University of Colorado Denver College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Sponsoring a Math Clinic

Go through the materials here, especially the Introduction, which begins with the Math Clinic Concept. Please feel free to examine our previous clinics, which indicates the breadth of our faculty. Note that each clinic produces a report, which goes to the sponsor. This is only the minimal requirement, and most of our clinics have produced other products, such as software (generally prototypical rather than production quality).

Please bear in mind that clinics are not intended to compete with the private sector for providing consulting services. Instead, we offer a complementary service that fits with our primary goal: to educate the student.

As a sponsor, you provide not only the funds to support a graduate student assistant, but also knowledge about your problem or problem area that you can describe to our students and the teacher. Such involvement is typical and strengthens the clinic's benefit to all parties. In general, you would be expected to name a technical contact with whom the clinic teacher and students can interact. Subject to scheduling considerations, the technical person (perhaps others) will come to the class. In the past, this has been done at least three times: within the first 2-3 weeks to describe elements of the problem; about mid-term to answer questions and hear what the students are doing and give them feedback; and the last week of the semester to hear what was done.

In addition to the technical services, clinic sponorship offers benefits that accrue with establishing contact with an ongoing research environment. You will have access to faculty and students to discuss problems, including some brainstroming sessions. Such access has proven beneficial to our previous clinic sponsors, and you can feel free to contact them if you wish.

A third benefit from clinic sponsorship is getting to know some students whom you might consider hiring. Rather than just a resume and brief interview, you will have an opportunity to examine the quality of work our students perform. Further, each student would become familiar with at least one of your problems, so it becomes less risky for everyone to decide whether there is a match for long term employment.

Teaching a Math Clinic

Go through the materials here, especially the Introduction, which begins with the Math Clinic Concept. You will note the goals include cultivating important skills for the students beyond the mathematics, notably communication skills. Please consult the Conduct of Course that is common to all clinics, then compose your own, as you deem appropriate.

Consult the FAQs, and let the Clinic Director know if you have (or hear of any) questions that might be of general interest. Also, note the Advice to Teachers. At the end of your clinic, please contribute to this for future teachers.

Please know that you are expected to produce a final report in LaTeX by the end of the semester, using the Clinic style file, which is provided. You are also expected to produce the postscript file, which is obtained simply from the LaTeX source. You will give these to the clinic director, who will take care of putting them on the web and distribute printed copies to others (like Auraria Library). In addition, you are expected to deliver an HTML file of the Executive Summary. (This is the first part of your final report, and you can simply extract it and run it through latex2html on either tiger or math.)

Also, you must setup a clinic html in a subdirectory of your homepage, called clinic. For example, Bill Briggs' clinic (S96) is located in http://math.ucdenver.edu/~wbriggs/clinic/clinicS96.html (note the filename follows a syntax, so others can link to it). Your clinic file must contain (at a minimum) a Conduct of Course, which contains grading policy, assignments and related matters.

Since LaTeX is now required, please allocate some class time for students to learn LaTeX. They should be advised that they will be responsible to learn it primarily on their own, using only about two classes (one intro near the beginning of the semester, and one workshop a few weeks later). It is recommended that you give some intermediate assignments to be done in LaTeX, such as having them turn in an annotated bibliography (see guide). For the final report, please use the Clinic style file and BibTeX, provided by the clinic director.

Let the clinic director know if you need assistance with these tasks.