Science Engineering and Math Department now has a new dean Constance Boardman as of July first after the retirement of Dr. Carolyn Chambers.
Boardman served as a professor of biology prior to becoming dean, “I have a deep respect for the faculty in the SEM Division and appreciate all they do to help our students succeed.”
Boardman added, “We have innovative faculty members in our division and I look forward to support them as they look for additional ways to help students learn important scientific and mathematical concepts.”
Associate professor of mathematics and Math Learning Center Coordinator Dara Worrel and Math Club adviser Angela Conley, are new co-chairs for the mathematics department as of Aug. 17.
By sharing the chair responsibilities, Worrel takes care of faculty and student concerns and Conley deals with scheduling and curriculum.
According to Worrel, “There were three math 60 courses added. They are all 15 week courses that begin on Sept. 9.”
Mathematics co-chair Angela Conley, explained that the goal of the mathematics department is to help students succeed and provide them with affordable low cost options.
A new free-of-charge pdf book will now be available for students taking math 40 and it is called “Open Educational Resource” (OER).
PDFs of the textbook are available on the Math Learning Center website, www.cerritos.edu/MLC (under pre-algebra, M40 Book) and are available for anyone to view.
Worrel explained the work she put to improve the usage of the pdf book, “Professor Campeau and I began working on modifying the Math 40 OER College of the Redwoods textbook in January 2015.”
Conley explained that Worrel and Campeau dedicated the summer to improving the usage of the OER, “We are expecting to finish the last two chapters within the next few weeks. It has been a laborious process.
We have taken the sections of the OER text and recreated them in Word. While doing this we have modified the text, mostly adding to the content.”
Worrel said, “We have informed all math instructors about the open access to the book, so that their students may visit the website as well. In addition, we have offered to give all math instructors the Word format of the book so that they may alter it for their use.”
Conley expressed that there is a new pilot course this semester called math 75, which is tailored to prepared students for math 112 by combining the teachings of math 60 and 80.
Conley explained that although math 75 allows you to take Math 112; if you need to take Math 114 students would have to go back and take Math 60 and 80 as currently math 75 is not a pre-requisite for math 114.
Conley added that studies have shown students have done well when they take the nine-week sessions and will look into adding more nine-week sessions in the future.
