Office Hours: Wednesday 5:30-6:30 pm or by appointment.

Contact Information: Office: Robinson, 2nd floor, Mathematics Department
Email: bvallies@comcast.net
Phone: 609-707-1774

Textbook: Excursions in Modern Mathematics, Tannenbaum and Arnold, 5th edition

Goals: Students will be able to:
Develop problem solving and critical thinking skills
Expand understanding of and appreciation for modern mathematics and its
applications
Understand some of the more recent developments in mathematics
Improve mathematical and computer skills through the use of
computational and computer-related algorithms.

Topics we will cover:
Voting methods and power (Chapter 1 and 2), Graph Theory (Chapters 5 and 6), Growth and Symmetry (Chapters 10 and 11), Statistics and Probability (Chapters 15 and 16) and if time permits, Fair Division (Chapter 4)

Homework: It is imperative that you do your homework and your reading for this class.
Learning mathematics is mostly about practice and effort. Some assignments will
be for practice, and some assignments will be collected.

The process in which you solve the problem is often more important than getting the right answer, so very little credit will be given to answers with no explanation or work shown. In addition to homework, we may have some in-class work that may be collected.

Quizzes: Each day (except days of tests) a roll of a six-sided die will determine if we
have a quiz at the beginning of class.

1, 2, 3 no quiz
4 1 question
5 2 questions
6 3 questions
This means we will average one question a day and a quiz every other day, more or less. NO MAKEUP QUIZZES WILL BE GIVEN. I will drop you two worst quiz scores at the end of the semester, but you will not be allowed to makeup a quiz if you miss class.

Tests: There will be three exams during the semester and a mandatory, cumulative final exam. The tentative schedule for the exams is:

Wednesday, February 7
Wednesday, March 7
Wednesday, April 11

Grading: HW and in class 5%
Quizzes 15%
Tests 20% (each)
Final 20%
Numerical grades will be converted to letter grades by the following scale.
A = 90 to 100, B = 80 to 89, C = 70 to 79, D = 60 to 69, F = 0 to 59
Please note that this course has no pass/no credit option.

Attendance: We will be covering important material and may have a quiz in every class,
so missing any class will in some way hurt your grade. If you know you will be
missing a class or an exam, you are expected to notify me well in advance, make up exams beforehand, and turn in any homework early. In cases where you are ill and miss an exam, you will need a note from a physician in order to make up an exam. If your absence is unexcused, you will not be able to make up exams. When in doubt, e-mail or call me. Exceptions may be granted for extended absences.

Academic Honesty: You are expected to know and follow the University’s academic
honesty policy. Both copying other’s work and allowing others to copy yours are
violations of this policy. You should work with others on the homework, but the
completed work should be your own. On exams, you are only permitted to use
materials authorized by the instructor, and use of unauthorized materials or other
forms of cheating will result in a 0 on the quiz or exam, the notification of the
Registrar’s office, and potentially an F in the course.

Class Conduct and Participation: You are expected to respect others comments,
questions and time. You will be asked to leave the class if your behavior is
disruptive. Cell phones, beepers, and other noisemakers should be turned off or silenced. Please let me know if you need to leave class early or will arrive late.

Questions and comments are encouraged and you should also feel welcome to ask me questions either in class, during office hours or by e-mail.

Technology: A graphing calculator is not a requirement however you do need a
calculator that can do permutations, combinations and exponents.