Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

6-3-2005

Abstract

The mission of Messiah College is "to educate men and women toward maturity of intellect, character, and Christian faith, in preparation for lives of service, leadership and reconciliation in church and society". Therefore, as faculty in the Mathematical Sciences Department at this college, how we build maturity in our students, not only a mature mathematical intellect, but also maturity of character and Christian faith, reflects our commitment to the mission of the College. Further, our departmental mission statement includes the objective "to challenge students to live out their faith in their vocation as they become servant leaders in society, church, and the world". While all of us in the department agree that our students should be challenged to live out their faith in their vocation, we realize that to include this objective in our mission statement, and to assess our effectiveness in accomplishing the objective, means much more than references to faith in class devotionals or personal interaction with students. We believe that in order for our students to think seriously about their faith and vocation in the context of mathematics, they must discuss these issues, and think and write about them, throughout their college years, as an integral part of the curriculum of their major. Our goal in this paper is to describe a text we are writing that is intended to help firstyear mathematics majors learn about Christian integration and vocation as they develop broad, mature mathematical thinking skills. We intend in future years to expand this text to address related issues from a perspective appropriate to the more mature student.

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