Claremont Center for the Mathematical Sciences

The Mathematics Clinic Program offers students the opportunity to develop the modeling and analysis tools necessary to solve applied problems under conditions closely approximated to an industrial setting. The Clinic concept originated at HMC Engineering in the late 60’s, followed a few years later by the HMC and CGU Mathematics Departments. Each Mathematics Clinic project is a course whose subject matter is an unsolved mathematically-oriented problem that arises in a real world context. Clinic problems originate from a variety of sources including industry, business, and government. To make the Clinic program both a feasible and realistic experience, problems are considered only when the sponsor is willing to pay a fee to share the cost of the program and to provide some expert in-house consulting. In return, the college, in a legal agreement with the client, promises the performance of a certain amount of work on the problem and delivery of various reports, including professional-level written and oral reports on the work done. These contractual commitments and the direct interest of the industrial liaison add to the realism of the experience for both students and supervising faculty.

The Clinic requires teamwork to complete each project. Teamwork naturally places an emphasis on communication skills and students soon appreciate the fact that the ability to communicate individual work is a valuable asset. Each project team consists of a small group of students (one of whom acts as the team leader), client liaison personnel, a faculty supervisor, and often consultants (visiting postdoctoral fellows or Claremont faculty with special expertise). As in any course, the faculty supervisor assigns grades to student team members. Progress is reported in a variety of ways. Each Clinic team gives an oral report at least once each semester to an audience of faculty, students, and sponsor representatives. The team also regularly reports progress directly to the client's liaison personnel either orally, or if required, by a monthly progress letter. These activities together with the interim and final written reports help keep Clinic work focused and on schedule. Toward the end of the Spring semester an afternoon is set aside for formal presentations of all Clinic results to sponsors and other invited guests. This event, known as Projects Day, is conducted along the lines of a professional meeting.

Apart from the goodwill generated by a contribution to the education of a new generation of mathematicians, the sponsor usually obtains solutions to problems which exceed the time available to, or expertise of, the sponsor's permanent staff. Further benefits include stimulation of the sponsor's staff through interdisciplinary academic contacts and exposure of the sponsor organization to young and senior mathematicians. Project sponsors generally feel that they have received good value for their modest investment.

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