Math Program Response to: “Report of the Review Team” Spring 2013
Academic Program Review of the Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado Colorado Springs
The Mathematics Department has organized its response to the Report of the Review Team by focusing
on seven areas as follows.
(a) Mathematics research goals and directions.
(b) Undergraduate teaching and research.
(c) Graduate and PhD teaching and training.
(d) Service courses and 1000 level courses.
(e) Recruiting strategies and Computational Lab.
(f) Administrative needs.
(g) Space expansion.
We shall respond to the Challenges and Recommendations section (points 1 through 9) of the Review
Report by relating the areas (a) through (g) in turn to the relevant points. It will be shown in addition
that a three-culture structure exists for the way the Math department intends to both enhance and
complement its strong research mission by solidifying its work in various stages on certain endeavors,
including the teaching mission, over the next several years. These cultures are: (i) a culture of
undergraduate research, (ii) a culture of teaching and training for graduate students, and (iii) a culture of
engagement in advising and career placement.
Area (a). Math Department research goals and directions.
Re: Report Item 3. The Department notes that the Review Team listed the research credentials of the
faculty as one of its strengths. At the same time, the Department is aware that maintaining this level of
research will likely become more challenging in the near future, unless more faculty lines are established
in the next two or three years, especially in light of the additional efforts the new doctoral program in
Applied Science will require in terms of teaching and advising.
New faculty.
When it comes to hiring new faculty, the Department agrees that concentrating on the current research
specialties is preferred to hiring in new areas (such as geometry or topology). While such new areas
would allow the department to diversify its research profile and course offerings, it would also involve
the risk of a new hire being isolated research‐wise. Consequently, new hires will be made with the aim
of strengthening the existing research groups of the department, while also expanding and possibly
bridging them. If possible, the department will try to hire in emerging and cross‐cutting areas of
contemporary mathematics, as well as faculty who could broaden the “applied” component of the
curriculum.
Doctoral program.
As the reviewers noted in their report, further development of the doctoral program, while offering a
tremendous opportunity for growth, would also present challenges. The need for offering more
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PhD‐level courses and for supervising doctoral theses will burden the faculty significantly. The
Department therefore believes that faculty should receive appropriate teaching credit for PhD thesis
advising and Independent Study. Such a teaching credit is common practice in research‐oriented
universities and would benefit both the PhD program and the faculty research.
Research focus.
The Department will continue to strive to be an active center of research in the areas of algebra, applied
mathematics, and probability. The department members will organize regular seminars in these fields,
involving interested researchers from other STEM departments at UCCS and nearby institutions.
Department members will also continue to organize national and international scientific meetings,
collaborate with researchers outside UCCS, and invite visiting scholars. In this respect, increasing the
existing support for research visitors (in terms of lodging opportunities and office space, both of which
are problematic at the moment) would be extremely beneficial.
Grants to support new opportunities.
The Department members will continue to maintain productive research agendas, and to apply for
external funding to support them. Department members will also be involved in the submission of an
NSF ADVANCE grant proposal, aimed at enhancing the participation and advancement of women in
academic science and engineering careers, as a means to increase the representation of women in the
Mathematics Department.
Summary of Departmental Responses in area (a).
1. Hire new tenure track faculty to help strengthen existing groups while also expanding and
possibly bridging them. Hire in cross-cutting areas as well as in areas that could broaden the
“applied” component of the curriculum.
2. Provide teaching credit for faculty involved in PhD thesis advising and Independent Study.
3. Increase support and facilities for visiting scholars.
4. Submit an NSF ADVANCE grant proposal aimed at enhancing participation of women in
academic science and engineering careers, as a means to increase representation of women in the
Mathematics Department.
Area (b). Undergraduate teaching and research.
RE: Report Item 1c. The creation of a two- or even four-year undergraduate and graduate course
rotation schedule that is posted on the departmental website, facilitating better planning for students
and faculty alike.
