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Mathematical Developments

On Monday, November 12, 2012, Dr. Judith Gay, CCP Vice-President of Academic Affairs, presented to the department a proposal to form a new developmental mathematics department with the intent to move the three lowest math courses under its purview. This would constitute about 80% of all math courses being moved out of the Mathematics Department.

Dr. Gay concludes her proposal with:

"We need a concerted effort to improve developmental math. Creating a second department to focus our attention is a reasonable approach to organizing our efforts."

On Sunday, December 9, the Mathematics Department sent a letter of response to this proposal clearly stating its opposition to it.

From the response letter:

The Mathematics Department is firmly against this proposal on the following grounds:

  1. The proposal does not present a cogent rationale or verifiable evidence that the formation of a new department will have any educationally significant expectation of addressing the issues of concern of the Vice President.
  2. The Mathematics Department has been addressing these concerns in various ways for many years and approached the Vice President in 2005 with a comprehensive plan grounded firmly in evidence supported by national studies. This plan has received little continued support from the College administration. The department has been developing strategies grown from this plan in subsequent years and has evidence of improvement within reasonable expectations.
  3. The potential consequences of the proposal are far-reaching and without careful consideration could lead to profound and highly undesirable repercussions relating to, among other things, the administration of personnel, the articulation of standards between the developmental and the regular departments, as well as how the elementary courses transfer to other institutions.

Feel free to review both documents. If you wish, you may send your thoughts to Mathematics Department Head Brenton Webber at bwebber@ccp.edu. If you are willing to permit your correspondence to be posted publicly, please indicate this in your email.