Every five years since 1965, the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences has surveyed departments in the mathematical sciences across the United States to gather enrollment numbers by course and information about course format and departmental programs. This is paired with the American Mathematical Society survey of faculty information. The entire enterprise is done in collaboration with the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges, American Mathematical Society, American Statistical Association, Mathematical Association of American, and Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, with funding from the National Science Foundation and the support of RMC Research. The CBMS is particularly interested in learning about what has happened since 2021.
The survey will be conducted with a stratified random sample of departments. Aware of the difficulties many chairs have encountered with past surveys, CBMS has simplified the survey and will produce spreadsheets chairs can turn over to their institutional research office to enter course enrollment numbers.
For those departments selected to receive the survey, this is an opportunity to take a snapshot of the state of undergraduate education in the mathematical sciences in mathematics and statistics departments and in two-year colleges. It shows trends that can be helpful for chairs making the case for more resources and issues ripe for further investigation.
The following are overseeing the construction and deployment of the survey and can answer questions:
- Ellen Kirkman, Survey Director
- April Strom, Director for the Two-Year Survey
- David Bressoud, Principal Investigator for the NSF grant
- Charlie Steinhorn, Director of CBMS
- Chandra Lewis, Lead Researcher at RMC Research
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