved by that activity?

During the defense of a thesis each of the following professional standards will be identifiable. All theses are classroom-based and include a quantitative and qualitative component. To date, no projects have been requested, but we assume that the standards will also be evident in the presentation of a project.

PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS1. Advanced program candidates are committed to all students and their learning.2. Advanced program candidates know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects.3. Advanced program candidates are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning.4. Advanced program candidates think systematically about their practice and learn from experience.5. Advanced program candidates are members of learning communities.6. Advanced program candidates are able to utilize technology in their field of practice.

ii. Describe and discuss department expectations regarding the quality and extensiveness of each type of culminating activity.

The Mathematics Education faculty have established high standards for culminating activities. Theses must be original work, not an extension of a faculty member’s current research, and address a question that has been identified by, and genuinely interests, the candidate.

iii. Evaluate the effectiveness of your culminating activities in achieving your stated goals.

As of date, a project option has not been requested. All theses have been successfully defended. The learning goals are addressed as candidates carefully plan classroom-based investigations and reflect on the results.

d. Community Engagement

i. What is the department’s philosophy regarding the integration of community engagement into your graduate programs?

ii. Describe and evaluate your community engagement activities that involve graduate students.

Graduate students in Masters in Mathematics Education are practicing teachers. We encourage and expect our candidates to join and participate as professional members of the Idaho Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. We are often


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able to maintain our contacts with graduates through attendance at regular meetings of these organizations.

6. Describe and evaluate the processes you have in place that enable effective planning of your enrollments.

a. Describe the processes by which you have determined the capacities for your graduate programs needed to be responsive “to the educational needs of the region” (Charting the Course [CTC])? How have you assessed the needs for your programs, and what were the results of that assessment?

Candidates are encouraged to form collaborative groups within these courses and to carry that collaboration into their classrooms. In addition, Boise State University conducts surveys of alumni, and information related to our graduates is systematically provided to us. We use these data and word of mouth to determine needs.

b. What other factors enter into enrollment planning for your graduate programs (e.g., resources, change in strategic focus, etc.)?

The existence of Masters of Mathematics Education program, primarily a summer program, is currently threatened by a change in policy in the funding allocation to pay faculty salaries in summer. Our program is small yet growing, despite the economic turndown.

c. Describe recent changes you have made and/or plan to make in the realm of “Enrollment Planning” such as increasing or decreasing the capacity of your graduate programs. What are the reasons for those changes?

We plan to remove MathEd570 Advanced Mathematics Using Technology from the catalog. The content of this course will be integrated into three other existing courses, MathEd 523 The Teaching of Algebra, MathEd 524 The Teaching of Geometry, and MathEd 525 The Teaching of Calculus. This change will improve our three existing “teaching of” courses and streamline our program. The alignment with state initiatives will also impact enrollment by expanding our target audience.

d. Evaluate enrollment, recruitment, and retention data in terms of your enrollment planning efforts. Are you being successful? What changes are needed in your plan and in your operations?

The Masters of Science in Mathematics Education program needs to advertise more. Funding should be made available and time should be allocated so a person could set up a database, send fliers, and advertise the program. We are also scheduled to meet with a representative from Extended Studies to explore recruitment and advertising options.

e. How does your department’s number of distance offerings compare with Delaware benchmark data? How do distance enrollment numbers mesh with your enrollment plans? NA

f. Judicious use of resources

Examine enrollments in your graduate courses. Examine the curricula for your programs. Could you make more efficient use of


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faculty time while preserving quality? That is, do you have “boutique” courses and/or low enrollment courses that could be discontinued or offered less frequently? Are there ways of consolidating and/or streamlining your curriculum? Describe any recent changes you’ve made.

Assistantships are not appropriate for our target population of practicing teachers. In spite of the current downturned economy, our program continues to grow. This growth is slow, and may be helped through stipends to cover enrollment costs. As part of our collaboration on state initiatives, we will be exploring funding options that may be able to provide such stipends.

7. Describe and evaluate your recruitment process. How effective is it?

a. Describe plans you have regarding recruitment and admissions.

b. Recruitment activities

i. Describe and evaluate your graduate program recruitment activities. Questions to consider include: Who is responsible for recruitment activities? How are inquiries from students handled? Is someone designated to respond to them? How quickly does that response occur? Is there follow-up? What media are used (email, phone, letter, brochures) to advertise? Does the department make use of the names of minority students from the Western Name Exchange or purchase names of students who have taken the GRE or GMAT? Does the department follow up with prospects provided through the electronic brochure? If eligible, does the department advertise the availability of GEM Hi-Tech Scholarships to out of state prospective students? Does the department make use the Graduate Residential Scholars Program as a recruiting tool? Are prospective students brought to campus for a visit?

Inquiries from teachers are replied to within one or two days. The graduate coordinator is responsible for responding to all inquires and scheduling appointments with all persons who inquire about the program. Many of these inquiries occur during the summer when faculty are not on salary. The graduate coordinator also sends email notification to local teachers prior to each semester to advertise course offerings. The Masters in Mathematics Education cannot make use of the Residential Scholar Program since the program doesn’t support RAs or TAs.

ii. Discuss the effectiveness of department’s website in facilitating recruitment. Questions to consider include: Is the site updated regularly? Do students regard it as user-friendly? Is it easy for prospective graduate students to find information about potential advisors and contact information for the program director? Are assistantships advertised?


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The Graduate Coordinator is listed and linked by email. Assistantships are not advertised because they do not exist. Program information is updated regularly.

iii. What strategies, if any, do you use to recruit from the community, from outside the community, and/or internationally? Have you been successful?

The Graduate Coordinator sends emails to the State Department of Education and they post our class offerings on the SDE site. Email requests to share information of class offerings are also sent by the coordinator to regional school-district mathematics-coordinators, to schools who have a mathematics coordinator, and to individual K-12-mathematics teachers. Since we do not have assistantships available, international recruiting does not apply.

iv. What attempts, if any, have you made to recruit members of under-represented groups? How effective have they been?

The MATHED courses are designed to create learning communities among secondary mathematics teachers. Candidates are encouraged to form collaborative groups within these courses and to carry that collaboration into their classrooms. The program draws from the teachers in Idaho and the inquiries and candidates represent that population.

v. How have your recruitment activities affected the composition of your admitted students, the geographic areas from which you’ve successfully recruited, your full-time/part-time ratio, etc. Couch your evaluation in terms of your stated plans for graduate enrollment and in terms of the CTC goal of “Recruit … an academically-prepared and diverse student body.”

c. Evaluate your recruitment data in terms of your enrollment management plan. Are you being successful? Are you responsive to the needs of the region? What changes are needed in your plan and operations?

We do the best we can with the faculty resources available. With additional support for the program, we could offer courses in remote locations where teachers are too far to drive to campus, but would appreciate having access to the program.

8. Describe and evaluate your student support operations. How effective are they?

c. General

i. Evaluate your responses to the “graduate program activities” questionnaire. What changes should be made to enhance the ease with which your students navigate your graduate program?

ii. Evaluate your web-based and print-based materials. What changes do you plan in the near future?

We intend to update the web and print materials as we go through our anticipated restructuring process.

d. Advising


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i. Describe how your department makes information available to students. Do you have a student handbook? An extensive website? Orientation sessions? Other? Describe.

The Graduate Coordinator advises all candidates entering the program. The chair of the candidate’s thesis committee, when formed, becomes the candidate’s advisor from that time to the end of the program. ii. Describe the manner in which students are initially linked to their

advisors. Describe the manner in which graduate advisory committee members are chosen. What qualification criteria must committee members meet?

There are currently three faculty in the Masters of Mathematics Education. A search was just completed for a fourth, and the department has recently committed to a long term proposal to guarantee four full time positions in Math Ed. The committee chair must be one of these faculty. Typically two committee members are Mathematics Education faculty and one is Mathematics, although that may change with the addition of a fourth specialist. iii. Describe the responsibilities of the advisor and the supervisory

committee. How often do they meet? What is their role in monitoring academic progress of the student, and what remedial actions are taken if progress is not satisfactory?

Once an advisor and supervisory committee are chosen, they meet as needed to direct the candidate’s program and culminating experience. Happily, we have not yet needed to deal with unsatisfactory progress. iv. How do your advisee per advisor numbers compare to Delaware

Study benchmark data? What does that tell you about the broadness of participation of faculty members, and the workload of faculty members?

As the program continues to grow, we will need to monitor this measure. Currently, the faculty group and candidate numbers are appropriately matched.

9. Evaluate the extent to which the department’s faculty, staff, space, budget, and other resources enable you to offer high quality graduate programs.

a. Faculty

i. Discuss trends in the % of courses taught by various types of faculty, and compare to Delaware benchmark data.

ii. Enter in the table(s) below the number of faculty in various categories who routinely participate in the program as graduate course instructors, student advisors, or supervisory committee members (Note: routine participation reflects an active and ongoing effort in teaching and/or mentorship, as determined by the department chairperson). Complete a separate table for each graduate program.


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iii. Is participation by tenured or tenure-track faculty from other academic departments required to deliver the program?

COE faculty to deliver required and possible elective courses. iv. Discuss the sufficiency in numbers and expertise of your faculty

members in terms of being able to carry out the delivery of your graduate programs.

Since the program operates primarily as a summer program it represents paid overload for faculty. The recent addition of a fourth Mathematics Education specialist is likely to increase the flexibility in delivering graduate courses and serving on supervisory committees. v. For those programs in which a high level of scholarly activity is an

important foundation for the graduate program, assess the scholarly productivity of each of your participating faculty members. Give measures of publication productivity, publication impact, grant funding, presentation at conferences, exhibitions, performances, etc.

Over the last 10 years, faculty in the program have contributed to the mathematics education discipline by publishing research papers in national and international journals, conducting numerous presentations on research, obtaining external funding to support projects for teacher professional development, and working with teachers locally and at the national level. Currently, the mathematics education faculty are conducting a research study on mathematical definitions. We are looking at what mathematicians do to learn about the expert’s perspective and comparing that with what undergraduates say and do. We anticipate this work to be informative to the larger mathematics and mathematics education community.

b. Staff

Describe staff support for your graduate programs and evaluate the sufficiency of staff support.

Staff support is given by the mathematics department staff.c. Facilities and Equipment

i. Describe and evaluate workspace, e.g., laboratory space, available to students in your programs, both for in-class and out-of-class work.

Currently we have MG 107, a mathematics-education lab, reserved for classes. However, as undergraduate programs grow, the need for extra classroom space will mean that this will have to be renegotiated.ii. Describe and evaluate equipment available to students in your

programs. Describe and evaluate equipment and supplies available to students in the program. If your department makes use of special course fees, include that information in your evaluation.

The equipment that is available to students primarily resides in MG 107. See below.


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iii. Describe and evaluate computers, access to the Internet, etc., available for students in your graduate programs.

Currently we have MG 107, mathematics-education lab, reserved for classes. This room provides computers, a smart board, and manipulative storage. We also have MG 122, a small computer lab available to students. The laptop computers were purchased at the beginning of 2010 and are in good working condition. Course fees are used to purchase the electronic equipment in this lab.iv. Describe and evaluate the office space available to students in your

programs.

No office space is available for students in this program.d. Library

Discuss and evaluate the sufficiency of library resources needed to support your graduate program.

The library has been supportive in purchasing needed resources and in assisting with reserve materials for specific courses. The sufficiency of resources is part of our ongoing review of the program.

e. Budget

i. Describe the budget that is specifically devoted to your graduate programs. How much funding is devoted to travel, research expenses, publication costs, etc., of graduate students?

$0.00Evaluate the sufficiency of your budget for producing high quality graduate programs.

The existence of Masters of Mathematics Education Degree, primarily a summer program, is currently threatened by a change in policy in the funding allocation to pay faculty salaries in summer.

ii. Describe reallocations of funds that you have made to enhance your graduate programs.

