The Department of Mathematics developed its assessment plan during the fall quarter of 1994. The chair of the department sent out a memo outlining the need for a plan for department-based assessment according to the requirements of the North Central Association accreditation report. The faculty were asked to make suggestions about how to describe what we are trying to do and ways to measure whether we have succeeded. A document was prepared and amended after further department discussion. The final plan was adopted by the faculty at the end of that quarter and appears in the Institutional Impact and Assessment Plan, dated January, 1995. The goals referred to below come from this document.

One of the principle vehicles of the assessment of the undergraduate major is the exit interview. Graduating seniors were told during the spring quarter that they "must" have an exit interview with the chair before graduation. Before making this announcement, the chairman had already interviewed two seniors who graduated at the end of the winter quarter. These two interviews took place under a free format, not using the departmental questionnaire, but basically covering the same topics. The three other graduating majors came in for an interview in the spring. The questions at the interview are not slanted directly at the goals of the department, but are more general. This is so that the chair does not put words into the seniors' mouths. Another plan for assessment in the long term is to get alumni feedback from these same seniors in later years. To that end we asked each person, in their exit interview, to give us a permanent address where they could be reached several years from now, and made a strong plea that they continue to provide us with feedback in the light of their post-graduation experiences. All agreed to do this but we have no such feedback as yet.

The format of this report will be to describe each goal in turn, describe the assessment vehicle for that goal, describe the actual result of the assessment, and finally, describe any plans for change that the department has made because of the assessment.

I. Goal: Students will be capable of appreciating the beauty and "astonishing applicability" of mathematics and capable of taking their place as leaders in our increasingly technological and mathematically oriented world.

Assessment vehicle: Course embedded assessment, exit interviews, alumni feedback.

Assessment: The chair of the department has had exit interviews with five graduating seniors. Every one interviewed started college majoring in something other than mathematics and then switched to mathematics or decided to double major. Each interviewee mentioned "because I like it" or "I have always been good at it" as their main reasons for choosing to major in mathematics. For the most part, they expressed that the preparation they had received from our department had appropriately prepared them to join the work force. However, one of the interviewees said that more professional development would have been desirable. In the student’s words: "Students need to know what math is good for. I doubt any of the math I learned will be useful unless I go into teaching." A specific suggestion from the two graduating seniors in the actuarial sciences program who were interviewed was for the department to run workshops to help them prepare for the actuarial exams. Both students had taken one such a course in Philadelphia and felt that their performance in the actuarial exam was better for having taken the course. One of the actuarial students suggested that our courses should be geared a little more in the direction of actuarial science. The student felt that the calculus courses, for example, should include more word problems. The actuarial exams, the student added, emphasize thinking over manipulations. Yet another suggestion coming from a student was to upgrade our computer requirements. The student remarked that we should require C and not only FORTRAN. The computer language C is a prerequisite for many courses but is not a formal requirement for our own majors.

Conclusions: The department is succeeding at its primary goal which is to teach a liberal arts subject to people who appreciate it. The department needs to do more to help our majors see the applicability of mathematics. This will be discussed further in the discussion of the next goal.

Plans for change: See the plans for change following the discussion of the next goal.

II. Goal: Students will be trained to bring mathematical thinking to, and find employment in, business and industry.

Assessment vehicle: Exit interviews and alumni feedback.

Assessment: The seniors were asked in their exit interviews whether their math major had prepared them for their goals. One of our seniors already had a job as a software engineer lined up at the time of the interview. The student felt that his mathematical preparation had helped him to get the job bud was also certain that the fact that he was a double major with Computer Science had been a big factor. The actuarial science graduates were optimistic about their chances of getting related jobs in the insurance industry. A fourth student, in the applied mathematics program, already had a computer-related job for the next year but plans to go back to graduate school after one year. All four of the students mentioned so far had clear career plans and mentioned that they felt prepared thanks to the sharpening of their analytical skills through our program. The fifth student was not extremely clear as to his future plans but he seemed confident that he was ready for the job market or graduate school. He was primarily hoping for a computer-related job but was open to teaching or going back to school for a master’s degree.

Conclusions: The department should do a better job both in advising people at the moment they decide to be a math major and also as they progress toward their degree. We need to try to develop a program of visitors who come to the campus to talk to math majors about career matters. We have had some of these, but it would not be fair to say that a system is in place for this purpose. We should also try to develop more courses that emphasize applications, and we need to talk more about applications in the courses we already have.

Plans: The Undergraduate Committee will be advised of all these problems and will be asked to develop a plan to address them.

