The Need for Interdisciplinary Collaborations

The challenge faced by developers of collegiate mathematics curricula is to determine—and then provide—the mathematical experiences that are true to the spirit of mathematics yet also relevant to students’ futures in other fields. The Curriculum Foundations Project (CF) of MAA/CRAFTY was designed to gather input from partner disciplines through a series of 22 two- to three-day workshops. Each workshop resulted in a report directed to the mathematics community, summarizing the workshop’s recommendations and conclusions. One message from the partner disciplines appeared again and again: introductory collegiate mathematics courses should focus on giving students an understanding of fundamental mathematical topics while grounding the discussions in context. The National Consortium for Synergistic Undergraduate Mathematics via Multi-institutional Interdisciplinary Teaching Partnerships (SUMMIT-P) is a group of 16 institutions working to implement the ideals from the CF recommendations. Full participation from partner discipline faculty in this process is a key ingredient in successfully redeveloping introductory mathematics courses in a way that incorporates the contextual needs of other disciplines. The papers in this special issue speak to the work of the SUMMIT-P consortium, focusing on the processes used for successful interdisciplinary collaboration