No funds have been reallocated to enhance the Masters of Mathematics Education. However we are making plans to support the program using funds generated by teaching high demand summer courses.

f. Graduate Assistant Support

i. Comment on the adequacy of the size of graduate assistant stipends. How do they compare with stipends at your peer institutions?

N/Aii. What is your strategy for making the best use of graduate student

stipends? Include a description of the responsibilities of graduate assistants who are receiving stipends.


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N/Aiii. Comment on the number of assistantships in your programs. Is that

number sufficient? What would you do with more?

Assistantships are not immediately applicable to our target population. However, stipends directed at providing fee waivers and books could increase enrollment.

iv. Comment on the adequacy of the number and size of endowment-funded and otherwise externally funded fellowships available to students in your department. What are your plans in this area? For example, do you have plans to increase the size of endowments for department fellowships.

Currently there are no funds for Mathematics Education fellowships.

10. If there exist other departmental structures, processes, and resources that are key to the successful implementation of graduate programs and that the department wishes to describe and discuss, do so here.

D. In what ways do you contribute?1. Congruence with and Contribution to University and College Visions, Missions,

Strategic Plans, and initiatives

a. Describe how your graduate programs are congruent with and contribute to the visions, missions, and strategic plans of the university and of your college.

The national test scores for Idaho’s K-12 mathematics students fall below expectations. The points of concern focus in problem solving and geometry. Problem solving skills are critical for students of all ages to develop and use and is an especially critical tool for any member of today’s society. Recently Boise State University has focused on creative thinking, multiple pathways to solutions for problems. As a faculty in a research university, the Mathematics Education group at Boise State University has a fundamental responsibility for developing, investigating, and disseminating new knowledge in our field. We model our courses and consider our program as a part of our own scholarship. We fulfill that mission through carefully planned programs of study for graduate candidates that build on an individual’s undergraduate preparation and include graduate study in teaching, research, and mathematics.

b. Describe how, within the realm of your undergraduate programs, you contribute to the university’s initiatives on internationalization, campus climate, and adjunct faculty integration.

We recently restructured the Mathematics, Secondary Education undergraduate program to include a one-credit seminar that candidates are required to repeat at least three times during the program. A primary goal of the seminar is to build community in the program. Through the seminar, candidates will meet one another and connect with candidates who are at varying places in their program. Because all of the mathematics education faculty regularly


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participate in each seminar, relationships between faculty and candidates will be enhanced.

2. Contribution to the community and beyond

a. Describe how your graduate programs benefit the community, region, state, and nation.

Across program courses, candidates demonstrate their ability to engage individual students as well as groups in ways that stimulate and support high quality mathematical experiences. Both theoretical as well as practical knowledge is expected during peer-teaching episodes and discussions. We also encourage and expect candidates to incorporate this knowledge into their teaching, helping thousands of students in the process.

b. Identify any unique features that set your graduate programs apart from other competing or potentially competing programs in Idaho and/or in the region and/or nationally.


Note that in Section X, you will be asked to bring forward the most important responses from each of the following and to further prioritize responses from other sections of your Self Study.


1. What are the most important strengths that the department has in the realm of its graduate programs? What are your thoughts on how you could capitalize on those strengths?



4. What are the most important threats you have identified? What are your thoughts on how you would guard against those threats?


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VI. Service Coursework and Core Curriculum Coursework

This section speaks to “Core” as it was understood prior to the adoption of the new Foundations program in October of 2010. The new program is not yet implemented so this section is relevant to all past semesters and all students who will complete degrees under the old system. Since implementation is just beginning it is not possible to comment meaningfully on specific department actions under the new program.

A. What do you do? Describe the Service Courses, Core Curriculum Courses, and Developmental Courses that you offer.

Developmental Math: Described in VII below.015 – PreAlgebra025 – Elementary Algebra108 – Intermediate Algebra

Service Courses: 124 – Introduction to Mathematical Thought. A terminal course meant to be suitable for students with minimal algebraic preparation and whose major programs have little to no quantitative content. For those majors, this is the most common way to meet the Math Core requirement.

130 – Finite Mathematics. Formerly required by programs in the College of Business and Economics. Now no longer directly required by any program. Some social science or related programs require more preparation in quantitative skills than is provided in Math 124. For these programs Math 130 is an option that meets both the program needs and the Area III Core requirement.

143 – College Algebra. Listed as a requirement for all programs in the College of Business and Economics. However, students who matriculate with appropriate math preparation will start in Math 160 and likely have Math 143 waived. Required as a terminal course for a few heath science programs. For these students Math 143 could be the only course that both meets a major requirement and meets Area III Core.

144 – Analytic Trigonometry. Used only to complete the Precalculus sequence, either as a terminal requirement or in preparation for Calculus. 147 – Precalculus. Required for all biological sciences, most pre-professional programs, some health sciences and a few other programs. Many of these programs advise students into the two semester alternative of 143-144. Many of the students in 147 are preparing for Calculus and perhaps more. These are likely to be STEM majors, but can also include some pre-professional majors. 157 – Structure of Arithmetic for Teachers. The first of two semesters of required mathematics for elementary school teachers. Also required for programs in special education and bi-lingual education. 160 – Survey of Calculus. Required for all programs in the College of Business and Economics. Required (but often replaced by Calculus, Math 170) for all programs in Biological Sciences. Although the content differs from Calculus, the level of rigor and intellectual achievement expected in Math 160 is not much different than that in Math 170. 254 – Applied Statistics with Computers. Non-calculus based statistics that includes use of Excel for handling data sets and for enumerative and descriptive statistics. Required for many programs in Biological Sciences. Optional for all programs that require a statistics course (social sciences, health sciences, business) although most of these programs prefer to offer their own courses.

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257 – Geometry and Probability for Teachers. The second semester of math for elementary teachers and related programs. (See 157 above). This is the only course that both meets a degree requirement for them and meets Area III Core.

360 – Engineering Statistics. Calculus-based statistics. Required for all engineering majors (but they could opt for Math 361). Physics students may choose this course to meet their required upper division math elective. Calculus Sequence: These courses form the non-proof writing core of a math major. Some or all of them are required for nearly every STEM major, resulting in enrollments that are skewed heavily toward non-math majors. For this reason the department tends to classify them as service courses.

170 – Calculus I175 – Calculus II275 – Multivariable and Vector Calculus333 – Differential Equations with Matrix Theory

Core Courses: Not all service courses meet the Area III Core requirement. The approved Core courses are 124, 130, 143, 147, 160, 170, 175, 187, 254 and 257. Math 187 is not listed above as a service course because it is specifically for majors. (Computer Science majors take the course as a requirement, but they do so for its purely mathematical content.)

B. Are you successful at what you do? And how do you know? Evidence of Student Success and Program Effectiveness.

1. Your Service Courses contribute effectively to the program learning goals of served departments.

Every program at Boise State requires at least one course with a MATH prefix. However, many programs appear to treat this as a requirement, rather than a means to any specific learning goals. Very few departments have communicated any learning goals to the math department. Without such information it is not possible to answer the question posed above. Some departments or colleges do communicate goals. There are three significant examples of this. College of Business and Economics. All CoBE programs state that Math 143 and Math 160 are required courses. It does not appear that Math 143 is required for any specific learning goals, other than basic algebra skills. In particular, any student who arrives at BSU with a suitable placement score will start in Math 160 and never take Math 143. Math 143 serves CoBE only as a prerequisite for Math 160 and to ensure some level of algebraic skill that may be needed elsewhere. It appears that Math 143 does successfully build or reinforce these algebra skills. This is evidenced by the nature of exams in Math 143 and the generally accepted department standard for weighting exams and setting a threshold of passing competency. Although this is communicated mostly though a pervasive departmental culture, individual cases involving direct review of exams and standards confirm the cultural perception.

Personal communication with CoBE leadership indicates that the purpose of Math 160 is to develop mathematical maturity or perhaps critical


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thinking skills. There do not appear to be any content specific learning goals desired by CoBE. In 2007-2008 the math department conducted a detailed analysis of the exams and grading practices of many sections of Math 160. What we discovered was a reasonably consistent departmental culture that set a fairly demanding threshold for success in Math 160. The depth and rigor of the sections we studied was generally on a par with Math 170 offerings. This is perhaps not the normal approach for delivering Brief Calculus as a purely service course. However, CoBE leadership has indicated that they are content with this approach and content with the results. College of Engineering. CoEn is a smaller client (fewer students by far, fewer total credit hours by a smaller margin) but has been much more vocal about desired outputs from the Calculus sequence. For purposes of this discussion Precalculus is included, as a significant percentage of engineering majors begin in that course. A persistent request or demand is that the math department supply high passing rates. This request is nearly impossible to address in any meaningful way without a clear statement of the learning goals and outcomes expected of successful engineering majors in the calculus sequence and an objective means of assessing those goals and outcomes. We therefore chose to focus on the task of defining and assessing goals. Fortunately there are no barriers to communication between the math department and the college of engineering and, despite intrinsic differences and conflicts, both parties engage in continuous and vibrant discussions that lead to explicit practical plans. All of this is generously supported by the Provost’s office, sometimes directly funding pilot projects and always providing institutional support in the way of flexibility, facilitation and problem solving. Some recent examples include:

A series of changes to the 147 course aimed at making the course less likely to result in washout for beginning majors. Details are available in the attached articles. At this time the changes appear to have led to less attrition in 147 but the downstream impacts on 170 are mixed. This project and analysis of its effectiveness is ongoing.

Use of a web based assessment of prerequisite skills as a universal first assignment in both Math 147 and Math 170. Some information is available in the attached article. Analysis of this topic is ongoing and supported by an NSF grant.

A complete redesign of Math 333, beginning from a list of specific outcomes desired by engineering and including specific assessments of those outcomes. This is underway as a pilot. Data analysis is not complete. The project was launched as an overload project by faculty from the Math and Mechanical Engineering departments. Shortly thereafter the Provost’s office provided funds to continue the experiment and the data analysis for 2 years. At the end of this we hope to have a working model that can become the standard for Math 333 in the department.

A parallel project for Math 275. This is much like the Math 333 project, but there are more math majors involved in Math 275 and therefore more compromises on the set of outcomes are likely to be necessary. This project is similarly funded by the Provost’s office.


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A recent initiative to examine the 170-175 sequence, again beginning from a specific list of desired outcomes. This is primarily a discussion within the math department, but the committee working on it is charged with acquiring information about desired outcomes from all clients for these courses. The next phase of this initiative will be to design a 170-175 sequence that meets, as nearly as possible, the needs of clients and math majors.

Biology Department. On several occasions the Biology Department has approached the Math Department with the idea that their programs would benefit from courses (or portions of courses) that deliver outcomes not present in the current course offerings. There is no trouble with communication, and there is significant interest in both departments in developing new curricula to address the needs of Biology majors. However, neither department has been able to spare any faculty time or other resources to implement any of the ideas that have been discussed.

2. Your Core Courses contribute effectively to Core Curriculum learning objectives?

The university has a process for addressing this question. A description is attached. The math department executed this process across the 2008-09 and 2009-10 academic years. A large amount of data was collected but the department lacks the resources to conduct meaningful analysis. Our report is attached. Two points are worth noting: (1) The university replaced the Core standards and the assessment structure in October of 2010. It would not make sense for the department to invest significant resources in the old process. (2) The math department successfully, but trivially, meets a state mandated Core requirement thousands of times every semester. Every student is required to take at least one course with the prefix MATH. Precisely why this is a requirement or what outcome is desired that cannot possibly be obtained in a course with a different prefix was famously absent from any of the Core specifications or assessment guidelines. There is some chance that this will be rectified in the new program.

3. Your Developmental Courses successfully prepare students for subsequent coursework.

See VII below. 4. You provide reasonable access to Service, Core, and Developmental Coursework.

Service and Core course access is addressed in III.C.6 and in VI.B.6 below. Developmental courses are discussed in VII.

5. Students enrolled in your Service, Core, and Developmental Courses are able to successfully complete those courses.

Developmental courses are discussed in VII.

