Members: Joseph Ball, Christopher Grant, Peter Lax, Robert Megginson (Reporter), Kenneth Millett, Wayne Raskind, Thomas Tucker, Joseph Watkins, Hung-Hsi Wu (Discussion Leader)

Questions for Day 1

• • Describe the composition of the freshman and sophomore mathematics class of your institution. (Math majors, science and engineering students, business students, premeds, general education students.)

• • Have you undertaken any projects involving freshman and sophomore courses? Consider both curriculum and teaching practice.

• • What would you change if you undertook the same project today?

Questions for Day 2

• • Consider the factors that affect your department's ability to do a good job teaching these courses (workload, homework policy, grading practices, availability of technology, student preparation, faculty commitment, curriculum). Which ones can your department affect, and how can it do so in a systematic way?

• • What strategies do you recommend to achieve a mathematics program that your department teaches well, and that satisfies the standards of both your department and the home department of your students?

This working group endeavored to discover the distribution of students by major in the first two years of mathematics at the institutions represented by the working group members. It also discussed what projects are being undertaken in freshman/sophomore level courses at these institutions and what has been learned from them, and what strategies would help the departments achieve a well-taught mathematics program for these students.

The distribution of students by major in these courses varies greatly from institution to institution. None of the working group members reported more than about 20% mathematics majors in these courses, and one institution reported only 2%.