We agree that such a course rotation should be made available to students on the Math Department
website. Currently, there is a list of courses on the website, under Math Courses → Course Descriptions.
This list should be updated, as it includes courses that have not been taught at all in the past four years,
and others that have only been taught once in the past four years. There are other courses listed in the
catalog that do not appear on this page at all, but have been taught in the past four years. In addition to
updating the course descriptions, if necessary, the term(s) in which the course is taught, and frequency
with which it is offered should be added to the description. Course descriptions and the accuracy of the
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information regarding when they are offered should be evaluated and updated annually. Additionally,
this page should probably move up in the website hierarchy, making it easier for students to find.
RE: Report Item 7. A more regularly delivered and streamlined curriculum at the upper- and graduatelevel could do wonders in further enhancing this rigor. It does not suffice to have a long list of
intermediate and upper-level courses in the catalog if they are not offered with an acceptable frequency.
At the freshman-sophomore level, feasible curricular changes that we discussed are (i) the creation of a
“Mathematical Tools” class that might replace the existing one credit MATLAB course, and be
expanded to include LaTeX, Python, Maple, etc; and (ii) requiring a higher-level “proofs based”
foundations class instead of Discrete Mathematics.
There has been some discussion of a sophomore level introduction to proofs class at the department
level in the recent past. This discussion should be taken up again for possible future implementation.
Such a course can be argued to fit in well with a culture of undergraduate research and at the same time
to lend support for students in the mathematics side of the UCCS-Teach program. An expanded
computing course would certainly be appropriate when a Mathematics Computing Lab, discussed under
area (e) below, comes to life. Such a course would benefit the culture of career placement for sure. Both
of these courses would be first taken up by the Mathematics Undergraduate Committee.
Undergraduate research efforts.
Opportunities for undergraduates to experience research have increased within the department in the
past few years. These opportunities include work with individual faculty members, presentations at
conferences, the Math Incline meetings (a weekly free seminar on challenging math problems hosted by
a Mathematics faculty), and travel to national and regional meetings of professional organizations. In
order to increase student participation in research further, we should systematically advertise these
opportunities to majors and potential majors, and encourage our top students to take advantage of them.
Some ways this could be done include a push to talk about research and what it involves in our classes
(including Calculus classes, to reach potential majors early), and to include a page on undergraduate
research on the department website. There is currently a page on the website listing faculty research
areas. This page could be brought up a level, and a column could be added that listed any recent research
with undergraduates, or possible topics/problems that faculty are interested in that could be done with
undergraduates. In addition, a page on upcoming conferences could be added to the department site.
Summary of Departmental Responses in area (b).
1. Update course descriptions annually and move up these descriptions in the Math website
hierarchy.
2. Discuss again a sophomore level Intro to Proofs course, as well as an expanded Intro to
Computing course.
3. Actively recruit within the mathematics major to engage students in undergraduate research.
4. Expand and promote the webpage on math faculty interests by augmenting it with recent and
current undergraduate research. Add a page on upcoming conferences to the Math website.
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Area (c). Graduate and PhD teaching and training.
RE: Report Item 2. The Department notes the constructive recommendations of the Review Team for
increasing the size and scope of the Mathematics track of the Applied Science PhD. We agree that the
PhD program will grow and now we focus on how to manage that growth.
Graduate program revisions.
First since PhD students are starting to be admitted in increasing numbers already, the Graduate
committee will review the Master’s level and PhD courses to standardize both the courses taught and the
semesters/years in which such courses are offered. We will increase the number of Ph.D. courses (at
least 2 per semester) to accommodate an increase in the number of Ph.D. students. We will consider
offering cross-disciplinary courses for the Applied Mathematics students. For example, we may require
such students to take some courses in engineering/physics/computer science. We may also consider
adding an inter-disciplinary "core area" of study in our PhD program.
Summer graduate course offering.