This appears to be a question about pass rates. Data on pass rates are attached. The answer to this question is inherently subjective,


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dependent on the desires or expectations of client departments, and tightly bound up with departmental academic standards, both explicit and implicit. What follows is necessarily an opinion. Math 124 – This seems to be an acceptable pass rate. The client is the university at large and there has not been negative feedback about this course. Math 130 – Pass rate is more volatile, perhaps due to a much smaller population. Recent terms have been more stable at a level that does not seem inappropriate. Clients are mostly Criminal Justice and Psychology. Neither department has provided any feedback. Math 143 – Pass rates are low and perhaps deteriorating. This is an immediate concern for the department despite the fact that client departments have not commented. Oversight of this course is transitioning to the Director of Developmental Mathematics. He is preparing an action plan to address the low pass rates. Math 144 – Another small population, perhaps contributing to volatility. To the extent that Math 144 students continue on to Calculus, see comments on Math 147 below. When Math 144 is terminal, the client departments have not provided any feedback on pass rates. Math 147 – Math 147 is a terminal course for some programs (although they tend to use 143-144 as a sequence). No such programs have provided feedback on pass rates in 147. For many students 147 is the first course in a series that will include some or all of the Calculus sequence. For these students it is not appropriate to answer the question about successful completion of 147. The question should be asked and answered for the sequence of courses required for their program. At this time we are still collecting data on this topic. Math 157/257 – Pass rates are reasonably high and clients in the College of Education have not reported any concerns. Math 160 – Terminal math course for all CoBE majors and many Biology majors. Client departments have not expressed any concerns. Math 170/175 – These are rarely terminal courses. When they are, there is as yet no feedback from programs requiring them. When they are not, success should be analyzed as above. That said, the historical pass rates in 170 and 175 do not seem as high as they could be, and the client departments in Engineering are not satisfied. Math 254/360 – These are stand-alone statistics courses required by some majors. Client departments have not reported concerns.Math 275/333 – These are terminal courses for service majors. In response to concerns from client departments in engineering we have begun an extensive redesign of these courses as described elsewhere.

C. Do you have the structures, processes, and resources in place to facilitate the development and continued function of successful academic operations?


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1. Describe and evaluate the mechanisms you have in place that enable you to respond to needs of served departments and students.

There are no formal arrangements. The department strives to maintain open and friendly communications with any and all client departments. Similarly the department central administration maintains an open-door policy for feedback from and/or communication with students.

2. Describe and evaluate the mechanisms you have in place to ensure that your Core courses contribute to Core Curriculum learning objectives.

See VI.B.23. Describe the mechanisms you have in place to ensure that your coursework is of

high quality.

The Calculus sequence includes our majors so the discussion in III.C.4.a is relevant. More generally, service courses receive oversight through departmental committees who select textbooks and determine content. These committees work directly with instructors new to any given course. Generic syllabi are available for reference on the department website. In some cases these committees may go further, specifying standards and grading practices and providing professional development for instructors. However, due to resource limitations this is quite rare.

4. Describe the mechanisms you have in place to ensure high quality instruction.

See Appendix A. 5. Describe and evaluate the processes you have in place to enable effective

planning of enrollments.

See III.C.6 and one comment in VI.C.6 below. 6. Evaluate the extent to which the department’s faculty, staff, space, budget, and

other resources enable you to offer high quality service coursework.

The department does not have sufficient resources to provide service courses in the manner that we would like to. This is true in more than one way.First, both for internal reasons and in response to external demands, the department should be conducting much more assessment of outcomes. Outside of developmental math only Math 333 and Math 275 are receiving appropriate assessment analysis, and this only because internal grant funding has been made available. Courses for majors are being assessed at a reasonable level, but results are analyzed only for the declared majors, not for all the other students. Unless the university is willing to allow significant release time for instructors to make assessment activities a regular part of their workload this problem cannot be realistically addressed.

Second, as mentioned in VI.C.3 we do not provide significant oversight of the majority of service courses, nor do we provide training or professional development for instructors of these courses. Should we suddenly receive enough support to conduct assessment, we would still


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lack resources to respond to whatever we managed to learn.

Third, student demand for service courses at all levels routinely exceeds the number of seats offered. There are not enough instructors available, nor enough classrooms, nor sufficient funds from central administration, to add sections to meet demand. Finally, there is at least one situation where both the math department and a client department (Biology) agree that there is opportunity to provide a better curricular option. However, no progress is made in this direction simply because no one has time to devote to the project. Most likely there are many such opportunities that go unexplored because time for curriculum development is not made available to regular faculty.

D. In what ways do you contribute?Describe the contribution of your service coursework to the success of the university’s academic programs.

Insofar as the university’s academic programs choose to communicate with the math department, this question has been addressed above.


1. What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that the department has in the realm of its service coursework? What are your thoughts on how you could capitalize on the strengths, remedy the weaknesses, exploit the opportunities, and guard against the threats?

Strengths and opportunities: A cooperative attitude towards collaboration with client departments

when working on issues of student success in service courses. Many faculty members with the necessary experience and drive to

solve problems related to successful delivery of service courses and who are capable of devising innovative strategies.

A departmental, college and university culture that emphasizes teaching and student success.

Weaknesses and threats: Far too many competing demands on the time and energy of the

people who could be attacking problems with service courses. Inherent conflicts between the majors and non-majors who take the

same courses. In the calculus sequence the outcomes desired for majors can be significantly different from those desired by clients.


Provide meaningful comparisons to other institutions in an attempt to answer the question: How much of a full time faculty member’s time


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can reasonably be diverted to tasks of curriculum design, assessment and other activities necessary to the delivery of successful service courses?


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VII. Developmental Math Courses A. What do you do? Describe the Developmental Courses that you offer.

The Math Learning Center offers Math 015, Math 025, and Math 108. These courses are designed to remediate students’ math skills and provide an excellent springboard to success in college level math courses and math related courses.

B. Are you successful at what you do? And how do you know? Evidence of Student Success and Program Effectiveness.

1. Your Developmental Courses successfully prepare students for subsequent coursework.

The Math Learning Center is constantly monitoring student success in subsequent courses and continually working on improving student outcome in future courses. This monitoring allows us to adjust our courses as need be to improve, and we are continually improving. Transcripts of students who took non-developmental math courses in spring 2010 were reviewed. Students who placed directly into their courses were compared to students who came out developmental courses in the fall of 2009. We found that the two groups perform comparably. In areas of weakness, we are working to improve future success.

2. You provide reasonable access to Developmental Coursework.

By offering courses at all times of the day and by monitoring enrollments, we are able to provide math 015/025/108 students with these courses at a very high percentage.

3. Students enrolled in your Developmental Courses are able to successfully complete those courses.

Through constant evaluation and continued monitoring of student success, courses in the Math Learning Center have increased the pass rate from below 50% to approximately 70% in the last five years. We believe that there is even more room for improvement and are striving for greater success.

C. Do you have the structures, processes, and resources in place to facilitate the development and continued function of successful academic operations?

1. Describe and evaluate the mechanisms you have in place that enable you to respond to needs of served departments and students.

Developmental math courses are typically thought of as providing a service to the students by providing them with an experience which enables the student to be successful in core math courses. Evaluating this process is accomplished through discussions with instructors of successive courses to work on and to ensure students have the opportunity for success, discussions with instructors who have had an opportunity to teach Math 015/025/108 courses and successive courses, and through evaluating student success rates. As these courses have increased in their passing rates over the past five years, this is working fairly effectively.

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Recently, we have been evaluating the use of the mathematics taught at this level and its applications to other departments. To this end we have begun to construct practices which allow for the realization that math 015/025/108 are equally service courses for other departments. As this is in early implementation phases, mechanisms to respond to the student are under development.

2. Describe the mechanisms you have in place to ensure that your coursework is of high quality.

Through the use of technology, we are able to provide similar course work expectation in all developmental courses. As we discover changes that are necessary to produce better results, we are capable of creating appropriate changes in all classes immediately. This is effective.

3. Describe the mechanisms you have in place to ensure high quality instruction.

Through the use of student surveys, evaluating coursework and evaluating success of individual instructors’ students in future classes, we have been able to improve the success of our students through instruction. It is difficult to judge the effectiveness of this process and it is under review.

4. Describe and evaluate the processes you have in place to enable effective planning of enrollments.

The primary process is to set up courses to cover the load of 80% of the students enrolled in the previous year, then monitor the enrollment and add classes as necessary. This is effective as we are able to offer enough courses to meet students’ needs.

5. Evaluate the extent to which the department’s faculty, staff, space, budget, and other resources enable you to offer high quality service coursework.

Currently we are improving with what we have. As always, more and better is desired.

F. In what ways do you contribute?Describe the contribution of your service coursework to the success of the university’s academic programs.

At this time, developmental math is just beginning to embrace the concept these courses are meant to enable greater success for university students in courses and programs outside the math department. We are increasing our contribution by making this goal a significant element of our course designs.

G. How should you do things differently? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are opportunities and threats? What actions should you take?

1. What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that the department has in the realm of its service coursework? What are your thoughts on how you could capitalize on the strengths, remedy the weaknesses, exploit the opportunities, and guard against the threats?

As developmental math courses are realizing that the material learned in these courses is playing an important part in the students’ education in an increasingly larger number of majors, our strength is a staff and instructors who understand the need to provide improved and relevant


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service. Along with the opportunity to improve curriculum, we are working to implement many ideas which will improve our service this fall.A weakness is the ability to catalog all of the unique uses of math in all of the subjects that are growing in their use of math and how the math is applied in each subject. We keep looking for avenues to open up communications but this is difficult due to time and university structures.The threat is change itself. Change is difficult in well established institutions such as universities.We currently plan to take advantage of our strength in enthusiasm for improving educational opportunities while also working on serious evaluation to make sure that appropriate and effective change is created.


One area of assistance would be the ability to better evaluate student success in courses by large breakdowns of groups within the class structure (i.e. by ACT score, previous classes completed, time between one math course and the next, grades in previous classes). Data warehouse provides good data on class averages but changes are needed in order to look for groups where success is not occurring and fix problems related to these groups.A more important task for external reviewers would be to bridge departments. Over the last thirty years and due to technology, the use of mathematics has increased in many majors and the practice has changed in many cases from mechanical evaluation to mathematical interpretation of technologically driven results. Before math service courses can make significant inroads into these changes, we need to have a better evaluation of how mathematics is being used in today’s classes (outside the math department). Once this evaluation has been accomplished and appropriate changes have occurred in math service course, outside evaluation will be necessary to measure the effect of the changes in other departments. When positive change has occurred, it needs to be evaluated to find out if we can do better. And when negative change occurs, an outside reviewer can best determine where the difficulties actually occur. (E.g., Is the problem in the math service courses or in the major courses?)


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VIII. Research

A. What do you do? Description of Research1. How does your department define and measure the quantity and quality of

“Research” in your department and discipline?

a. What definition(s) of “research” does your department use (i) in its tenure and promotion policies, (ii) for determining merit pay increases, and (iii) for workload calculations? You may wish to illustrate your response with examples of what is and is not considered to be scholarly activity.

Research is almost exclusively defined as the production and publication of articles in peer reviewed journals or conference proceedings. Posters, presentations and talks are also counted, but as an adjunct to the published material, not a substitute. Occasionally a faculty member will publish a book or a portion of a book. This is an unusual event but ranks with published original material.

b. How does your department measure the productivity (here defined as including quality and quantity) of research of faculty members in making decisions about tenure, promotion, workload, and merit pay?

Productivity is not measured in a strict quantitative sense. For each faculty member we attempt to gauge the output as “enough”, “more than enough”, or “not enough”. Whether a faculty member’s work meets or exceeds the threshold of “enough” is determined as follows: Each faculty member has a yearly evaluation that includes an

estimate of what percentage of the next year’s workload will be devoted to research. We usually allocate between 33% and 40% of workload to research for most faculty. This this fraction can be smaller for faculty with unusually high service loads or (rarely) higher teaching loads. It can be larger in exceptional circumstances. “Enough” is necessarily measured relative to the workload designation.

