Currently-enrolled students will see minor differences in classes

Fundamentals of Math courses will no longer be offered starting in Fall 2009. Instead, a new set of courses named Core Math will substitute the original remedial classes.

Fundamentals of Math levels one through six are five-week courses with high school-level math content, in which students are placed if they do not meet the requirements to enroll in a university-level math course.

In the new system, Core Math levels one through four will be seven-and-a-half week long courses. They will still provide the same content as Fundamentals of Math.

“The revision is a response to the needs of all campuses,” said Mary Ann Haley, assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “While it’s less of an issue currently on this campus, in terms of the five-week fundamental math modules, there can be problems for some students in those transitions in the middle of the semester.

“With the fundamental math series there are two transitions that take place, after week five and after week 10; with the repackaged Core Math there will only be one transition, and we think that will likely be less confusing to students.”

As in Fundamentals of Math, students will need to achieve a minimum grade of a C to advance from module to module. In Core Math, however, students will receive two credit hours per module, rather than one as in the present system.

“Students will be getting the credit that they are working for throughout the semester,” said Andrew Tonge, mathematical sciences chairman.

Core Math I and Core Math II credit hours will not count toward graduation, but they will count toward full-time status. Core Math III and IV will count as graduation credits.

He said for students who have begun the fundamentals track, there will be minor differences between the course students originally should have moved on to, and the new one.

Students will continue to meet four times a week for 50 minutes. Class sections won’t change, each having 35 students.

Tonge said professors will inform students about the class they will have to register for after they complete their current module. He said he expects the classes to be available for registration by April.

Haley said the Geauga and Trumbull campuses will offer Core Math I and II as a semester-long class.

She said academic and financial considerations were taken before the College of Arts and Sciences’ College Curriculum Committee made the decision to change the classes.

“Certainly RCM (Responsibility Centered Management) gave us an opportunity to look at the courses in a different way, but we were already having the discussions of revising those courses to better meet the needs of students,” Haley said. “Certainly, looking at (RCM) was part of the process, but it was purely an academic decision with suiting the needs of every campus and every student.”

Under RCM, the university’s new budget model, each college will receive a portion of the students’ tuition who are enrolled in a class based on each credit hour. If the student belongs to the college that offers a certain class, that college will receive that entire portion of the student’s tuition. But if the student belongs to another college, the one that is offering the class will only receive 80 percent of that portion of the student’s tuition.

Haley said the changes are currently under revision at the provost’s office. The changes are in the Educational Policy Council’s agenda for the next meeting.

The department of mathematical sciences is preparing a document to be disseminated among advisers on all campuses to inform them about the changes.

Contact academics reporter Regina Garcia Cano at [email protected].