Joy Williams Lind
Experience with Curriculum Development

1.

During the fall of 1998, I worked with an Earlham Computer Science professor to develop a course in Parallel Computation that we team-taught during the 1999 spring semester. During the first part of the course, the students and we constructed a 16-node machine from parts donated by a local computer company. The second phase of the course was discussion-based, with a minimal amount of lecturing. Originally, students completed small programming exercises, using Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM), a library of C subroutines that perform various parallel tasks. They were then each assigned two larger-scale projects. During this time, class meetings followed a seminar format, where students had the opportunity to discuss progress they were making, and problems they were encountering. The course ended with a written final examination, including questions related to programming and to the configuration of the 16-node cluster.

2.

During the spring of 1999, I outlined and proposed three new courses in Operations Research which I will be teaching during the 1999-2000 academic year. The first I will teach in the fall of 1999; it will cover such topics as linear programming (simplex method, revised simplex method); integer and mixed-integer programming (branch-and-bound, traveling salesman problem); and transportation, assignment, and transshipment problems. The second course will be offered in the spring of 2000. This course will cover network problems (shortest path problem, postman problem), nonlinear programming, and simulation. I plan on incorporating operations research software, such as Lindo and Resampling Statistics, into the courses. In addition to these instructor-led courses, I will also be offering a May term course that will give the students hands-on experience with operations research in industry. Currently, I am in the process of contacting companies in Richmond, Dayton, Cincinnati, and Indianapolis to determine possible opportunities for our students. I have already spoken with several companies and have received very positive responses. I have two objectives in introducing these courses into the curriculum: (1) Operations research tends to be relatively unknown amongst undergraduates at liberal arts colleges, and yet it is a field that can lead to challenging and lucrative careers. (2) The May term course will give our students practical experience with industrial applications of mathematics; that is, the students will have a chance to use their mathematics skills to work on real problems that companies currently face.