For faculty with at least 33% of workload devoted to research, “enough” is generally defined relative to what might be considered steady output within that the person’s sub-discipline. This judgment call requires input from other researchers in the sub-discipline. For pre-tenure faculty the departmental Tenure Progress Review Committee addresses this question on an annual basis. At the time of a tenure and/or promotion decision the department acquires external reviews of the candidate. For tenured faculty not up for promotion the judgment is solely the responsibility of the department chair.

Faculty members provide an annual self-report of their research output. For tenured faculty this is the Faculty Member’s Statement described at

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http://hausdorff.boisestate.edu/faculty_info/fac_eval_10.htm

and submitted to the chair. Pre-tenure faculty prepare a much more detailed report – effectively a prototype of their eventual tenure application – that is submitted to the TPRC.

Quality is generally measured by the stature of the journals in which publications appear and the respect accorded the work and the researcher within the broader research community. This is generically true is academia and not particular to math. Observable indicators of the quality of a single result or article include:

The perceived or explicit ranking of the journal where it appears.

Invitations to present the work. The stature of the venue in which the work is presented. Over time, the citation count for the publication.

Observable indicators of the quality of a body of work, or of the respect accorded a researching from the broader community include:

Grants and external funding. Invitations to deliver plenary talks. The stature of the venues of invited talks. Desire of other researchers to collaborate or otherwise

interact. Citation counts for a body of work. Statements from other researchers – most commonly

letters in support of tenure or promotion decisions, but sometimes unsolicited.

Solicitation of survey articles or research monographs.

The math department does not specifically collect any of the above information. Individuals choose what information to supply in their Faculty Members’ Statements. Most commonly this is a list of publications and talks. The reviewer (be it TPRC or chair) is usually left to judge the relative stature of journals and venues.

All of this is very subjective. Some amount of subjectivity is required in judging any academic achievement. More is required in Mathematics than in any other science. The quality of a new result is judged by a combination of its difficulty, its relevance to other mathematicians, and its aesthetic value. It would be a

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serious error to judge the merit of mathematics research using the same criteria as in other seemingly related fields. The only agreed upon objective criterion in pure mathematics is that a research paper should express new truths demonstrated by unassailable proof. This represents the minimum threshold for publication, so it doesn’t even register when judging the quality of research product.Applied mathematics is held to this standard if the result is a theorem. Other standards apply when the result is a computational innovation or more experimental in nature.

Quality of research in mathematics education is judged in terms of methodology and contribution to the field. Methodology should be consistent with current best practices for collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing both quantitative and qualitative data. Contribution to the field is judged in terms of how the research will advance current understanding of the teaching and learning of mathematics. Peer review for both publications and conference presentations ensures consistent quality control within the field.

In all areas external funding is probably the strongest signal that a particular researcher’s work is held in high regard. Public funding for mathematics is much less than that for sciences. The rarity of grant funding increases the significance of each award, but decreases the importance of funding as a general measure of worth.

2. Give a brief description of the research interests of present regular faculty members, grouped by area of interest. Include the research interests of any faculty members for whom you are presently searching or will soon be searching. Include research faculty members in your description, but label them as “research faculty” as opposed to “regular faculty.” Also describe any long-term plans you have regarding changes in this area, e.g., are you planning to strengthen particular areas-of-interest with your future hires? Are other areas-of-interest being dissolved because of retirements?

The table below lists all tenured and tenure track faculty at the start of the 2010-11 academic year. There are three easily defined, but very broad, research areas: pure math, applied math, and math education. Within these areas there are subgroups as described on the department webpage at http://diamond.boisestate.edu/research/groups.shtml. The specific subgroups, their history, and our future goals are expressed in the first section of our most recent strategic plan (attached). No areas of interest are expected to shrink. Nor are future hires targeted to grow any particular area. The existing groups are likely to evolve as suggested in the strategic plan. Some recent indicators of this evolution are:

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The emergence of a group in Cryptology. This group includes set theorists, topologists, and computer scientists from the college of Engineering.

A recent hire with interests in algebraic geometry and experimental mathematics. (There is some discussion of changing the “Geometric Topology” label to “Geometry and Topology”.)

An increase within applied math of the sub-specialty of computational mathematics.

Although not mentioned on the website, there are a number of people involved in scholarship of teaching and learning. Some of this results in peer reviewed publication, but some of it could be better described as curriculum development, professional development, or simply service or teaching. It is not departmental practice to refer to a group of researchers in this area, nor is there a strategic objective of growing this activity. The amount of faculty time spent on this is small compared to the other research areas. Finally, the table does not include Lecturers but they also contribute to departmental research activity. Thomas Kinzel collaborates with the math education group and also on a curriculum project with Dr. Jarratt Smith. Kendra Bridges and Billy Hudson are involved with projects involving curriculum development in STEM courses. Ms. Bridges’ work has been published. Dr. Kathrine Johnson is working on a project in STEM education funded by the I-STEP grant. Independent of departmental collaborators, Dr. Brett Crow has published original, peer reviewed research in economics.

PURE MATHFirst Name

Last Name Primary Area Other Interests Notes

Otis Kenny Algebra 3-and-3 teaching load – minimal research expectation

Marion Scheepers Set Theory CryptologyRandall Holmes Set Theory Automated

Theorem ProvingLiljana Babinkostov

aSet Theory Cryptology

Andres Caicedo Set TheorySamuel Coskey Set Theory New hire – start date Aug

2012Doug Bullock Topology Scholarship of

Teaching and Learning

Chair – minimal research activity

Uwe Kaiser TopologyJens Harlander TopologyZach Teitler Algebraic

GeometryExperimental Math New hire – start date Aug

2010

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APPLIED MATHFirst Name Last Name Primary Area Other Interests NotesMary Jarratt

SmithApplied math Scholarship of

Teaching and Learning

3-and-3 teaching load -- minimal research expectation

Jodi Mead Applied MathStephen Brill Applied MathBarbara Zubik-Kowal Applied MathGrady Wright Computational

MathDonna Calhoun Computational

MathNew hire – start date Jan 2011

Leming Qu StatisticsJaechoul Lee StatisticsKo Kyungduk Statistics

MATH EDUCATIONFirst Name Last Name Primary Area Other Interests NotesKathy Rohrig Math Ed 3-and-3 teaching load –

light research expectationSharon Walen Math EdMargaret Kinzel Math EdLaurie Cavey Math Ed

3. Describe the interactions of your faculty members with other individuals and entities.

a. What within-department groupings, collaborative efforts, or clusters of research activities presently exist, formally or informally?

There are three active pure math seminars: Set Theory, Topology, and Algebra, Geometry and Cryptology. These seminars run each semester and are attended by graduate students as well as faculty. Several people participate in more than one seminar. Content is not restricted to the categories named above. The variety of seminars and the crossover attendance reflect the interdisciplinary interests among the pure math group. The Math Ed group works in collaboration on nearly all of their research projects.

Those of us involved in curriculum development or other scholarship of teaching and learning regularly form small collaborative groups in the department. Usually these involve outside collaborators as well.

b. What collaborative efforts, research clusters, research centers/institutes involve your faculty members with faculty members or entities outside of the department? Include on-campus and off-campus collaborations.

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Nearly all of the active applied mathematicians work in collaboration with faculty from other departments and disciplines. Some of the pure mathematicians are collaborating with engineering faculty on cloud resource development, and with biology faculty on developing stronger mathematical infrastructure for biosciences. The Cryptology group interacts with computer science. Most of the scholarship of teaching and learning involves collaboration with the CTL and client departments.

c. Describe significant links of faculty research with off-campus organizations (e.g., public schools, government agencies, hospitals, corporations).

It is not uncommon for applied research to include interaction with government agencies or corporations. Past and present collaborators include the Idaho Transportation Department, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Idaho National Laboratory, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and Conoco-Phillips. Boise State was recently designated a CUDA Research Center in partnership with NVIDIA. (Details in the attached letter.) Statistics faculty also consult with local business from time to time.

d. What are your long-term plans in this area?

Computational and applied math is a growing area, both in interest level from students and other departments, and in the number of specialists on the department faculty. There are immediate plans for the newest hire to collaborate more directly with the INL and to participate in the building of a state-wide consortium of computational scientists. More generally, the departmental strategic plan includes the following goal:

“Promote and advance interdisciplinary collaborations and research.The scope of this item includes:Intra-departmental collaboration between different mathematical disciplines, where feasible. Examples include recent joint seminars between the topology group and the cryptology group, the statistics group and the applied and computational mathematics group on subjects of potentially mutual interest.Inter-department/college collaboration between mathematicians and academics in other fields.

Examples include collaboration between mathematicians and geophysics, mathematicians and computer scientists, mathematicians and biologists, mathematicians and materials scientists, and between Mathematics Education faculty and College of Education faculty.”

4. What is the role of students in your department’s research?

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a. What is the role of graduate students in the research of the department?

The active seminars have graduate student participants. There is an emerging trend of involving graduate students in research projects related to the research of the faculty members participating in the seminars.

There is a two semester sequence of Cryptology courses that includes a research component. Students taking these courses for graduate credit complete a research project and present their results at an end-of-semester conference organized by the instructor.

b. What is the role of undergraduate students in research in the department?

At this time the department does not have structures that create research opportunities for undergraduates. Undergraduates in the Cryptology courses could elect to do research projects, but this is not required. Undergraduate research experiences are usually isolated instances of a professor and a student choosing to follow some course of study as an independent activity. Sometimes this is a spontaneous result of prior interaction in a class or other setting. It can also occur as part of an organized program outside the math department. For example, two faculty members are currently working with students at part of the I-STEP grant. There will be a significant increase in total undergraduate activity in the near future. A group formed of two set theorists and two topologists was just recommended for an NSF award of $329,000 to establish a summer REU program. Curriculum changes brought on by the new Foundations program seem likely to significantly increase undergraduate research activity for math and applied math majors.

c. What are your long-term plans in this area?

In mathematical research there are rarely opportunities for an undergraduate to assist a senior researcher. Unlike laboratory science or data driven explorations, mathematical research often involves no activity that can be meaningfully assigned to an undergraduate. While undergraduate research is a valuable learning experience for students, it can be a considerable drain on faculty research productivity. This does not mean that undergraduate mentoring is not a valuable use of faculty time, but it does mean that it must be incentivized and rewarded.

Nonetheless it is probably inevitable that we will be doing more of this in the future. First of all, the university leadership is starting to make more and more vigorous suggestions in this direction. Second, it increases opportunities for external funding, particularly for pure math and math education. Third, math education research and scholarship of teaching and learning can

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directly benefit from student involvement in data collection and analysis. Fourth, the recently adopted Foundations program, replacing the general education requirements, will require capstone experiences in all our programs. It is quite possible that these will be courses that involve research.

Ideally our future will include both increased undergraduate research activity and a formal recognition of this as either teaching workload or research productivity for the faculty mentors. The mathematical research community outside of Boise State is unlikely to recognize or reward undergraduate involvement. This represents a serious barrier to any attempts to increase such activity at the expense of other research.

B. Are you successful at what you do? How do you know? Evidence of Productivity in Research

1. The faculty members in your department engage in productive research that results in quality publication, presentation, exhibition, performance, etc.

a. As feasible, quantitatively depict at the departmental level how research productivity and quality have changed over the last 5 to 10 years. Potential measures include the following: (i) numbers of publications/ presentations/ exhibitions/ performances, (ii) measures of impact, such as number of citations of department authors, and (iii) number of patents or other intellectual property.

No data available at this time. b. As desired, supplement the above quantification with qualitative

descriptions of trends in research productivity and quality.

The trend in departmental research productivity has been strongly positive for many years. This is a natural consequence of a long, slow transition from a teaching university to a research university. Retirements have slowly replaced faculty who had teaching-only careers with faculty who have research careers. Productivity can only go up, provided new faculty are at all active in their fields. Since this process of replacement is not quite complete there will be additional increases in total productivity for this reason alone. It would be an interesting, but difficult, problem to determine any trend in productivity while controlling for this change.