III. Goal: Students may receive training to teach mathematics in middle and high schools.

Assessment vehicle: National Teachers Examination math test. This is a nationally administered test given by Educational Testing Service that future school teachers must pass before they can be certified. There is a content component that is scored separately. The way Ohio University students perform on this test should tell us whether our preparation is adequate or not. Another assessment mechanism for this goal appeared unexpectedly this year. The College of Education faced an accreditation examination which included how well their students were being prepared in their mathematics courses. I will report on the outcome of both assessment procedures below.

Assessment: Fifty-six Ohio University students had taken the NTE specialty exam in mathematics by June 23, 1997. Of these, 55 passed with a score of 530 or better (scores range from 250 to 990, in increments of 10, with the State of Ohio requiring a score of 530 for certification). The one who failed got a score of 490.

The median score for 16049 people who took the test between 10/1/92 and 7/31/95 was 610, and 50% scored between 560 and 670. This is what the ETS calls the average performance range. The Ohio University students of this past year scored a median of 610 with 77% scoring in the average performance range. Of the others, there were 6 above 670 and 7 (including the ones who failed) below 560. We do not know how these scores compare with the national performance.

The College of Education recently and successfully went through an accreditation procedure (called, for short, NCATE.) Just going through the process has made this department realize that we need to be stressing such things as the use of technology, oral and written presentations and problem solving in the courses that primarily serve majors in Mathematics Education (such as Geometry and History of Mathematics).

Conclusions: According to the results of the NTE scores, we seem to be achieving the goal of preparing future teachers within a reasonable margin, with an overwhelming 98% passing the examination. The accreditation report of NCATE tells also us that we are doing a respectable job. The NCATE report makes it clear, however, that we need to be doing more with technology in the classroom, with oral presentations and with written work.

Plan: We are going to write up statements that tell each instructor who teaches one of the courses listed in the NCATE report, not only the content of the course, but also the goals that the course is supposed to accomplish. Right now we only put out syllabi, telling what the content of the course is. We need also to let our instructors know about other goals, such as using technology or developing the ability to communicate mathematical ideas, that need to be stressed in these courses.

IV. Goal: Students may go onto graduate schools in mathematics as well as in other fields.

Assessment vehicle: Exit interview and alumni feedback.

Assessment: This year’s group of seniors did not seem as graduate-school-bound as groups in the recent past. Only one of the five seniors interviewed expressed a primary interest in graduate school. The other senior mentioning graduate school as a possibility listed it as a third possibility below an industry or teaching job. Recent data, however, confirms that we are successful in achieving this goal. We do not think this is something to worry about at this point.

Conclusions: The goal of preparing students for graduate school seems to be successfully met.

Plan: The department should concentrate its efforts at improvement in other areas at this time.

V. Goal: Students will gain the necessary analytical and quantitative skills to prepare them for courses in other departments on campus.

Assessment vehicle: Department feedback.

Assessment: We had extensive feedback from several departments during the previous year. This year we have been working on responding to the other department’s needs while at the same time preserve the mathematical integrity of our courses. The College of Engineering and the Department of Physics asked us to rearrange our Math 263 (calculus) sequence to better prepare their students for the courses that follow. In particular, both groups wanted the teaching of vectors to come much earlier in the year. We ran experimental sections of a couple of courses in response to some specific feedback from the College of Business, particularly the Department of Quantitative Business Analysis. They had been asking for a course to replace our Math 250 (a pre-requisite for QBA 201) that is much more business-oriented. The courses we experimented with this year are Math 150 and Math 251. We do not have a final assessment on the courses yet but both students and faculty in our department seemed to be happy with the results. Finally, we had conversations with the Department of Biological Sciences about the preparation of their students. We are in the process of considering changes both in our courses and in their majors' requirements. These talks are ongoing. Adapting mathematics courses to the needs of a department such as biological sciences seems to be a harder task than the equivalent one for schools such as engineering or business. A lot of work has gone into developing an experimental Tier I course for students not going farther in mathematics that may be better than the one we offer now. The course ran rather successfully this year. We intend to run it again in the near future.

Conclusion: This method of assessment and change seems to work pretty well. Our client departments are not shy about making their wishes known, and we are willing to accommodate them when we can. Problems arise when departments have conflicting desires and when departments have desires that conflict with our notions about what a mathematics course is.

Plan: We will continue to work with client departments as we have in the past. We are planning to teach our experimental courses that will possibly meet the needs of the College of Business a few more times to get a better feeling for their impact on our students. We will continue our talks with the Department of Biological Sciences and hopefully will get more faculty involved in experimenting with new courses or variations to the ones we already offer. We will continue to introduce more technology into our teaching by having graphing calculator sections of 115 and 263. Our hopes to expand this method of teaching into the 113/163 program has not materialized yet. The use of computers in the classroom will also be augmented since we obtained funding to refurbish Morton 314 as a technology classroom. Several experimental sections of our regular courses are scheduled to run during the upcoming year which will make use of computer software as a teaching/learning aid. We are trying to develop a course that will better prepare students for calculus than our present 113/115 program does. We ran an experimental one-year course for this purpose. The experiment seemed to be quite successful but the true measure of its success will not be attained until we see the performance of these students in follow-up classes. All these plans are in response to perceived needs at the service level.

