A Symposium/Workshop on Undergraduate Consultancies

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This project promotes a way to encourage undergraduate work on "real-world" problems culled from sources outside the academic environment. Funds will support a workshop/symposium on undergraduate consultancy programs to bring together those with experience in consultancy programs, those who wish to start such programs, and representatives from industry, business, and government. Not only is there growing evidence of the educational merit of such activity, but it has the added advantage of tying more closely the non-academic world with the world of undergraduate mathematics. This fosters a greater appreciation of the role which mathematics plays in solving problems which routinely arise in situations where the applicability of mathematics is not fully understood. This workshop will take an important first step in extending the opportunity offered by consultancy work, in a curricular context, to a much wider population of undergraduates. Until now, only large institutions with the in-house resources to support such programs could offer them. Creating organizational infrastructure and taking advantage of electronic communication are required, and are available, to open up the opportunities of a vital research-like activity to small colleges and universities with limited resources.