ection 2.2
Initiating Marketing Plan

The Initiating Marketing Plan must be constructed on a solid foundation of answers to the question, "How will a Mathematical Journeys course serve the educational needs of students?" This approach places the student and student learning at the center of the course. Answers to the question of how the course serves student needs must reflect knowledge of your students, of your college's mission, and of the course. The Initiating Marketing Plan then becomes a design for assembling answers to a student-centered question and communicating them to all pertinent segments of the college community. The purpose of this marketing effort is to obtain your college's support and approval for offering a Mathematical Journeys course.

A first step in developing your proposal for the course is to discuss it with colleagues from the mathematics, science, technology, and engineering departments. This step opens avenues for ongoing communication and collaboration, informs colleagues about the course, and offers colleagues an opportunity to contribute ideas about how the course would serve students and fit into the existing curriculum structure. One should also inform appropriate administrators about your intent to offer a Mathematical Journeys course.

In answering the question of how a Mathematical Journeys course fulfills student needs, there are numerous sources that assert the educational and learning benefits of establishing connections between mathematics and other disciplines as well as addressing mathematics within meaningful contexts. Such sources include:

• Crossroads in Mathematics – Standards for Introductory College Mathematics Before Calculus, American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC),
• Crossroads in Mathematics – Programs Reflecting the Standards, American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges (AMATYC), and
• Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).

The scope, goals, approach, and content of a Mathematical Journeys course should qualify it as a general education distribution requirement or as an elective in mathematics, science, and technology. This is because a Mathematical Journeys course emphasizes several significant modes of thinking. These include AMATYC's Standards for Intellectual Development – problem solving, modeling, reasoning, connecting with other disciplines, communicating, using technology, developing mathematical power – as well as bibliotechnology research, the scientific method, and thesis development/defense. The course also emphasizes student and faculty creativity and production of a team product – a model portfolio.

The following purposes of a Mathematical Journeys course, directly or indirectly, serve student educational needs. A Mathematical Journeys initiative will:

• Break down subject-bound, compartmental thinking
• Create communities of learners
• Provide cross fertilization of ideas
• Establish relationships among faculty from different subject areas
• Provide opportunities for students to apply mathematics in authentic situations
• Provide opportunities for students to learn and use the scientific method
• Provide opportunities for students to learn in context
• Provide opportunities for students to do research
• Provide opportunities for students to become information literate
• Provide opportunities for students to exercise creativity
• Provide opportunities for students to showcase their work
• Provide students with authentic technology problems
• Provide opportunities to establish linkages between the college and local industries
• Promote development of quantitative literacy
• Encourage students to think critically
• Provide an innovative direction for the college curriculum

To obtain approval for the course, you also will need to consider ways to address budgetary questions. On the one hand, the open-ended nature of a Mathematical Journeys course demands more faculty time and effort; on the other hand, the foundation and framework for the course in this book should smooth the development and approval process. The Mathematical Journeys course need not demand additional personnel, but rather a redistribution of course sections. That is, introduction of the course could augment the selection of courses available to students, while leaving the number of course sections unchanged. Nonetheless, a faculty member who expends time and creative effort to implement a Mathematical Journeys course should receive support from his or her college. This support could be release time, a stipend, or credit for additional responsibilities. College administrators might seek funding for the course from public and private sources. For example, at the time of this publication, NSF-ATE's budget request (NSF PR 01-25) included $20 million for activities that focus on interdisciplinary mathematics to accelerate the expansion of mathematics into other disciplines.