A more specific qualitative discussion of the department’s research activity breaks down by research subgroup.

SET THEORY: The oldest and, through much of our history, the strongest of the departmental research groups. This group has maintained very high productivity and excellent quality

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throughout its existence. In recent years some of the set theorists have branched out into more interdisciplinary work, but total productivity of set theory research has stayed high. The set theory group at Boise State has greater visibility within its global research community that any other research group (although applied math is catching up). Boise State has hosted an international set theory conference every year for nearly 20 years. Although there has been turnover in personnel we have been able to attract new hires from the top echelon of young set theorists each time there is an open position. Among the pure mathematics group, set theorists have been the most successful in securing external funding. There are no evident trends in this group, other than the fact that some members have also taken up projects outside of set theory.

GEOMETRY AND TOPOLOGY: For over a decade we maintained a group of two or three topologists who published original research of considerable quality. Their work has appeared in respectable journals and the researchers are regularly invited to present at national and international conferences. Geometric topology developed into a highly competitive, vast research field during the last 20 years and the topology group made acknowledged contributions in this area. During this time the group had some success procuring external funding and raised the visibility of Boise State within this sub-field. If there is a trend to report in this group it is that there is increasing interaction with set theory, cryptology, and disciplines outside mathematics. There are also two notable events: one member left the research group to become chair, and one new hire was added with research interests that are somewhat removed from the original focus of the topology group. PURE MATH – OTHER INTERESTS: The most striking trend in pure math cuts across both groups. There is a shift underway towards research activity that cuts across disciplines and engages more student involvement. This is a very promising trend and it appears to have led to increased seminar activity, increased interaction with other departments, and increased visibility for the department and the university. This is where we are seeing the greatest expansion of undergraduate research activity. Whether this trend represents additional productivity is a subtle and subjective question. However it is clearly aligned with the departmental strategic plan. Also, four members of this group were recently approved for an NSF grant that will be largest ever awarded to pure mathematicians at Boise State. MATH ED. Due to unsuccessful searches and hires that did not pan out, this group has not enjoyed stability. Also, members of this group have devoted more time to curriculum development

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and service projects than to research in the past decade. During this period research activity declined to levels that could have been considered too low. This trend appears to have reversed. A recent hire has both stabilized the group and revived research activity. We completed a successful search this year, which seems likely to improve things further. STATISTICS: The members are all appropriately productive in publications and presentations. They have not had success securing external funding except for small travel grants. There are no evident trends. APPLIED MATH: This group represents perhaps the greatest growth potential for the department. New hires in computational math have added considerable talent to an already successful group. It is clear that productivity and quality are trending strongly upward. This group has improved the department’s total external funding, both in amount and in regularity, to the point where is now possible to consider using F&A returns as an ongoing revenue source. Their research activity is naturally collaborative with disciplines outside of mathematics. This leads to more opportunities for funding and builds partnerships that add to the math department’s prestige and reputation.

c. Discuss and evaluate trends in research productivity. Is the department where you want it to be in this regard?

See VII.B.1.b above for discussion of trends. There is room for growth and improvement in each research group as described above and in VII.B.2.c below.

d. As feasible, provide information as to the distribution of research activity among your faculty members. Discuss. How much variation exists in the success of your faculty members in terms of publication, exhibition, performance, and intellectual property? Is the entire research agenda of your department dependent on relatively few faculty members, or is there widespread contribution from most/all of your faculty members? Are there reasons for discrepancies among faculty members?

Also discussed and answered above. It is clear that the research agenda is not dependent on only a few people.

2. The faculty members in your department are successful in securing the grants and contracts necessary to fund research.

This is partially true. On the one hand, no amount of money ever seems to be enough. With more money we could have more and better computing power, additional RA’s, more undergraduate research involvement, more experimental mathematics projects, more data collection and analysis in Math Ed research, more visitors, and more travel. All of these would be desirable and some amount of each is necessary.

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On the other hand, we manage to do some of these things, in some amount, with current departmental resources and existing external awards. In that sense we are “successful in securing … necessary” grants. This is a more interesting question in conjunction with future plans for the department and for the future evolution of mathematics as a research discipline. This is explored further in VIII.B.2.c below.

a. As feasible, quantitatively depict at a departmental level how extramural and intramural funding have changed over recent years. Potential measures include (i) funding from grants, contracts, etc. and (ii) diversity, prestige, and competitiveness of funding sources.

Two reports from the division of research are provided. It is not clear how useful these are as departmental metrics. More analysis must be done.

b. As desired, supplement the above quantification with qualitative descriptions of trends in funding.

c. As feasible, provide information as to the distribution of research funding among your faculty members. Discuss. How much variation exists in the success of your faculty members? Are relatively few faculty members successful or is there widespread success of most/all of your faculty members? Are there reasons for discrepancies among faculty members?

There are clear differences in external funding among the research groups. Applied and computational math does best. Next is set theory. Topology is a bit below that. There is a recent success involving a collaboration of set theorists and topologists. Statistics and math education have not acquired significant external funding. There are good reasons for some of this discrepancy. First and foremost, statistics and applied math are subjects that are more generously funded by granting agencies. It is expected that these groups will produce more external funding than pure math disciplines. Pure math is funded similarly to arts and humanities, and even occasional grants represent a considerable accomplishment. Math education is a very broad area in which some activity, notably very large projects involving multiple institutions , is generously funded and some is not. Our group has not had the capacity to engage in large scale activity. Recent hires may allow this to change for the better. In this context both the set theory and applied and computational groups have been very successful. Topology has been successful in the past, and has recently done well in collaboration with set theory. The statistics group has been diligently pursuing funding but has not yet met with success. The math education group has not sought external funding in some time, but has recently revived research projects and may do so in the future. The evolving collaboration of topologists, set theorists and a new hire in algebraic geometry is a very positive development from a funding standpoint. This group has already achieved one notable success. More broadly, they are exploring projects with

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interdisciplinary aspects and greater opportunity for student involvement. This will allow them to seek funding from a broader array of sources. It will also build up undergraduate research in the department, which can increase the likelihood of external funding. It is possible that this could develop into a pure math group whose funding success could surpass the traditional set theory dominance.

d. Discuss and evaluate trends in research funding. Is the department where you want it to be in this regard?

See commentary above. More briefly: set theory and applied and computational math are where we want to be. Statistics is not. Pure math as a whole is evolving in a very positive direction. Math ed is not where we want to be, but it is at the start of a re-launching phase.

3. You involve students in research.

a. Provide quantification, over time, of the following. Include, as desired, other quantitative measures to depict student involvement in research.

i. Number of undergraduates involved in research with department faculty members.

This is rare, but also rarely absent. In any given year there are likely to be a few undergrads engaged in research activity. Each year we are usually represented by one or two students presenting work at the Undergraduate Research Conference.

ii. Number of graduate students involved in research with department faculty members.

There are about 20 graduate students. Most of them write theses as their culminating activity. Presumably this constitutes involvement in research. Since these are Masters theses they may not represent original or publishable research.

iii.The distribution of research-involved students among your faculty members. Do all faculty members mentor research-involved students? Do some faculty members contribute much more than others? Are there reasons for discrepancies among faculty members?

All research active faculty are also members of the graduate college faculty, and thus eligible to serve as thesis coordinators or committee members. Nearly all have done so, despite the fact that the Masters in Math program is very new and the Masters in Math Ed is very small. There are no faculty who seek to avoid this. While the distribution of this workload is not uniform, there are no pronounced

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discrepancies.

As mentioned above, there is a small amount of undergraduate research activity. This is not distributed as broadly as the graduate level work. Probably only half of the faculty have participated in this. Few do so regularly. In any given semester the majority of undergraduate research activity is probably in the Cryptology course sequence which is taught only by a single faculty member. In recent semesters there has been a slight increase in other undergraduate research as part of a STEM retention grant. It appears that we are going to see additional expansion as we move towards the new Foundations program for general education requirements.

iv. Numbers of funded fellowships and assistantships for undergraduate and graduate students involved in research.

Thirteen assistantships are funded by regular appropriated sources. These are teaching assistantships, but most of the TA’s write theses and so are engaged in research. There are two research assistantships funded by grants at this time. RA’s do no teaching and are directly involved in research for the entire duration of their master’s program. RA’s are available only when a PI obtains grant funding to support such a position. At this time only the applied math group has been successful in procuring such funding.

v. Numbers of publications and presentations with authors who are undergraduate or graduate students.

Examples are available upon request. We do not have quantitative data.

b. Provide additional qualitative assessment of involvement in research of your graduate and undergraduate students.

c. Discuss and evaluate the extent to which your department provides opportunities for involvement of undergraduate students in research. Discuss and evaluate the role of graduate students in the research of your department.

4. Your faculty members and students receive research-related awards, honors, etc.

Describe research awards, honors, etc., received by your faculty members and students, and indicate the relevance to the quality of your department’s research program.

5. Additional measures and indicators of research quantity and quality.

If there are additional measures and indicators of research quantity and quality that are not covered above, you may describe those measures and

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indicators here. Also describe the results and discuss the meaning of those measures and indicators.

C. Do you have the structures, processes, and resources in place that facilitate the development of successful academic operations?

1. Evaluate the extent to which your department has a clear and well-understood definition of “research.”

a. Refer to your answer to VIII.A.1 above. Evaluate your definition of research presently contained in your promotion, tenure, workload, and merit pay policies. Are those definitions explicit, clear, and understood by all? Are they up to date?

Research is defined as original contributions to one’s field that are published through a peer reviewed process. This is not explicitly stated but it is securely established practice in the department whenever tenure, promotion or merit pay considerations come up. Its role in workload is less well defined. For workload purposes research activity can be more broadly construed to include things like curriculum development, thesis or project advising, and independent study activities. Some of this activity can be difficult to distinguish from teaching or service.

b. Describe the extent to which your department has engaged in discussion to develop an explicit definition of what constitutes “research” and how the quality and quantity of that research will be assessed. You may wish to refer to the “Boyer Spectrum” in your discussion (EL Boyer, 1990, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, Carnegie Foundation). No such discussions have taken place.

c. How has the definition changed over time? Do conflicts exist in the department regarding the definition of research? What unresolved differences of opinion exist?

It would be hard to imagine complete consensus. But the topic does not come up for discussion and it has not yet led to any conflicts that have been expressed.

d. Have there been instances in which tenure and/or promotion were denied at the department level because the evaluative committee considered the purported “research” of a faculty member not to be legitimate research? What lessons were learned?

The department has not voted against a tenure or promotion decision in recent memory. There have been unsuccessful tenure track candidates but all received terminal contracts prior to a tenure decision. In all recent cases the reason for termination was in large part due to research deficiencies. In at least one case the candidate was producing publications but they did not meet the threshold of original work appearing in peer reviewed outlets. As with any termination, the Tenure Progress Review Committee and the department chair had explained that

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the output did not meet expectations but the candidate failed to make changes in research activity.

2. Describe and evaluate faculty development opportunities that exist in the area of research.

a. Describe and evaluate how the department facilitates the research success of new faculty members through mentorship and other developmental structures.

There are no formal PD opportunities for researchers in the department. There are examples of informal PD in the sense that research groups and seminars can increase the productivity of participants who would not otherwise be as successful. Most notably, the addition of a new researcher to the Math Ed group has both revived research programs that had become nearly dormant and has added a research component to the workload of a faculty member who would otherwise be in a teaching only role.

b. Describe and evaluate opportunities provided outside of the department to help faculty members become stronger researchers.

The Center for Teaching and Learning provides PD opportunities for faculty involved in the research of scholarship and teaching. Several math faculty have been or are beginning projects with the CTL. At least one project is nearing the point where peer reviewed publication may result. In this case the faculty member has not had an active research program. This would represent a clear example of a faculty member transitioning from a teaching only role to a research role. The department strongly supports this and is able to recognize such a transition with an appropriate workload assignment.