Mathematics will offer 1 graduate course regularly in the summer to help expedite the graduation time
of master’s students. This is motivated in part by the fact that some master’s level students will actually
continue the PhD here after finishing our MS Applied Math degree. This commitment may involve
creative funding for instruction since there is a high minimum enrollment for summer courses at the
College level. Nevertheless there is a constant demand for a summer mathematics graduate course.
Teacher training.
We will institute a culture of teaching and training for our graduate teaching fellows (GTFs). Part of the
job that an incoming GTF will be paid to do will be to undergo a significant training program in
teaching. An appropriate level of compensation will also be provided for the faculty trainers.
Mathematics will investigate potential resources to support this training model for each GTF at least
during the first semester. We will significantly revamp the current mentoring program that has been in
place for Master’s level GTFs and that certainly has been an important line of communication on
teaching, but simply does not now meet all the challenges that we face in beginning to “swap” graduate
students teachers for lecturers. Some basic approaches for training will be to expose graduate students
to multiple faculty approaches as a means to help GTFs to find their teaching niche. Another approach
will be to utilize teacher training resources outside of the department, such as video recording of lectures
by the Faculty Resource Center.
Summary of Departmental Responses in area (c).
1. Standardize Master’s and PhD course offerings, and increase the number of PhD courses offered
per semester.
2. Consider offering cross-disciplinary courses in engineering/physics/computer science for the
Applied Mathematics students. Consider also adding an inter-disciplinary "core area" of study in
our PhD program.
3. Offer at least 1 graduate course regularly in the summer to help expedite graduation time of
master's students.
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4. Institute teacher training of GTFs in the first semester as part of the paid duties of the graduate
teaching fellow program.
Area (d). Service courses and 1000 level courses.
RE: Report Items 5 and 6. The Department agrees that we are overly dependent on lecturers. The ability
to find highly qualified lecturers who are interested in teaching courses for such minimal pay is often
extremely difficult. We agree that we’d like to see PhD students take over the instruction for some of
these courses. As this transition occurs, the department sees a need to develop a training program to
help the PhD (and other graduate students) be effective in the classroom –see the response under teacher
training under Area (c) above. While we would like to see some of the sections transferred over to PhD
students, we’d also like to acknowledge that teaching College Algebra level courses successfully
involves a skill set that is in some ways distinct from the skill set required to teach even a Calculus level
course. We believe that we need to have individuals in these courses who are able to communicate
effectively with students whose mathematical backgrounds may be weak.
The Review Team examined pass rate data in 1000 level courses data from the Fall of 2011. As they
pointed out, success rates were low and varied across sections. They also had possible concern about
the rigor of some of the courses below Calculus. After examining recent pass rates from Fall 2012, there
is some evidence that Mathematics has already started to address some of these issues and is in progress
with others as follows:

The Mathematics Placement Test (MPT) was upgraded and enforced for the Fall of 2011. This
should dramatically help with success rates. Before the implementation of this online placement
test, there were students enrolling in College Algebra who couldn’t add signed integers. By
establishing a gate mechanism, we hope to get students into a course where they have a
reasonable chance of success. The MPT is not designed to be set in stone. The Math Department
needs to continue to analyze how well it predicts success and continue to make changes to the
problems and passing scores to both keep up with curricular changes and to refine its predictive
properties.

In the Fall of 2012, we began to address the issue of rigor in our below-Calculus level courses.
This had long been viewed as the next step after successful implementation of the placement
exam. In the fall of 2013, we will be rolling out a shifted College Algebra 1040 curriculum with
less review (made possible by the MPT) and more emphasis on exponentials and logs. Starting
with the Summer of 2012, we shifted our Precalculus 1050 course to move significantly faster
through the review materials so as to allow for more time on the more advanced material
including trigonometry. We plan to completely revamp 1050 with new curriculum during the Fall
of 2013 to be delivered for the first time in Spring of 2014. We allowed for a “lag” before the
significant shift to allow students to complete the modified College Algebra course.
