LAFAYETTE TODAY
Math +
Social Justice
A CAMPUS WORKSHOP
on the mathematics of social justice attracted more than two dozen faculty from colleges around the nation.
“There was much
more interest in the topic than I anticipated,” says
Rob Root, associate professor of math, who conducted the program.
He has incorporated service-learning modules in his applied statistics course
for years.
“Contemporary society is filled with political, economic, and cultural issues that arise from mathematical ideas. The workshop was designed to aid faculty in math and related disciplines to develop undergraduate courses for their home institutions that engage students in understanding the connection between quantitative literacy and social justice,” Root says.
Continuing the workshop dialogue through the summer, many participants created modules to insert into a math or statistics class they already teach. “Others worked on preparing a full-blown course on the topic,”
Root notes. That includes Root himself, who’s currently teaching a new First-Year Seminar on the math of social justice.
A follow-up conference is planned for next summer.
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