Mathematics faculty from Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges plan to continue their intensive four-week summer mathematics program for sixteen talented undergraduate women. The program will be staffed by mathematicians who are active professionals and outstanding teachers. The students will 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's intent is threefold: 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. The past Carleton/St. Olaf Summer Mathematics Programs, as measured by the participants' post-program evaluations, were successful in achieving all of these goals.
Students will attend two courses which meet on weekday mornings and are led by female instructors and teaching assistants. In each of the classes, the students will be introduced to fields of mathematics beyond calculus that students usually do not have the opportunity to study in a standard undergraduate mathematics program. Topics for these courses in the past have included algebraic coding theory, graph theory, low-dimensional dynamical systems, and functional analysis. Through these courses, and the homework assigned in them, the students will have the opportunity to improve their skills in conjecture and proof and written and oral presentation. Students will not receive course credit for, or grades in, these courses, but rather written evaluations of their performance and accomplishments from the instructors. Recreational problem solving, discussions on topics pertaining to the students' continued scholarship (succeeding as a math major, career options, choosing and surviving a graduate program, and being a woman scientist), and colloquia on exciting areas of mathematics will complete their experience.
