Quality Enhancement Plan Quantitative Literacy for the 21st Century EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Quantitative Literacy for the 21st Century The college mathematics curriculum of the twentieth century has served many students well. Those entering scientific fields or planning to teach science benefited from the focus on algebra, logic, and formal systems; those in humanities or social sciences could focus on elementary statistics. More recently, however, campuses have become aware that this traditional curriculum leaves many students unable to cope with the flood of quantitative information that they will encounter in their careers and daily lives in our increasingly data-oriented age. Such students often feel significant math anxiety, a fear that traditional mathematics courses usually do not satisfactorily address. As a result, a sizable number of students postpone a required mathematics course until their junior or senior year, where it is of little use in their college work. Students preparing to teach elementary school, for instance, wrestle with algebra or pre-calculus concepts when they should be focusing on graphing, statistics, or simple budget preparation. Others are often placed in mathematics courses without an assessment of their current skills. Mathematically anxious faculty members avoid quantitative topics that might be enlightening or even central to classroom projects. After a series of campus conversations that included students, faculty, staff, administrators, and alumni, Emory & Henry College has chosen Quantitative Literacy (QL) as the topic of our Quality Enhancement Plan. QL is the ability to formulate, evaluate, and communicate conclusions and inferences from quantitative information and to use these skills in academic, professional, and personal contexts. The quantitatively literate person employs analytical arguments and reasoning built upon fundamental concepts and skills of mathematics and statistics. This QEP seeks to place quantitative literacy on an equal footing with other basic skills such as writing, oral presentation, and computer literacy. Moving beyond a single required mathematics course, we wish to broaden the quantitative spectrum of topics encountered by the typical Emory & Henry student.

Our plan contains two significant goals related to student learning: • To improve the mathematical reasoning and quantitative literacy skills of Emory & Henry College students. • To strengthen the visibility of quantitative literacy as an important component of our students’ liberal arts education both in and out of the classroom. Under each goal, we specify multiple measurable student learning objectives, and we note the people or areas that will be responsible for assessment of each objective. We also note specific implementation strategies for each learning objective, including timelines, leadership responsibilities, and the resources needed to accomplish each objective. The assessment plan is integrated into each student learning objective and into the comprehensive timeline in Section IV (Implementation of the QEP).

Some of the specific implementation strategies for the above goals include: • Workshops for faculty designed to encourage faculty to learn about student development in quantitative areas, to encourage development of appropriate modules within a discipline, and to contribute to a manual for advising related to quantitative literacy. • Creation of a QL Center, whose director will oversee placement testing, supervise a cadre of student tutors, provide training seminars, and assess the progress of the QL program. This facility will be integrated with the Powell Resource Center, an existing department providing many levels of assistance to students. • Precise placement examinations to be administered upon matriculation and used for advisement and course selection. • A quantitative literacy proficiency requirement, including creation and adoption of 100-level quantitative literacy courses. • Co-curricular seminars and workshops on personal finance and related topics