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
When we encountered the data from Fall of 2011 that showed the massive variability across
sections of 1000 level courses, we started to ramp up the coordination program for 1040, 1050
and 1120. The College Algebra 1040 course currently has common homework assignments and
we plan to work toward common homework assignments in the 1050 and 1120 (Business
Calculus) within the next year or so. During the Fall of 2012, we developed common exam
reviews and test guidelines that were put into place across all sections of these courses. As an
experiment, we also plan to start monthly meetings for one of 1040, 1050, or 1120 in the Fall of
2013 to see how that impacts uniformity across sections. If this seems to be effective, we would
develop this program to include all three of 1040, 1050 and 1120. We have investigated the
possibility of giving common exams in the past and have been discouraged in part by the campus
infrastructure’s lack of large lecture halls and room availability. However, there are other ways to
create uniformity besides putting everyone in the same room for a test, and we will first see what
effect the exam guidelines and monthly meetings have on creating more uniformity before
experimenting with common exams.

We note that our dependence on lecturers most probably did affect the pass rates in Fall 2011
since in that semester there was a weaker than average pool of lecturers (with some very notable
exceptions) due to the loss of a large number of effective and seasoned lecturers after Spring
2011. Also, while it may be conjectured that some sections with high pass rates in Fall 2011
weren’t as rigorous as others, in many cases this doesn’t see m to be true. The teachers who were
more effective at communicating (an admittedly subjective assessment but one that is based on
actual class observance) were testing at the same level as less experienced teachers, yet their
students performed better than the students of the less experienced teachers.

For a recent snapshot of Math Department pass rates, please see the data below from Fall of 2012.
COURSE
MATH 1040- College Algebra
MATH 1050- Precalculus
MATH 1120- Business Calculus
MATH 1350- Calculus I
Successful Completion (%)
Ranked Percentages by Section
79.2, 75.6, 74, 70.5, 70.2, 66.6,
65.9, 58.7, 57.5
80, 71.4, 70.6, 70.2
92.3, 86.9, 78.7, 64.4
75.6, 56.5, 51.4, 51.1, 46.4, 23.5
Overall Successful
Completion (%)
68.9
72.9
81.0
53.7
Compared with the Fall 2011 pass rates published in the Mathematics Self Study of the current
program review, pass rates for the listed courses in Fall 2012 now displays a decrease in the
variability between pass rates among sections of the same course, and an increase in overall
successful completion. These performance increases were achieved without sacrificing rigor. In
the case of 1050 in fact just the opposite was true since (as noted above) more rigor was recently
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introduced there. Due to the very recent changes in 1050 we have not yet seen the impact on
Calculus I students in terms of pass rates.

To address the issues with extremely low performing sections, the math department is also
working on two other fronts. First, we are proactively trying to avoid opening extra sections of
courses in the weeks right before the semester starts. We have increased the number of sections
of the lower level courses we are offering. We are hoping that by doing this we can circumvent
the all too common “last minute section add” that we have been faced with for several years.
These sections tend to be very low performing. Second, we plan to significantly increase the
training we provide to our Graduate Teaching Fellows (see the discussion for Area (c)). We are
hoping to start this new level of training as soon as the Fall of 2013. We feel that helping our
teachers become more effective at communicating mathematical principles, managing a
classroom, and effectively assessing students will improve the quality of student performance.

As another approach to address section differences and rigor issues, we will investigate the idea
of establishing a new departmental committee that deals only with 1000 level courses, and not
with math majors per se who are already covered by the Undergraduate committee. The
committee would examine various teaching quality parameters for each of the 1000 level sections
every semester. These would include for example grade distributions, FCQ’s, drop-sizes in
section enrollments, etc. These snapshot parameters would be complemented by longitudinal
studies to include tracking of student performance in subsequent courses. The committee would
visit each 1000 level course at least once per year and would highlight and recommend strategies
for coordination efforts. This committee would serve to support in particular the group of
graduate student teachers of 1000 level courses.
Summary of Departmental Responses in area (d).
