Craig McCarron has taken over for Burak Aksoylu as the new mathematics program coordinator of Texas A&M University-San Antonio as of June 1.
Aksoylu went out of office on a research grant to incorporate computer programming into the linear algebra class.
For the last three months McCarron and his team have been planning out the spring schedule for mathematics majors to find what math class they should take next.
“One of the things I want to get into is our university database to find out exactly which courses and other programs have calculus for example as a prerequisite,” McCarron said. “If you expect your student to take calculus, what do you expect them to learn before they come to your course?”
His goal is to make sure students are well prepared to take on the appropriate math course suited for their level and to observe if they understand the material.
“Doing things the right way includes assessing whether or not students are learning what we teach them,” McCarron said.
A challenge he has been working on is providing more upper level math classes. A&M-San Antonio offers more lower level math classes than upper level and McCarron wants to give students more options when picking classes that work with their schedule.
McCarron has been with A&M-San Antonio since 2023 as an instructional assistant professor. He has taught classes such as college algebra, introduction to statistics, precalculus and other math courses.
