By MARYBETH
NIEDERKORN
SEMO News Service
CAPE GIRARDEAU -- College algebra is leaving the curriculum as of Fall 2018, according to Southeast Missouri State University Math Department officials, and will be replaced by one of several courses better adapted to a student's degree path.
Tamela Randolph, mathematics department chairwoman, said the process started in 2014, when the Missouri Department of Higher Education, or DHE, created a task force to review mathematics requirements at the university level.
Then in 2016, Missouri Senate Bill 997 was introduced, which asked universities to look at pathways to success for their students, Randolph said.
Randolph, co-chairwoman of the task force, said by phone Monday the bill became the "driving force" behind creation of new pathways for student success.
Three pathways have been approved, said Dan Daly, mathematics instructor at Southeast, to replace the current college algebra model.
A fourth pathway, Education Mathematics, is still in the approval process, Daly said.
According to the DHE's Math Pathways Report, published in June 2015, while college algebra might be appropriate for many academic programs, "... it should not be the only mathematics pathway for students to earn a postsecondary certificate or degree. Students not seeking degrees related to math, sciences and technology may be served better by other gateway courses such as statistics or geometry," the report states.
For students in the humanities, mathematical reasoning and modeling is the terminal mathematics course, according to the DHE's website, dhe.mo.gov. The course will cover conversions, ratios, statistics and functions, to help prepare students to better interpret information presented in mathematical terms, the website states.
Precalculus A will prepare students for fields of study requiring a high level of algebraic reasoning or calculus, according to the DHE's website. Foundations and analysis of functions, as well as logarithmic equations and algebraic reasoning, will be the focus.
Precalculus B includes trigonometry, geometric reasoning and vectors and polar coordinates, intended for students in the STEM fields, according to the site.
Department chairwoman Randolph said business majors will be required to take precalculus A, while STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) majors will have to take precalculus A and B, and students in other majors will have to take Mathematical Reasoning.
But the requirement must be satisfied by a math course, she said.
"[Students] can't take physics, computer science or symbolic logic. It has to be mathematics," Randolph said, but statistical reasoning also can satisfy the requirement, she added.
College algebra as it is now teaches mathematical concepts to majors across campus, Daly said, either STEM or non-STEM.
"College algebra in the past served too many interests," said Laurie Wern Overmann, mathematics instructor at Southeast. "[These pathways] now target the needs of students."
"It's what we can do to make our students more successful," Daly added.