Members: Chris Anderson, Barbara Bath, Marjorie Enneking, Terry Herdman (Discussion Leader), Paul M. Weichsel (Reporter)

Questions for Day 1

• • What students and what departments do you serve in your mathematics courses?

• • To what extent have you worked with other departments in the design or delivery of mathematics courses? (Engineering, Sciences, Business, Social Sciences)

• • Which projects were successful and which weren't?

Questions for Day 2

• • What strategies do you recommend for finding out the needs of other departments?

• • For each group of students that you serve, what mathematics do you think they need?

• • What strategies do you recommend for setting up successful, sustained joint activities with other departments, and which activities do you think are likely to be most fruitful? (Joint committees, regular consultation, finding out how they use mathematics, team teaching, interdisciplinary courses.)

Outreach has been a fact of mathematics department life for the past forty years. But changes in the university structure, in societal values, and in the needs of the student body demand that the mathematics department take a more active role in developing and nurturing its outreach activities. This work group report explores some of these new needs.

Basic principles.

• I. Outreach must be based on a notion of partnership rather than a clientprovider relationship. There should be regular meetings between mathematics department representatives and client department (physics, engineering, psychology, etc.) representatives in order to determine the shape and content of any given service course. An effort should be made to have some continuity in the membership of these interface committees. Since different departments often have entirely different vocabularies and value systems, real effort must be made to open lines of communication. Committee members should examine texts and discuss syllabi. Department chairmen should have a role on these committees.