3. Describe and evaluate policies and practices that can facilitate the development of a strong research culture.

a. Prior to the search for a new faculty member, what factors are regarded by the department as being important in determining the area of expertise of the new faculty member? To what extent does research enter into the discussion? E.g, do you consider the potential for creation of new research clusters or inclusion of the new hire in existing research clusters?

Research area is always the dominant and often the only determining factor when the department is preparing to fill an open position. Positions are allocated to a particular research area before a search begins. If the opening is a newly created line then the research area has most likely been specified by the process that created the line. In other cases the department will hold one or more meetings to discuss allocation and eventually pass a motion settling the issue. If the opening is due to the retirement or resignation of a researcher from an established group – set theory, topology, applied math, statistics, or math education -- the discussion is

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usually very short and ends with near unanimous agreement to search for a replacement with the same research emphasis. If the opening is due to a retirement or resignation of a non-research active person, or someone whose research area was not part of an established group, then the department meeting(s) will involve much more discussion. This is a normal and productive political process. It is somewhat guided by the department’s long range planning document (attached), but heavily influenced by political realities. This is productive because these discussions are very revealing of the departmental opinions of its future trajectory. In fact, this process is an important part of strategic planning. Much of the discussion tends to focus on growing existing research groups, but the department will usually entertain ideas for broadening into other areas or for conducting a search with no specific area. (In practice such searches have high labor and time costs, so we have not yet chosen this option.) In the most recent allocation discussion an open line vacated by a non-research faculty member was allocated to “interdisciplinary pure math”, meaning we targeted our search at researchers who had worked in more than one sub-field of pure math and who could collaborate with existing faculty in areas not represented in our existing research groups.

b. How is research productivity rewarded and recognized when determining merit pay? To what extent is student involvement in research considered?

The department’s salary policy is attached (VIII.A.1). It charges the chair with making judgment calls on merit raises. It lists criteria to consider when doing so, but does not take a position on the relative value of research versus teaching or service work. Student involvement in research is not listed as a criterion. The policy mandates that all of the chair’s decisions be reviewed by a committee of faculty. Merit raises at Boise State have been rare and small. There is some sentiment for a policy that refuses to make merit distinctions because the act of doing so creates discord while the advantages are nearly trivial – the distinction between meritorious and not can be as small as a few hundred dollars. However, the most recent raises included mandates from central administration to use merit and to make meaningful distinctions.

Finally, it should be noted that our salaries are well below CUPA norms. This is a persistent and pernicious problem that seriously degrades our ability to acquire and retain quality researchers. Even in years when we have generous (for Idaho) merit raises the message sent to highly productive researchers is somewhere between a tepid, grudging, congratulation and an outright insult.

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c. How does research productivity and quality play a role in annual evaluation of faculty members? What aspects of research are considered? To what extent are they emphasized? To what extent is student involvement in research considered?

Both quantity and quality are evaluated as described in VIII.A.1. Student involvement is recognized and commented on favorably, but not quantified and not directly rewarded.

d. Describe and evaluate the extent to which the department facilitates the use of sabbaticals to enable faculty to engage in concentrated research activity. To what extent are sabbaticals encouraged, supported, and facilitated?

It is assumed that full time faculty are aware of their right to apply for sabbatical after 7 years of employment. No one is either encouraged to or discouraged from applying. No sabbatical application has failed to receive support from the chair, although one was delayed to avoid creating a large gap in teaching expertise in one particular area.

There have been two recent instances of cooperation from the department, college and Provost’s office to devise one-semester sabbaticals paired with one-semester research-only appointments. These were designed to leverage the maximum amount of research time from the sabbatical and workload policies. These are clear examples of support and facilitation from many levels.

4. Describe and evaluate how the workload policy facilitates faculty success in research.

a. Describe and evaluate your department’s workload policy as it relates to research by faculty members. To what extent and in what ways does the department make use of the workload policy to potentiate the research of its faculty members?

Workload policy is attached (VIII.A.1.). For all research active faculty the annual evaluation process results in a workload projection for the next academic year, declaring some percentage of each faculty member’s workload to be research. For most research faculty this is approximately 1/3 of total workload. As described elsewhere, this creates a rough baseline relative to which output will be judged in the next evaluation cycle.

It is hoped that the projected workload creates incentive to be suitably productive (otherwise a negative evaluation would result). The chair can use this as an opportunity to encourage faculty to devote more time to research if this seems necessary.

b. Describe the teaching load of your faculty members and evaluate it in terms of the ability of faculty members to carry out meaningful and productive research programs.

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For all research active faculty a 2-and-2 load is standard. A typical semester includes a lower division course that includes many (or entirely) non-majors, and an upper division or graduate course that is mostly (or entirely) majors. This is a very common model at research universities and it appears to leave sufficient time for our research faculty to be productive. However, service and curriculum development tasks can significantly erode this if not carefully managed.

There are a few one credit courses that are assigned as additional work above the 2-and-2 load. Sometimes these assignments are made because the faculty member is interested in the additional course. This is permitted so long as the impact on research productivity is not large. When these assignments are not entirely voluntary they are rotated. In either case the workload projections reflect the reduced time available for research.

c. Describe workload practices regarding new faculty members. Are new faculty members given reduced teaching loads? Are new faculty members protected from excessive service commitments? Are other actions taken to ensure the research success of new faculty members?

New faculty are given the usual 2-and-2 assignments unless startup or other funding is available for course buyout arrangements. Buyouts from external funding are available anytime the award so designates. Buyouts from internal sources are occasionally available to faculty from their start date up through the year preceding their tenure decision. New faculty are often offered assignments that have lower preparation requirements – perhaps Calculus or other classes that the instructor has taught before. Most refuse, however, as they prefer the chance to teach upper division courses to majors.

New faculty, up until the year preceding their tenure decision, are protected as much as possible from heavy service assignments. In terms of workload, most post-tenure faculty have service workload projections of 3/15 or 4/15 of total workload in any given semester. Pre-tenured faculty are, when possible, projected at 2/15.

5. Describe and evaluate the extent to which your educational programs have a research focus.

Describe and evaluate the extent to which you emphasize research in your graduate and undergraduate programs. For example: Is research required in your programs? Is an understanding of research an important aspect of your program learning goals?

Undergraduate programs do not require or emphasize research.

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However, curriculum revisions for the new Foundations program are likely to change this. Graduate programs are discussed in VIII.B.3.a

6. Evaluate the extent to which the department’s faculty, staff, space, budget, and other resources enable you to have a productive research program.

a. Faculty

i. Evaluate and discuss the adequacy in number and in expertise of your regular faculty in terms of the department’s ability to carry out productive research.

See table in VIII.A.2 for a list of faculty and their research areas. It is meaningless to ask whether the number of faculty is adequate to carry out productive research. Each faculty member either is or is not productive as an individual. The department’s goal is for each individual to be productive. There is no absolute amount of productivity that the department expects, so there is no number of faculty that we need to reach some sort of aggregate goal. It is possible for a researcher to become stranded, particularly given Boise’s geographical remoteness, and suffer declining productivity that could be corrected by close proximity to researchers in the same or similar area. This was once upon a time the basis for the department’s strategic plan to build focused research groups. While this is probably less true in the internet age, we nonetheless prefer to maintain groups. Current sizes in each group seem adequate for research productivity.

ii. Who are the research faculty (typically supported by soft money) in your department? What is their role in the department? What is departmental policy regarding granting an individual Research Faculty status?

There are no research faculty. b. Staff

Describe staff support for your research programs and evaluate the sufficiency of staff support as related to research.

Staff support requirements are small in math. We have no laboratories or studios. We require no equipment beyond a decent computer. Staff assist the research mission by handling travel paperwork, helping with conference organizing, managing grant accounts, , purchasing computer hardware and software, and maintaining computers and networks. Clerical and budget matters are handled by the department chair and two administrative assistants, with some help from the Dean’s office. Almost all computer support is provided by systems administrators employed within the department. OIT provides some services. While the department does not have suitable staff for handling grant

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accounts and budgets, we are not large enough to warrant adding such staff. Current practice is to rely on the Dean’s budget manager and OSP. Both offices provide suitable support as needed, with one notable exception. The department is not able to monitor F&A return from grants. This has not been a problem in the past, as the amounts were too small and too sporadic to matter. However, better accounting of this is likely to be necessary in the future. It is not at all clear how this can be achieved.

c. Facilities and Equipment

i. Describe and evaluate research workspace, e.g., laboratory space, studio space, performance space, available to faculty and students.

The research workspaces for faculty are their offices and a small lounge that doubles as a seminar room. The Math Education group has well developed high tech classroom for the courses they teach. They use it as a seminar room as well.

The research workspaces for TA’s and RA’s are their offices and one computer lab with 21 Linux workstations. TA offices are very small cubicles in a shared space. RA’s usually have private or semi private offices.

Undergraduate students and graduates without assistantships have no offices except in very rare special cases. They have access to the Linux lab and one small reading room. Students use the lounge when they participate in seminars.

ii. Describe and evaluate research-related equipment and supplies available to your faculty and students in your programs.

Every faculty member has at least a standard desktop or laptop. In addition, the department has 3 dual quad-core servers running Linux and one Mac Xserv with 4TB total shared storage. These are available to all faculty and graduate students at any time and from nearly any location. Undergrad students are given account access to some servers when they are enrolled in appropriate courses. The Linux lab mentioned above has 21 dual-core machines which are available as a parallel cluster. There are another two dual quad-core machines and two GPU machines in use by individual faculty offices.

Computation requires software. We make use of the university-wide licenses for MatLab and Maple, somewhat less so for Mathematica. The department has purchased single seat licenses for MatLab toolkits not available in the site-wide license, a symbolic computation program used in number theory and cryptology, and several products for use

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in Math Education.

The Math Education classroom/seminar room has 18 laptops, a smart board and a document camera. This is primarily a teaching space, but is used for Math Ed seminars.

d. Library

Discuss and evaluate the sufficiency of library resources needed to support your research programs.

e. Budget

i. Discuss the amount and adequacy of your department budget as it relates to the support of research in your department.

The total discretionary budget is $98,000. (See attached memo). This must support building occupancy costs, office supplies, and other necessities for 32 full time faculty, more than 40 part time adjuncts, 5.5 FTE staff members and 13-15 teaching and research assistants. The amount left over for direct support of research activity fluctuates around 30K with the exact amount depending on many contingencies. We use this money for four items specifically in support of research.

1) Travel. Travel is necessary, both to keep researchers productive and current, and because departmental standards for meeting research expectations include dissemination and presentation. The college level tenure and promotion committee also expects researchers to show evidence of presentation.

2) Grading. Grading is partly an expenditure on the teaching mission (increasing feedback to students), and partly an expenditure on the research mission (releasing faculty time otherwise spent on grading).

3) Computer hardware and software. The department makes a personal computer of suitably recent manufacture available to every faculty member. New hires start out with a new computer. These are replaced at reasonable intervals when budgets permit. Most of the software needs are met with commercial products licensed by the university or with open source programs that are freely available. The department will occasionally purchase single seat licenses for exceptional software needs.

4) Colloquia. The department seeks to offer a regular series of colloquium talks, often presented by a visitor to campus who is also collaborating with one or more researchers in the department or the university. The department supports (at least in part) travel expenses for colloquium speakers.

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There is insufficient budget for all four items. Ideally each research active faculty member would be asked to present work at least twice a year. The department would like to be able to support two trips per year. It is not the case that each researcher is invited this often but even supporting those who are invited could cost as much at $30,000 each year. (Rough estimate: 20 invites at $1,500 per trip). This item alone would exhaust the discretionary funds in most years.