Goals: Master's students will build on a substantial undergraduate major in mathematics to take them to a higher level of mathematical competence.

Master's students will become mathematical scientists for business and industry.

Master's students will become teachers for secondary schools, technical schools, and two-year colleges.

Assessment vehicle: Course embedded assessment; optional thesis and defense; exit interviews; alumni feedback.

Assessment: The graduate chair has been conducting exit interviews with students having completed the requirements for the master's degree. During the previous two quarters, eleven students have been interviewed. In response to the question " Why did you get a master's degree?", most indicated they wanted to improve their knowledge and increase their job opportunities. Some students added that they wanted to be ready to teach at the college level and then others mentioned that they wanted to learn how to use the latest computer technology. Several others expressed that the master's was a stepping stone in the direction of a doctoral program. The overwhelming majority of responses (80%) to the question "Did your study coincide with your goals?" was positive. The responses to the question "What are your plans now?" include working with the computer industry, teaching at the college or community college level, continuing on for a Ph. D. One interviewee responded that he wanted to "apply the knowledge he learned at Ohio University to the real world." Almost all students responded "yes" to the question "Did your study help with these plans?" The only exception said "Not yet, but I feel smarter!" The fifth and final question in the exit interview was "What suggestions for improvement of the program do you have?" Answers to this question included "Good program" and "no suggestions." Some specific suggestions mentioned are "More structure to the programs of study and better training/supervision of the TA’s" , "More courses on object oriented design programming", "Offer more variety of courses such as graph theory and combinatorics", "offer more applied statistics", "make it mandatory to complete a sequence in at least one of analysis, algebra or topology", "computer language or background requirements", and "rewrite catalog to more accurately describe programs and courses."

Conclusions: The department continues to achieve its goals of expanding the students backgrounds and moving them to a higher level of mathematical competence. This is seen in the success that our students have in obtaining employment after completion of their master's programs and in their success with further graduate work.

Plans for change: The department is currently conducting a thorough self-review of the entire program using the regents outline as our guide. Plans for improvements in the program are expected to be developed as a consequence of this review process. We had intended to conclude the program review at the end of the 1996-97 year but that turned out to be impossible. Our new target date is the Fall quarter of 1998. The suggestions for improving will also be passed along to the graduate committee for their consideration.

Goals: Doctoral students will become scholars of mathematics; that is, people who have the mathematical sophistication to understand and appreciate the mathematical achievements of the past 2,00 years.

Doctoral students will be working mathematicians; that is, people who have the skill levels and creativity to push back further the frontiers of mathematical knowledge.

Doctoral students will become teachers of mathematics for colleges and universities.

Assessment vehicle: Comprehensive examination; specialty examination; dissertation and defense; alumni feedback.

Assessment: The comprehensive examination is a demanding set of three exams given over a period of two weeks. Typically only 50% of the students who take these exams are successful. This year, four out of the six who took the exams passed them. Some of the students were taking the test for a second time.

After a student has passed the written comprehensives, he/she begins intensive study with a professor on a topic which ultimately leads to the dissertation. Although the nature of the specialty examination may vary somewhat, typically the student will read research papers and report on them to the professor(director). When the professor is satisfied that the student is capable of conducting research in the topic being studied, the professor certifies that the student has passed the specialty examination and the student is admitted to candidacy.

Some graduate students currently working on their dissertations have submitted some of their results for publication and have had those papers accepted for publication in prestigious journals. The dissertation itself then is reviewed by a graduate faculty committee and the results approved as being worthy of publication in mathematical journals. Usually several more papers result from publishing the results of the dissertation.

Former doctoral students have been contacted via mail and email, and we will continue to follow the progress of their mathematical careers. All of them have very positive attitudes regarding the preparation that they received while in our program.

Conclusions: By tracking our recent graduates we learn that they have been obtaining tenure track positions as professors of mathematics in colleges and universities, and subsequently receiving tenure after about five or six years, and that most of them have continued to be productive in mathematical research. Thus they have acquired the skill levels and creativity which will enable them to continue as productive scholars of mathematics.

Plans for change: As mentioned above, we are undertaking a thorough review of our entire graduate program and it is expected that proposals for improvements will come about as consequence of this review.

Graduate level service courses: Many graduate students from other departments, especially engineering, include some of our 500-level courses as part of their graduate programs. We have asked for feedback from graduate advisors from some of those departments whose students we serve. One of the comments received was " The quality of instruction in graduate math courses is very good, based on informal reports from (our) graduate students."