1. Train PhD and Master level graduate teaching fellows to be effective in the classroom.
2. Continue to ramp up coordination of MATH 1040, 1050, and 1120 including monthly
meetings for one of these courses in Fall 2013. Study coordination strategies for Calculus.
3. Identify resources to continue analyzing and upgrading the Math Placement Test to keep in
step with revisions to the 1000 level mathematics curriculum.
4. Plan to circumvent late section adds.
5. Investigate the creation of a departmental committee on 1000 level math courses to improve
coordination efforts and support graduate student teachers.
Area (e). Recruiting Strategies and Computational Lab.
RE: Report Items 4 and 9. We see a Math Computational Lab as a means to increase the breadth and
health of the math major. It will become a tool in the generation of a culture of student engagement with
advising and career placement on the one hand, and on the other hand a means to support students in a
wide array of projects to upgrade and motivate their mathematical education.
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Computational Lab.
To further develop its curriculum to meet the current and future demand for student mastery of
computational mathematics, the Department of Mathematics needs a Computational Mathematics
Laboratory. The laboratory would be the primary classroom space for computational mathematics
instruction. It would house much of the computing equipment, displays, and specialized software needed
to support courses and student projects in computational mathematics. For work in computational
mathematics, the laboratory would serve as a tutorial center, a project development center, and a student
gathering site. Practical planning for a Computational Mathematics Laboratory involves issues of space
allocation, financing, curricular planning, equipment and software acquisition and maintenance, and
staffing. The allocation of space is the main request the Mathematics Department is directing to the
UCCS administration. Financing for such an endeavor is always a serious issue. Fortunately, the
Mathematics Department has a significant flow of instructional fee revenue that can and should be
allocated to this necessary upgrading of the mathematics curriculum. More detail can be provided about
the other issues if needed.
Recruiting additional majors and minors in mathematics.
We plan on focusing faculty energy on advising of undergraduates. To help support this endeavor we
will design a brochure and web page emphasizing career options based on a math degree including
opportunities in engineering, finance, life science, and statistics. We will send invitations to study math
to Calculus students getting a B or better, and include our brochure. We plan on using the computing lab
as a gathering site to hold recruiting events, including “pizza” events focusing more on recruiting than
on past efforts in group career advising. Instead our mathematics major advising efforts will be
supported by promoting a culture of engagement with faculty. Methods for doing this will be to use
modern marketing strategies such as testimonials over social media and by incentivizing participation in
advising for example by awarding “pizza points”. The faculty will also be rewarded by participating, say
by providing some travel money from a department auxiliary fund.
Summary of Departmental Responses in area (e).
1. Implement and find space for a Math Computing lab.
2. Institute math faculty advising of undergraduates with brochures and web presence on
career options. Incentivize the advising process to maximize both faculty and student
participation within a culture of student and faculty engagement.
3. Institute marketing strategies involving calculus students, pizza events on recruiting, and
social media presence.
Area (f). Administrative needs.
RE: Report Item 8. The reviewers have pointed out a cramped and noisy Math office as well as other
features of administrative functioning in Math that need attention.
Math office.
The reviewers note that the Math office presents a challenging atmosphere for the Math Program
Assistant due to a confluence of people and functions. The second desk opposite the Program Assistant
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is occupied essentially full time by student helpers. Despite even a current solution involving using
after-hours space-time for our Graduate Committee administrative liaison, there is very limited space to
organize additional student workers besides the second desk workers solution mentioned here. We
acknowledge that there is a problem with noise and cramped space for the Math Program Assistant.
Since reception is also an ongoing issue with the many lecturers and teachers and students in general, the
Program Assistant cannot work effectively without some added privacy. We plan to offer the Math
Program Assistant a certain amount of flex time while maintaining a comprehensive office coverage
schedule. By this method certain functions can be accomplished efficiently away from the office, such
as travel arrangements, reimbursements, and finance system account management. There are certain
technical scheduling duties that recently fell on departments across campus due to changes in the way
the campus does scheduling, including making out data-intensive publication-ready paperwork, and
interacting with the scheduling office for rooms which are often unavailable, etc. It appears that
administrative help is required for this particular issue in our department due to the existence of the
many administrative tasks handled by the department chair and Program Assistant already.