The travel situation is especially pernicious. Not all research faculty are travelling as often as they should. In some cases this is because they are not always producing work that earns invitations to conferences. The department would like to encourage the less productive researchers to become more active, but the reality of our budget could mean that their reward for increased activity is denial of travel requests. In other cases the work and the invitations are happening, but the researchers are declining the requests as a voluntary sacrifice.Ideally the department would like to provide paper grading services of at least a couple hours per week for each course taught by the research active faculty. This would cost about $20,000. (Rough estimate: 30 hours per course, 90 courses, 7.25/hr.) This assumes that full time teaching faculty are denied grading support. Prevailing department culture deems this exceedingly rude, if not unacceptable. Also, suitable grading for some classes is more like 4 hours per week. Thus $20,000 is a very conservative estimate. Ideally each new hire receives a new computer and these are replaced on a 4 year cycle. This would be a minimum of $5000 per year. To meet the computing power needs of some users, or simply to offer faculty anything other than bargain basement PC’s, this number is realistically closer to $10,000. This also assumes that non research faculty are only offered salvaged machines that have been used for 4 years by someone else. (See above – re departmental culture.) We would like to run an annual series of colloquium talks with a budget of $5000. In summary, in order to fund what we would like to fund at the barest minimum, we would have to deny all similar services to non-research faculty and we would still need $60,000. We have less than half of that available in most years. In actual practice we get through each year on a combination of (1) voluntary reductions in travel and grading requests, (2) denial of requests, (3) some travel supported by external funds, (4) letting the computers get old, salvaging replacements where possible, but rarely

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purchasing new replacements. One bright spot is a recent change in the distribution of revenue generated by summer school teaching. Some of this has become available to the department recently, but no concrete plans have been made due to (1) uncertainty of the amount available on a year-over-year basis, and (2) mixed messages from central administration as to what this money can and can’t be used for.

ii. Describe reallocations of funds that you have made to enhance your research programs.

Colloquium talks are strongly encouraged in lieu of paying for travel for our researchers to collaborate with colleagues elsewhere. By bringing their colleagues to our campus instead, we achieve the same collaborative benefits and gain a department wide opportunity to benefit from a guest speaker.

iii.What is your department policy for indirect cost recovery? What are recovered indirect costs used for? Are there any changes planned for your policy or in the manner in which such funds are spent?

There is no department policy. All F&A returns are collected in a single local departmental account. For many years this account was simply a savings account for the department, accessed only in emergencies, and rolling over the bulk of its funds every FY. This practice was reasonable until very recently for two reasons. First, F&A returns were historically too sporadic to commit them to any ongoing operations. Second, many ongoing operations were funded by annual requests from the chair to the Dean for salary savings.

In recent years this has all changed. The department is much more successful in pursuit of external funding. We are approaching a point where we might be able to develop plans to use F&A funds on some continuing basis. At the same time, changes in central administration have eliminated the informal process of funding continuing operations on salary savings. Furthermore, central administration has begun hinting that significant carry-forward of these funds is not a good idea. Finally, the accounts payable department has made it nearly impossible to host even a simple matter like a meal for a job candidate using appropriated money. This and most other activity that serves social or PR purposes has been forced onto F&A funding.

For these reasons the department is investigating the feasibility of setting up a regular spending plan to use some of these funds. We have also used the existing surplus to

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jump-start some programs that will be self sustaining from student fees but needed startup money. Similarly, the department is planning to use F&A to fund startup packages for new research hires and to structure alternative contracts with a mix of appropriated and F&A funding. The latter items arise from attempts to salvage some competitiveness from our dismal salary structure.

iv. What are typical start-up packages for new faculty members? What is the source of those funds? Are the packages adequate to attract the faculty members you are trying to recruit?

Until very recently, the typical startup package was the promise that the department would purchase a suitable desktop or other personal computer. Total cost never exceeded $2000, so we didn’t even consider this start up costs. The funding source was always the department’s appropriated budget (but see above for comments on salary savings prior to the current administration).

This has changed recently. The department’s planning committee brought up the idea of becoming more competitive in the hiring market by offering startup packages that included guaranteed travel money. Recent hires in computational science have required more powerful computers ($4000-$5000 instead or $1000-$1500). Also, recent changes in BSU’s stature combined with a downturn in the job market for job seekers have given us opportunities to hire at or near the top of the talent pool. Our salaries remain embarrassingly non-competitive, so we have had to consider startup packages as a supplement.

There was one instance when a startup package was funded by CoAS upon request from the department chair. All others have been refused support from CoAS and were funded from some combination of F&A, department appropriated funds, and support from elsewhere on campus.

f. Administrative Support

Describe and evaluate the support provided to researchers at the department, college, and university levels. How is research activity facilitated at each level, and how could that support be improved? Potential questions to consider: How adequate is the process by which faculty members are made aware of funding opportunities? Is there sufficient support for the preparation of grant applications and their budgets? Is there sufficient support for administration of grant funds? What other processes are of concern to you and your researchers, such as processes concerning travel, human resources, payroll, and ordering supplies?

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Department Support:First and foremost, research is stressed as an essential part of every faculty member’s total contribution. What portion of an individual’s workload is research varies widely, especially so for those whose careers predate the university-wide research mission. Research activity is rewarded as much as possible, given real world constraints, and low output or marginal performance is discouraged as much as possible, again given the realities of faculty governance. Positive incentives towards greater research productivity include:

Greater access to limited travel funds. Greater access to limited funds for student graders. Higher merit raises. Reduction in teaching load. Positive performance evaluation (although it must be

said that this is faint incentive).Negative consequences for low research output (relative to the workload assignment, of course) are limited to

Reduced or eliminated access to travel and grading funds.

Lower or non-existent merit raises. Increased teaching load (extremely rare, but it has

and can happen). Negative performance evaluation. While this might

not carry much weight for a tenured faculty member, the chair is able to apply pressure as part of the annual evaluation process in an attempt to push someone towards greater productivity.

Also, the social environment of the department, and even more so within research groups, is such that research productivity is accorded some stature and lack of productivity can be stigmatizing.

Three of the incentive items described above are also direct support to researchers: Travel makes collaboration more vibrant; paper graders release at least a small amount of faculty time; and course releases provide large amounts of time. College Support:

The college also provides an environment in which research is rewarded and lack of productivity is discouraged. There are fewer direct incentives or disincentives, except for the tenure decision. The college also provides direct (but only partial)

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support for travel in many instances and occasional support for individual projects when specifically asked.

University Support:

Again, there is a good atmosphere of support for research. There is very little direct support, but this is not necessarily a problem. Rather it reflects a decentralized approach in which direct support is channeled through colleges. In some specific instances the VP of Research has supported individual projects. His office is usually willing to entertain requests for such assistance, and sometimes able to provide it.

D. In what ways do you contribute?3. Is your research congruent with, and contribute to, University and College visions,

missions, strategic plans, and initiatives?

a. Describe how your scholarly activity is congruent with and contributes to the visions, missions, and strategic plans of the university and of your college.

Both the university and college statements of vision, objectives and plans include broad language about the importance of research. In that context, the simple fact that the Math Department expects and encourages research by all faculty is congruent and contributory. There are a handful of specifics in the university and college level documents as well. On some of these points the Math department is clearly contributing, on others no so much.

The College mission statement includes: “Promote excellence across the broad area of liberal arts education and research.” Clearly the Math Department contributes, again simply by engaging in research at all. We contribute to the goal of breadth by having active research groups in several distinct subfields.

The College strategic plan includes the goal “Develop and Enhance Research”, with sub points as follows.

o Make research/creative activity a priority in decisions to hire, promote, grant tenure, and provide salary increases.

We do, as described above and in P&T documentation.o Select key areas for development (i.e., “pinnacles of

excellence”) and focus resources in these areas.

We do not. Distribution of resources throughout the department is described above. We maintain commitments to certain research groups and areas but do

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not lavish resources on one group at the expense of others. It should be noted that to do so might be contraindicated by the college’s mission statement of “promoting excellence across a broad area of … research”.

o Integrate research into teaching.

We do not. This is perhaps an area for improvement.o Explore opportunities for partnerships across departments

and colleges, and build partnerships with other universities and community organizations.

Applied math and statistics researchers frequently partner with faculty from other departments. From the pure math group some individuals are exploring partnerships. Nearly all researchers, regardless of specialization, have collaborators in their subfield at other institutions.

o Create new and innovative graduate programs.

Both of our programs are fairly new. There are no plans to create additional programs, but no such plans would be sensible in the near term. Instead we plan to focus on growth of the existing programs. In this we have made small but steady gains, despite the fact that absolutely no funding support for growth has been available.

o Create and implement a policy for flexible workloads that allows faculty time to conduct research and mentor graduate students.

Workload policy already allows for 2-and-2 teaching loads for all active researchers, and occasional reductions from that. The policy does not allow ample time for researchers to mentor students, and too much of this activity has been overload. This is a clear failing of the workload policy and must be addressed. The department is currently engaged in a complete re-write of the internal workload computation scheme, aiming to account for things like individual student interactions – both undergrad and grad – and widely varying class sizes. It remains to be seen whether this will help with the above mentioned concern, or whether our internal accounting will be respected by policy makers above the department.

o Publicize, celebrate and encourage excellence in research.

We do this as described above.

The College and University plans include performance indicators: number of grad students, number of pubs and presentations, number of citations, and total extramural funding. We are significant contributors to all of these. We do not track citation counts as part of the departmental record keeping, but on the other three measures our numbers are good, and increasing, as described elsewhere.

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b. Describe how, within the realm of your department’s scholarly activity, you contribute to the university’s initiatives on internationalization, campus climate, freshman success, and adjunct faculty integration. For example, are any of your research efforts international in nature? Do you encourage your undergraduate students to participate in research and thereby increase integration into the department and facilitate retention?

Our contributions to these initiatives are limited.

INTERNATIONALIZATION: Mathematics research is often an international exercise, simply because the experts in a given subfield might be widely scattered. This is an accident of geography and is not targeted or developed. However, we do host an international conference in set theory, and we occasionally leverage an existing international connection into a formal or informal exchange of researchers. In addition, our faculty give presentations at international conferences.

UGR: We have a smattering of undergrad research and some plans to increase this as described above.

Research activity in the department does not have any meaningful impact on the other initiatives mentioned.

4. What is your contribution to the community and beyond?

Describe how your department’s scholarly activity benefits the community, region, state, and nation.

Our faculty conduct research in geosciences that contributes to a better understanding of water resources in the Treasure Valley and on national problems involving threat detection.


Note that in Section X, you will be asked to bring forward the most important responses from each of the following and to further prioritize responses from all sections of your Self Study.


1. What are the most important strengths that the department has in the realm of its scholarly activity? What are your thoughts on how you could capitalize on each of those strengths?

A culture that expects and respects research.

A strong and improving group of applied and computational mathematicians.

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This represents an opportunity to raise the stature of the math department as a unit. Until recently our most visible and successful research group has been set theory. The applied and computational group could become just as if not more visible. This group is already more successful in pursuit of external funding than any other segment of the department. They are also more successful at collaboration across disciplines. This is due in part to the nature of their work, but clearly dependent on the individual achievements of the researchers. Since this area is more attractive to external funding agencies, and we are so far able to hire strong researchers, the department could use growth in this area to significantly increase its revenue from F&A returns.

An established set theory group with international visibility and reputation.

This has long been the department’s claim to fame in the realm of research It is not a strongly leverageable item, but clearly worth preserving and investing in.

A developing group of pure mathematicians with interdisciplinary interests.

This represents opportunities to increase undergraduate research, cross-disciplinary activity, and external funding for pure mathematics.


Salaries. Ours are woefully uncompetitive. We are still able to attract very talented people at the assistant professor level. However, each hiring cycle ends in an unpleasant discussion of salary realities. Even when we are successful at recruiting we are never confident that we can retain the faculty that we have invested in.

Thoughts: Plans are underway to attempt a budgetary reorganization of the department. Using F&A, summer school revenue, and creative approaches to more efficient teaching, we could free up a portion of the budget to shift into one-time salary relief. We also plan to become more aggressive and creative with startup packages and alternative contracts – both for recruitment and retention purposes.

The Math Ed group has not been successful as a research unit in recent years.

