Mary B. O'Neill, former director of the Quantitative and Symbolic Reasoning Center at Hamilton, participated in the Joint Math Meetings of the American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America conference, in January in Baltimore.
Along with collaborators Michael E. Schuckers of St. Lawrence University, and Grace L Coulombe of Bates College, she took part in the MAA Poster Session of Projects Supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Undergraduate Education. Their poster titled "Quantitative and Mathematics Support Centers Workshop to Develop Handbook of Best Practices" presented information about Quantitative and Mathematics Support Centers (QMaSCs) at a session on mathematics education.
Quantitative and Mathematics centers provide critical academic support for the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curriculum, as well as for students outside of STEM to broaden quantitative competency across the curriculum. Even so, little is known about QMaSCs on a national scale, and little or no infrastructure exists for the discussion of center issues or the dissemination of resources to guide new or experienced directors of QMaSCs. The poster and the paper presented an update on the handbook for QMaSC directors, one of the primary outcomes of the NSF workshop held in July, 2013.
