Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges Summer Mathematics Program Mathematics faculty from Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges are engaged in an intensive four-week summer mathematics program for talented undergraduate women. Forty-eight young women will participate over the three years. The program is staffed by mathematicians who are active professionals and outstanding teachers. The students immerse themselves in mathematics, living and working in a supportive community of women scholars (undergraduates, graduates, and post-graduates) who are passionate about learning and doing mathematics. The program is intended to excite these young women about mathematics and mathematical careers, to provide them with the tools they will need to succeed in a mathematical career, and to connect them to a network of fellow female mathematicians. Students attend a lecture course which meets on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and a seminar which meets on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. The seminar has a small-group work time, led by a female teaching assistant, on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. In each of the classes, the students are introduced to fields of mathematics beyond calculus that students usually do not have the opportunity to study in a standard undergraduate mathematics program. Possible topics for these courses include algebraic coding theory, graph theory, combinatorics, game theory, and number theory. Through these courses, and the homework assigned in them, the students have an opportunity to improve their skills in conjecture and proof, written and oral expression, mathematical modelling, and library research. Each student will receive, at the close of the program, written evaluations of her performance and accomplishments from her instructors. Recreational problem solving is offered each Monday evening for those students who want to work on solving interesting problems. Four afternoons are devoted to teaching a number of computer applications, from the basics of everyday computer communication to the latest in mathematical computation. Use of the computer for communication and computation is a daily routine during the program. Each Tuesday afternoon there is a discussion on a topic pertaining to the students' continued scholarship: succeeding as a math major, career options, choosing and surviving a graduate program, and being a woman scientist. Each Tuesday and Thursday there is a colloquium on a stimulating area of mathematics. One Friday afternoon the students take a field trip to the Geometry Center in Minneapolis.
