Math Emporium discussion gets heated at SGA meeting

Math Department Chair Dan Van Peursem had another opportunity to defend USD’s Math Emporium on Tuesday night, as he addressed SGA and again presented his case in favor of continuing the Math Emporium despite student disdain for it.

SGA senators have been saying for weeks that the forum they held Feb. 16 to discuss the Math Emporium did not gone well, and that the issues with the center were not properly addressed by Van Peursem the first time around.

Van Peursem’s presentation was largely unchanged from the one he delivered during the forum, both times claiming that implementation of the Emporium has led to improved student outcomes in college level mathematics.

Nationally, Van Peursem said that only about 50 percent of students are successful in college algebra, and that the Emporium model improves greatly upon the traditional lecture format, which he said does not engage students.

“I watched Michael Jordan play an awful lot of basketball and it didn’t help my game one bit,” Van Peursem said.

Both SGA senators and members of the audience were anxious to ask questions and air concerns about the Math Emporium, and hands shot up even before his presentation was finished.

Many of the senators said they personally had bad experiences and struggled with the Math Emporium.

One audience member said that, as a veteran with PTSD, the stresses of the Math Emporium greatly impeded his learning, and felt that he would have succeeded in a lecture format.

Van Peursem said he was hesitant to suggest students go anywhere else, but that there may be little other options in this student’s particular case.

SGA Senator Olivia Mann posed the question to Van Peursem saying that, perhaps, “something about the Math Emporium is set up so that students can’t, or won’t, pass?”

Mann later aired complaints that Math Emporium tutors can be “condescending” and unpleasant, which may further impede students already having a difficult time in math.

Van Peursem said the department has been working to settle this much-derided problem, and that some tutors have already been dismissed.

He said that all tutors are trained to be approachable, and noted that he had personally witnessed students treating Emporium tutors “horribly,” suggesting that the problems with tutors are not a one-way street.

After a lengthy back and forth discussion between senators and Van Peursem, and despite questions and comments for him remaining unanswered, SGA Vice President Michelle Novak said that the hearing had gone on too long.

SGA later suggested that there will be further action on the Math Emporium at some point in the future.