COSAM News Articles 2018 November Message from Dean Giordano - November 2018

Message from Dean Giordano - November 2018

Published: 11/05/2018

With more than 2,800 undergraduate students and 400 graduate students, the College of Sciences and Mathematics (COSAM) continues to be a leading college at Auburn University that showcases innovation and prepares students for success.

In the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Associate Professor Junshan Lin is collaborating with Professor Stephen Shipman at Louisiana State University (LSU) to offer, Spectrum of Differential Operators in Modern Electromagnetics: Theory and Computation, an advanced, two-semester course in applied mathematics for graduate students. This rigorous course includes a specialized curriculum that only a few universities have the faculty to teach. The course is an online format available for any graduate students in an SEC (Southeastern Conference) school. In addition to students from Auburn University and LSU, students from University of Arkansas, University of Mississippi and University of Missouri are participating. It is our hope that in the future, Auburn University and other schools in the SEC partner to offer more specialized courses, thereby improving all of our graduate programs and utilizing faculty expertise from across the entire southeast.

Our recent Biomedical Sciences Assessment Summary highlights how COSAM prepares students for professional school and future careers including physicians. Data from student surveyed in both 2017 and 2018, show that students who participated in the Premedical Professions Advisory Committee (PPAC) program scored higher in all four areas of the MCAT than the national average.

The metrics also indicate that the PPAC program prepares students through analytical and critical thinking skills with 95 percent of students strongly agreeing. Students felt overall preparedness in subjects such as genetics, anatomy and physiology from the survey.

COSAM is working to improve how we serve our students and keeping them on the right track for future success.