The University of Redlands is developing an interdisciplinary mathematical consulting laboratory experience for undergraduates. The laboratory is modeled along lines blending graduate consulting laboratories found in most graduate statistics curricula with the design studio classes active in our environmental studies program. Students with prerequisites of at least one statistics course and instructor permission will be available to the campus community at large for statistical or mathematical consulting purposes.

Within the campus, faculty, staff, and administration are able to present problems of academic interest or operational need to the consulting lab; off campus, non-commercial interests and agencies such as schools, social and environmental groups and the police are sources of interesting projects.

Students form groups to take on projects appropriate to their interest and expertise, supported by faculty who also provide training as required. To encourage the participation of individuals who may already have expressed cross-disciplinary interests, and carry a corresponding load, the class may be taken for varying amounts of credit; similarly, engaging interested faculty from across this small university requires us to plan for a variety of relations with the consulting laboratory on their part. Quantitatively literate people are to be found in a variety of departments, such as the departments of Sociology, Psychology, Business, Economics, as well as the various sciences. These form an interdisciplinary pool, and we have been exploring how best to facilitate their involvement: by jointly teaching this class with a lead faculty member from Mathematics, acting as advisors, identifying projects, and bringing identified students with them to this form of undergraduate research. The pilot class met in the fall of 1999.

Projects locally available include but are by no means limited to: gauging the economic impact of the university on the surrounding community; bringing modeling expertise to an EPA-funded effort partly centered on this campus and aimed at saving the Salton Sea; determining the effectiveness of recruitment efforts at the University; processing a survey that gauges community response to a proposed trolley route; analyzing a large database gathered at several universities on a grant from the Pew Foundation, concerning faculty attitudes and employment; optimizing crime response using GIS; assisting in faculty research, such as drawing inferences from aerial imaging in studies of vegetation, and historical archaeological sites.

Steve Morics (morics@uor.edu), Rick Cornez (cornez@uor.edu), Mike Bloxham (bloxham@uor.edu)