About the Mathematics Department

The Mathematics Department at Oklahoma State University offers degrees from the bachelors through the doctorate. There are 32 tenured/tenure-track faculty in the department with research interests in several subfields of mathematics, including number theory, Lie groups and representation theory, topology, applied mathematics, algebraic geometry, analysis and mathematics education. The faculty maintain active research programs, publish regularly, and give presentations both nationally and internationally. Many of the faculty members have obtained research grants and awards from the National Science Foundation and other sources. Currently two faculty have Humboldt fellowships to pursue research in Germany.

Undergraduate majors can customize their studies under tracks for pure mathematics, applied mathematics, mathematics for secondary education or financial mathematics. Currently we have about 50 students who have declared mathematics as their first major. Many secondary education majors in the College of Education who plan to teach mathematics have a second major in mathematics. Students in physics and engineering often choose mathematics for a minor.Graduates work in industry, teach or go into graduate studies.

Currently there are about 40 graduate students in the department. Of these approximately twenty are in the Ph.D. program. Almost all of the graduate students are supported as graduate teaching assistants. In this capacity they teach lower division classes or assist faculty. Among the graduate students there are students from China, Japan, Peru, India, Nepal, Korea, and the United States. Students pursue concentrated work in the areas where the faculty are active in research. Typically students receiving doctorates take academic positions. Masters program graduates go into many different careers or pursue further graduate study.

For more than twenty years the mathematics department has had a special facility known as the Mathematics Learning Resource Center which provides help to students in lower division mathematics classes. The center provides undergraduate tutors, a computer laboratory and media for self guided study. Currently the facility is housed in a temporary location, but hopes to move to a permanent one during 2009.

Recently the department was chosen by the National Center for Academic Transformation to participate in a course redesign program to improve college algebra instruction with goal of having more students successfully learn the material and complete the course. This project may require significant changes in the mode of instruction and in the role of the MLRC. In addition to its work with university level students the department of mathematics also works with secondary school students. The MLRC provides assistance to high school students who are taking algebra or trigonometry.

The department also holds an annual mathematics contest for high school students. This contest brings a few hundred of the brightest mathematics students to campus for three hours of intense problem solving. The top scorers are offered scholarships to OSU.

Dale Alspach, Head

401 MSCS
Phone: 744-5688
Fax: 744-8275