William Barker

Math educators, computer science educators: working together

Mathematics is one of the disciplines that helped give birth to computer science. Over the years, however, as computer science sought its own identity as an applied, professional discipline, it has occasionally lost contact with its roots. Also, the mathematics profession has had problems that are partly responsible for a decline in rigor in undergraduate computer science courses [1,2,3]. Both disciplines are coming to recognize that the bonds between them must be reestablished and strengthened. This is a healthy sign of maturity. In 1999 the Mathematical Association of America’s (MAA) Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics (CUPM) initiated the Curriculum Foundations Project, a series of disciplinary workshops, to determine the mathematical requirements primarily in the first two undergraduate years of the disciplines they serve. The first Curriculum Foundations Workshop was held at Bowdoin College in October 1999 and included both computer scientists and physicists. Since then a total of eleven workshops have been held with 19 different disciplines plus a final conference that gathered representatives from all previous workshops to discuss common needs. Draft reports from the workshops,