Mission
The goals and aims of department courses are:
- To form systematic, orderly, and exact habits of thought; to develop the power of reasoning; to enable students to see the place of mathematics and technology in the liberal arts.
- To provide the necessary background for work in the natural and social sciences, in computer science, and in the management of information.
- To provide the fundamental education and training necessary for graduate study or careers in mathematics, computer science, information technology and the natural and social sciences.
Factors that help students reach these goals are:
- Small class size. Most of the departmental courses have a class size of 15 or less. No class is larger than 25-30 students. Department faculty enjoy working with students, either on an individual basis or in small groups.
- A breadth of academic interest and knowledge. Faculty background and interest covers the areas of physics, pure mathematics, applied mathematics, mathematics education, computer science, and information technology and applications of computers in business. Upper level courses often involve faculty collaboration, so that students' projects often cover several different areas of mathematics, computer science, or physics.