Doug Wills, Business (chair, dtwills@uw.edu) with Cynthia Stanich, IAS, Peter Selkin, IAS, Julie Eaton, IAS, and Linda Dawson, IAS

The Quantitative Literacy Fellows were charged with investigating concerns about UWTacoma students’ quantitative skills and how to improve the skills of students within UWTacoma and transfer students. The Fellows worked to change the culture to have quantitative literacy embedded in curriculum and see long-term buy-in from faculty and administration.

The Quantitative Fellows:

  • Gathered UWTacoma faculty teaching pre-calculus, calculus and statistics to identify a core set of concepts and quantitative learning objectives. As a result, they developed a test to identify student issues and worked with the TLC to offer a workshop to address specific learning needs for pre-calculus, calculus and statistics.
  • Held the First Annual Quantitative Literacy Conference with local community colleges, which they hope to continue annually.
  • Submitted an NSF grant in July 2013 to establish a Quantitative Resource Center at UWTacoma that would both broaden the responsibility for QL on campus through instructional changes, and improve support for students and faculty engaged in quantitative coursework; however, the grant was not funded.
  • Offered quantitative workshops to the Summer Bridge program for the first time that year.
  • Composed a report that outlines recommendations for improving quantitative literacy across campus.