Harvey Mudd College Receives AMS Award for Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department

December 1, 2005

Providence, RI--The American Mathematical Society (AMS) presents its first Award for an Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department to Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California. The Mathematics Department at Harvey Mudd College excels in numerous dimensions. Its exciting programs have led to a doubling of the number of math majors over the last decade. Currently more than one out of every six graduating seniors at Harvey Mudd College majors in mathematics or in new joint majors of mathematics with computer science or mathematical biology. Furthermore, about 60% of these math majors continue their education at the graduate level.

The Harvey Mudd College Mathematics Clinic has served as a trailblazer and a model for other programs for more than thirty years. This innovative program connects teams of math majors with real-world problems, giving students a terrific research experience as well as a glimpse at possible future careers. Undergraduate research is a theme throughout the mathematics program at Harvey Mudd College, as exemplified by the over twenty papers published in the last three years by Harvey Mudd College mathematics faculty with student co-authors.

The Harvey Mudd College Mathematics Department promotes the pleasures of mathematics to nonmajors so well that many nonmajors participate in the weekly Putnam Seminar on problem solving, leading to an unusually large number of Harvey Mudd students taking the Putnam exam each year. The Putnam Seminar's work has produced consistently outstanding performances in the Putnam Exam, with Harvey Mudd ranking in the top ten nationwide in 2001, 2002, and 2003 (and just missing in 2004 with an eleventh-place finish). Amazingly, Harvey Mudd mathematics students have won 19 NSF fellowships over the last six years.

The Harvey Mudd College Mathematics Department also devotes serious effort toward outreach to low-income and underrepresented minority communities. This work includes programs aimed at stimulating interest in mathematics and science in a local high school in a low-income area. The department also runs a workshop in Jamaica for Jamaican high school mathematics teachers, focusing on creative methods for teaching mathematics.

The mathematics community is fortunate to have Harvey Mudd College present such an outstanding example of an exemplary program in a mathematics department.

The AMS Award for an Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department recognizes a department which has distinguished itself by undertaking an unusual or particularly effective program of value to the mathematics community, internally or in relation to the rest of society.

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Founded in 1888 to further mathematical research and scholarship, the 30,000-member American Mathematical Society fulfills its mission through programs and services that promote mathematical research and its uses, strengthen mathematical education, and foster awareness and appreciation of mathematics and its connections to other disciplines and to everyday life.