Thoughts: Let this move forward on its own accord. A new hire has had positive impacts and we just concluded a successful search.

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Within a year or two we could establish some goals for productivity and grant seeking.

The Statistics group has not yet been successful at securing external funding. Thoughts: All three statisticians were hired right after completing their Ph.D’s. With no post-doc experience they had little exposure to grant writing. The reputation of this group is still building, and they have been aggressive pursuers of NSF funding. Both the desire and the opportunity are present. It simply hasn’t translated into success yet. The group is considering additional tactics:1. Expand the submission to more federal funding agencies, including NIH. 2. Increase interdisciplinary activities. The current collaboration between members of the statistics group and faculty in Geosciences is a good starting point. Additional collaborations will increase the chance of securing external funding.

Pure mathematics is and perhaps always will be a poorly funded discipline. The university in increasingly seeking to promote and reward success in this aspect of research. Pure mathematicians are at risk of a relative decline in stature within the university research community and its reward structure.

Thoughts: Continually educate the university community to the realities of funding in pure math. Also encourage pure math practitioners to explore more novel approaches to both research activity and external funding.

Research is not student centered, and when activity involving students does occur it is more than likely a voluntary overload chore for the supervising faculty.

Thoughts: It is quite rare for student involvement in mathematics research to increase the productivity of faculty. Nor is such involvement directly credited to workload. A solution should involve elements of both. Research activity could be shifted to projects that can benefit from student involvement. Departmental workload could be recomputed to take such activity into account. Note also that research activity involving students is more likely to secure external funding.


1. Build on and build up applied and computational mathematics.

2. Where possible, shift pure math emphases into areas that involve more cross-disciplinary work and more student involvement.

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4. What are the most important threats you have identified? What are your thoughts on how you would guard against those threats?

We are not likely to see increases in university provided resources, so any plans to increase activity in one area are likely to have negative impacts in some other area. This would necessarily require some serious and perhaps painful discussions and decisions within the department.

The salary situation described above is a clear and present threat. We are constantly aware that we may be unable to retain valuable faculty, and even when we retain, we cannot reward. This is unsustainable.

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Appendix A: Quality of Instruction This is a response to the Program Review Question, “What mechanisms do you have in place to ensure that the instruction in your courses is of high quality?” Rather than include portions throughout the main document, it is presented as an appendix and referred to as needed. Quality of instruction is monitored by gathering information from student evaluations, classroom observations, and unsolicited comments from students or other stakeholders. The information flows back to the chair, departmental committees, other departmental authorities, and individual instructors. In some circumstances it triggers responses. What follows is a comprehensive discussion of these channels of information and the responses pattern for each, all broken down by category of instructor.

1. Student Evaluations: On the main campus in the fall semester every section of every course conducts end of semester student evaluations. Students are asked to provide numerical scores on some items and written answers on others. The numerical scores are collected on scantron forms and tabulated by computer. All numerical data is returned to the instructor and copied to the chair. Handwritten comments are returned to the instructor. Campus wide electronic evaluation systems are projected to be in place for the fall semester of 2011. We will continue to collect and use both numerical data and long form answers The instrument in use for the past several years is attached (See III.C.3). The department is considering a revision (also attached in III.C.3), but it has not been implemented. Any departmental evaluation instrument is likely to be further revised so that it can be delivered as part of the university-wide electronic system. The same instrument is available, but mostly voluntary, for summer and spring courses. Spring evaluations are required for certain multi-section courses and for any course taught by a non-tenured, tenure track professor. Summer evaluations are at the discretion of the instructor and are quite rare. Online courses have their own Courses delivered on weekends, at remote campuses, online or as hybrids all have separate student evaluation mechanisms described elsewhere. The department is currently exploring possible changes to this policy. We are likely to extend required evaluation to all courses in all semesters when the electronic system becomes available. Data gathered from student evaluations are collected, examined, and acted upon in various ways, depending on the category of instructor:

a. Tenured . Numerical data and written comments are not reviewed other than by the instructor. At the time of their annual evaluation by the chair tenured faculty are encouraged to include a self analysis of the results. A description of what is suggested and examples can be found athttp://hausdorff.boisestate.edu/faculty_info/fac_eval_10.htmThis is a formative assessment. It is expected that it is useful to

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the instructor. Student evaluations are not used as a summative assessment.

b. Non-tenured but tenure track . Each year’s worth of numerical data and written comments are submitted to a Tenure Progress Review Committee for use as a summative assessment. The TPRC analyzes the data, consults with the candidate, recommends action if there are areas of concern, and summarizes all this in a letter to the chair. Additionally, self analysis and use as a formative assessment are the same as for tenured faculty and are discussed in the annual evaluation by the chair.

c. Lecturer . These are full time employees whose job description is approximately 80% teaching and 20% departmental service. Their employment includes expectation of contract renewal but not tenure. At the time of their annual evaluation by the chair they are required to submit a self-analysis of all student evaluations from the previous year. Instructions and examples are available at http://hausdorff.boisestate.edu/faculty_info/fac_eval_10.htmThis is primarily a formative assessment. However, if the self analysis indentifies areas of concern they will be discussed in the annual evaluation by the chair.

d. Graduate TA’s . Graduate TA’s who teach traditional courses conduct student evaluations as do all other instructors. At this time there is no structure or process for examining the data or responding except as described below for part time adjuncts. Graduate students who teach hybrid courses are subject to a different oversight mechanism. (See VII.C.3.)

e. Part Time Adjuncts . Numerical data are collected in the chair’s office and copied to the instructor. Written comments are returned to the instructor. The newly adopted adjunct evaluation policy (attached in III.C.3) mandates additional review of this data. Implementation began in fall 2010. The first review period is underway.

2. Classroom Observations: Some categories of instructor are observed. Observers might be more senior math faculty or staff from the Center for Teaching and Learning. Actions taken in response to observations depend on instructor category.

a. Tenured . Not observed unless the faculty member requests observation. All observations are voluntary and act as formative assessment. No information is returned to anyone except the instructor.

b. Non-tenured but tenure track . Each non-tenured faculty member is observed in each fall semester on at least three occasions by members of the TPRC. Additional observations may occur if either the TPRC deems them necessary or the


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candidate requests them. The TPRC meets to discuss their observations, consults with the candidate, recommends action if required, and reports their analysis in a letter to the candidate and to the chair. It is not unusual for TPRC to find behaviors or practices that warrant some feedback or guidance. The TPRC is charged to provide this guidance and will often recommend specific changes that would correct a particular flaw or bring the candidate’s teaching style more in line with departmental norms. Specific examples have included suggestions for voice control and eye contact, guidance in preparing handouts, syllabi or exams, or even individual mentoring. Although there are no recent examples of such, it is possible to be recommended for a terminal contract on the basis of non-compliance with TPRC suggestions for teaching improvement.

c. Lecturer . It is quite rare for us to hire a Lecturer from outside the pool of long serving part time adjuncts. Lecturers who were formerly part time adjuncts were observed as described below. There is, as yet, no policy for observing Lecturers. Currently serving Lecturers are unlikely to have been observed since their promotion from adjunct, and Lecturers hired from outside might never have been observed.

d. Graduate TA’s . Graduate TA’s who teach traditional courses are observed as though they were first year part time adjuncts (see below).

e. Part Time Adjuncts . As mentioned above, recent adoption of a new policy on part time adjuncts has changed some department practices. Prior to the new policy, part time adjuncts working in either their first or second semester were observed at least once during each course they taught. Observation was by a senior instructor (tenured, tenure-track, or special lecturer), usually with extensive experience teaching the particular course observed. The observer made a written report directly to the chair for each course and instructor observed. Many observers also provided written or verbal feedback to the instructor, but this was not mandated. Also, instructors could request feedback. If the report to the chair indicated areas of concern, the chair would consult with the instructor to address these. After the second semester of satisfactory performance no further observation was conducted unless evidence of unsatisfactory performance was revealed by other means. The new policy lays out a more rigorous schedule of observations, including ongoing, but less frequent observations beyond the first year. It provides for more information to be processed by committee instead of by the chair. It is assumed that Graduate TA’s will be observed under the new policy, but this is a new process and it is not perfectly clear yet what practices we will eventually have in place for TA’s.


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3. Student Commentary and other Anecdotal Information: Anecdotal information about instructor performance that reaches the chair’s office is handled according to the following procedure.

a. All reports are subject to the same policy, regardless of the type of instructor and regardless of the nature of the report.

b. Information that comes through an intermediary – for example, email from an administrator relaying a comment made by a student – triggers an offer from the chair to meet directly with the student (or whomever is the non-intermediary party). The offer encourages a meeting and expresses the chair’s open interest in hearing from the student in person. If possible this request is sent directly. If not it is relayed through the intermediary. If this does not lead to first hand information from the student, the matter is considered closed. In particular, this policy precludes direct action in response to hearsay.

c. Information that reaches the chair directly is usually in the form of face to face meetings with students. If not, then the chair encourages a face to face meeting. In any event, the chair collects as much information as possible from the student and then, provided the student is comfortable with this step, conducts a follow-up meeting with the instructor. Personal or identifying information about the student is confidential and will not be revealed in a meeting with the instructor.

d. A meeting with the instructor will occur unless the student requests otherwise. The fact that a meeting occurs is independent of the nature of the student’s information and independent of the chair’s judgment of the merits of anything conveyed by the student. This policy is applied to all categories of instructor. The meeting serves several functions.

i. Gather any additional information from the instructor that might be relevant.

ii. Inform the instructor that there was a concern of sufficient importance that it reached to chair’s office.

iii. Communicate the chair’s impression of the seriousness of whatever has been reported.

iv. Engage the instructor and the chair in a discussion of what teaching practices might have led to this point, and what teaching practices might or might not be appropriate.

v. Where appropriate (although this is rare and requires rigorous fact checking), the chair suggests or perhaps even requires corrective action.


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Some of the processes described above, particularly with regard to tenure-track faculty, include opportunities for professional development. The department has additional PD processes designed for some subgroups.

1. Senior members of the Math Education group provide training in the teaching methods that are preferred for the math courses aimed solely at Secondary and Elementary Ed majors. The department has encouraged such training by allowing it to replace a portion of the trainee’s total teaching and service assignment.

2. Graduate TA’s who are new to college level teaching begin by teaching hybrid courses. These courses involve less direct responsibility and the instructors receive training specific to the hybrid style of teaching. They are also subject to more detailed oversight. Occasionally a new part time adjunct will begin with hybrid teaching assignments in order to more gradually move into college teaching.

3. All first year TA’s supplement the hybrid course training with a one credit seminar on teaching. This is aimed at preparing them for their second year assignment as teachers of traditional courses. The seminar is open to any other instructors.

4. Second year TA’s, when they first teach a traditional course, usually teach Math 143. In this case the Math 143 oversight committee directly monitors syllabi, course content, course structure, and exams.

Finally, there are some processes that don’t fit into the categories above. The department has a well developed (and regularly revised and examined) process for evaluation of concurrent enrollment offerings in high schools. (See Section 5 of the attached CE Policy). The department has a Developmental Mathematics sub-unit. The director of this unit is responsible for all matters of course quality and instructor effectiveness and reports to the department chair. (See section VII).Until recently all online, off campus, or weekend courses were evaluated by mechanisms designed and delivered by the College of Extended Studies. However, they have switched to simply executing whatever evaluation process the department uses in its regular sections. In any event, data collected this way would be reported to the chair and the instructor. Reponses would be left to the chair. Some situations simply require ad hoc oversight. Recent examples include Calculus taught off-campus by a Lecturer and summer Differential Equations taught by a part time adjunct. The Calculus class was monitored using the department’s existing mechanism for evaluating concurrent enrollment calculus in high schools. The Differential Equations class was monitored by weekly meetings between the chair and the instructor.


Documents

Periodic Review of Academic Departmentsbullock/faculty_info... · Web viewWe use these data and word of mouth to determine needs. What other factors enter into enrollment planning