With the introduction of the Block Plan
in 1970 came a set of new forces pushing the curriculum in
many directions. Students now took only one course at a time and each
course lasted only three and a half weeks. The classroom
intensity allowed for more experimentation and potentially
deeper understanding, but the course length restricted the amount
of content and raised questions of retention. Gradually the
department adapted, experimenting with new types of courses and
moving beyond the standard classroom lecture.
With the pressures of the block plan and a renewed attention
to teaching quality, faculty turnover was high. As the student
body grew another 15 percent, the mathematics department needed
more positions. During the fifteen years after the block plan
began, four tenure-track faculty left the department, one gradually
moved to the computer center, and another four came and went in
the span of a few years. On the other hand, six new people
joined the department and stayed. Each brought a particular view
about an appropriate modern curriculum.
As the block plan was ushered in, the college backed off of the
compulsory comprehensive examination for the major. Requirements
were left up to the individual departments. By the middle of the
1970's, the mathematics department required its majors to take the
standard calculus sequence, then number theory, introduction to
mathematical analysis, abstract algebra, and three more upper
level courses. The course listings in the
1978-79 catalog are
indicative of the period.
This period was marked by the following curricular changes:
- Various flavors of calculus were tried and abandoned: calculus
for social and life sciences, calculus and physics combined,
accelerated calculus. An Introduction to Calculus did find a niche
and evolved into Pre-Calculus and Calculus, a two-block course.
- Number theory entered the curriculum first as a low level
course for interested students with limited background, and then
in 1976 as a sophomore level course serving as the first rigorous
course for mathematics majors.
- A course titled Introduction to Mathematical Analysis was added
at the junior level and required of all majors. The goal was to
carefully develop the beginnings of the theoretical basis for calculus.
- The non-major courses at the lower level were combined into
Matrices and Probability which eventually split up again:
Finite Mathematics (soon to become Discrete Mathematics), Probability
and Statistics.
- Computer Science began its serious development ending the
period with three main courses: Computer Science I and II,
Theory of Computation.
- Each new faculty member had influence in developing courses
related to their specialties. In this way, Introduction to
Numerical Computation, Mathematical Modeling, Topology, and
Graph Theory all entered the curriculum.
- Applied mathematics has always had a checkered history in
the curriculum. During this period, the department singled out
two topics in advanced calculus, Vector Analysis and Fourier Analysis,
and supported them as regular courses. In addition,
an applied mathematics
course was cross-listed in physics and taught by a physicist or
a mathematician or both. This arrangement was tenuous as the
two departments had different visions of the course.
Back to Evolution of the Curriculum
