The MAA has been awarded a grant for $499,928 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a three-year project entitled Supporting Assessment in Undergraduate Mathematics. The project's products will include a workshop series, a volume of case studies and syntheses of case studies on assessment, and a website for information about assessment.

The objective of the project is to support faculty members and departments in efforts to assess student learning in at least one of the following: (1) Coherent blocks of courses of undergraduate mathematical sciences, including entire degree programs; and (2) Individual courses, especially reform courses, using various assessment tools across varieties of institutions. The targeted blocks of courses are: (a) the major in mathematics, (b) courses for future teachers; (c) school mathematics as a preparation for college mathematics, usually called college placement programs; and (d) general education courses, including those aimed at quantitative literacy. This latter block will include study of assessments of the mathematical and quantitative literacy achieved in entire degree programs, recognizing that much mathematics is learned outside mathematics courses. Assessing learning in individual courses across a variety of institutions will focus on reform courses and include study of classroom assessment. Cycles that use assessment for program improvements will be of special interest, including those that use research on learning.

Bernard L. Madison (MAA Visiting Mathematician from the University of Arkansas), who wrote the proposal, is the Project Director. Senior personnel are Bonnie Gold (Monmouth College), William E. Haver (Virginia Commonwealth University), Sandra Z. Keith (St. Cloud State University), William A. Marion, Jr. (Valparaiso University), and Lynn A. Steen (St. Olaf College). Thomas W. Rishel (MAA Associate Executive Director) will manage the project at the MAA offices. Peter Ewell, an internationally known authority on assessment and evaluation, will serve as Project Evaluator. There is a subaward to the University of Arkansas to support Madison's work there.

The NSF program for the award, Assessment of Student Achievement, is new at NSF's Education and Human Resources division, and this was the first round of proposals. The solicitation attracted 144 proposals with only 10 funded. A second solicitation is now in process. The MAA proposal was strengthened by the organization's record in supporting assessment of student learning. MAA's work began in 1990 with the appointment of the CUPM Subcommittee on Assessment with Madison as Chair. In 1995 the Subcommittee issued guidelines for departments to use in establishing a cycle of assessment aimed at program improvement. Marion was a member of the Subcommittee and joined with Gold and Keith to edit Assessment Practices in Undergraduate Mathematics, MAA Notes #49, published in 1999. This volume contains over seventy case studies of assessment at institutions across the US and includes the Subcommittee on Assessment's 1995 report as an appendix. Prefaces by Steen and Madison give more history of the MAA's support of assessment.

As a part of the project, MAA Notes #49 will be sent to every US mathematics department within the next few months. The volume and other aspects of this project will be the focus of forums that can be scheduled at MAA Section and other meetings. Sections wishing to schedule such a session to help support faculty who are working on assessment or planning work on assessment should contact Madison (bmadison@maa.org). The project has funds to support the senior personnel to conduct these forums.

Gold, Marion, and Keith will be gathering additional case studies on assessment and updating some of those in MAA Notes #49 to constitute part of a new volume to be submitted for publication in the MAA Notes series. Steen and Madison will be writing syntheses of various coherent groups of case studies for this same volume. Once the new volume is published, it, too, will be mailed to every US mathematics department.

Haver will have principal responsibility for developing a workshop series to support assessment efforts. The first workshop is already scheduled and will be supported by the MAA PREP program, another NSF-funded activity. This workshop is an extended version, aimed at having 10-12 institutional teams working jointly on assessment efforts over two years. The workshop will begin with a two-day session following the Joint Mathematics Meetings at San Diego in January 2002 and end with a session at the close of the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore in January 2003. Gold, Marion, Keith, and Madison will assist Haver in conducting this workshop. Support for travel, housing, and food is available. More information can be found at MAA Online under Professional Development (http://www.maa.org/pfdev/prep/prep.html).