Summary of Departmental Responses in area (f).
1. Acquire administrative help to accomplish certain tasks such as scheduling paperwork and room
acquisition beyond the scope of what the department chair and Program Assistant can handle.
2. Provide flex time for the Program Assistant to handle certain travel and account management
tasks.
Area (g). Space Expansion.
Now we come to an area which is critical to support the actual physical development of many aspects of
the discussion above.
Faculty office space.
Currently Mathematics has offices for each of its 10 tenure track faculty and 3 instructors, with an administrative office of the two-room Math office suite being the office of the Math chair. Actually there is
exception to this statement already in that currently one instructor shares an office with a graduate teaching fellow. Besides a one-room honoraria office, there is no other office space assigned to Mathematics
at this time. Yet Mathematics expects to hire at least two new faculty in the near future. Further there
are several other areas of office space needed as discussed below.
Graduate Teaching Fellow office space.
In the past, Mathematics always had an office for its graduate teaching fellows. Currently, no such office
exists.
Honoraria (lecturer) office space.
There is one office currently assigned to 8 lecturers and 4 graduate teaching fellows. This is extremely
crowded should any two of these people have the same office hours! The Department intends to increase
its number of graduate teaching fellow PhD students. While the latter would reduce the number of lecturers, the total number of individuals who would be teaching would certainly NOT decrease since PhD
students will teach only one course per academic semester (whether it be a calculus or other course).
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Therefore the single honoraria office will not suffice to handle all lecturers and graduate teaching fellows even as it does not currently suffice for this purpose.
Emeritus faculty office.
Currently we have no office for emeritus faculty. Math lost the one emeritus office it had, and currently
Professor Emeritus Rangaswamy shares an office with Computer Science lecturers.
Visitor office.
Mathematics has no office space for its short and long term visitors. This year Math was lucky enough
to host a Fullbright Fellow, Professor Muge Kanuni Er. But there was no office space available for her
until the second semester when she shared space with a lecturer in the office of Professor Cascaval while
Cascaval was on sabbatical at another institution. During the first semester Kanuni Er squeezed into the
office with Rangaswamy and the Computer Science lecturers mentioned above.
Solutions.
One possible solution is for the Department to move to a new location to get the office space it needs.
Mathematics wants to be near the Math Center. Therefore any such move seems strongly dependent on a
parallel move of Mathematics and the Math Center together. There are a couple of scenarios by which
space may become available in the Engineering building where both Math and the Math Center
currently reside. One scenario is that Physics would continue to move from the Engineering building
into the Osbourne building. In fact several Physics faculty now have their offices in Osbourne. Such a
move would then be expected to free up space for Math. Another scenario is that the thirty-year-old
Engineering building would get remodeled such that more space would open up for Math.
Summary of Departmental Responses in area (g).
1. Establish new faculty office space.
2. Establish a new Graduate Teaching Fellow office space.
3. Establish new office space for emeritus faculty and visiting scholars.
Overall Summary of Math Department Responses.
Mathematics will endeavor to create and support cultures to enhance (i) undergraduate student research,
(ii) the teaching and training of graduate students, and (iii) student and faculty engagement in advising
and career placement. These initiatives will strongly enhance the current research, teaching, and
outreach activities of the Department. By integrating these three cultural areas of awareness into the
departmental fabric, a long range plan will take shape as urged by the reviewers in points 1a and b of the
Challenges and Recommendations. The Department will set priorities for the timeline of the plans in the
above discussions and will thereby set deadlines for the various initiatives. One clear immediate priority
is for the acquisition of space. Mathematics will need help from administration or from a campus
process beyond the departmental level alone to fulfill a space plan. Without space expansion it seems
unlikely that the Math department could grow as it critically needs to do.
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