Important Dates & Reminders

Preregistration prehealth advising sessions
Wednesday, March 19
West Campus, Soc-Psych 130, 7 to 7:45 pm
East Campus, G-A Downunder, 8:15 to 9 pm

Fall '08 bookbagging opens and advising period begins
Monday, March 24.

Last day to WP/WF from a class
Wednesday, March 26. See T-Reqs for instructions.

Last day to request relief from 3 final exams that begin/end in 24 hrs
Friday, April 4. See T-Reqs for instructions.

Rising sophomore registration begins
Wednesday, April 9.

Academic Advising End-of-Year Celebration: Hold the date!
Friday, April 25, 4:30 to 6:30 pm. Invitations are on their way.

News & Notes

PINs for summer and fall '08 registration

First-year advisees
The summer session "PIN-less" registration period ended on March 7. First-year students may start asking you for their PIN so that they can enroll in Duke summer courses or make changes to their summer schedule. Please note that the PIN that now appears in STORM for each of your advisees is the same PIN the student will use for fall '08 course registration (which begins on April 9). So, if you give an advisee the PIN now, (s)he will be free to enroll in fall courses in April without first consulting with you. Therefore, we suggest that you tell advisees to wait for their PIN until the fall advising period begins on March 24, so that you have an opportunity for a face-to-face discussion about fall courses.

Declared sophomores
All sophomores who declared their major by February 1 will receive their PIN for fall registration from the department of their first major. Sophomores who declared after February 1 will receive their PINs directly from the Academic Advising Center via e-mail. These students are not required to meet with you to obtain their PINs (although they may ask to see you if they have questions about their schedules).

Undeclared sophomores
We currently have about 150 sophomores who have not yet submitted a complete Long Range Plan. The Academic Advising Center will contact these students this week and warn them that they must declare immediately. Delinquent declarers risk losing their eligibility for summer and fall study abroad, DukeEngage and fall registration. When you meet with an undeclared sophomore in the next week or two and approve the LRP, you may give the student the PIN. The Academic Advising Center will also e-mail the PIN to late declarers once we have received their approved LRP.

Questions? Please contact your sophomore advisee's academic dean or Michele Rasmussen, micheler@aas.duke.edu.


New Programs of Study

Recently, the Arts & Sciences Council approved the following new programs for Duke undergraduates:

Slavic and Eurasian Studies major

Genome Sciences and Policy certificate
See http://www.genome.duke.edu/education/undergraduate/genome-certificate/ for details.

Energy and Environment certificate

To see the detailed program proposals for these new offerings, visit the A&S Council website:
http://www.aas.duke.edu/admin/council/agendas/

As we zoom toward the end of the spring semester, we wanted to alert you to some important academic advising dates that you might want to know as you make your summer travel plans.

New STORM training sessions
(Tentative) Various dates in late July/early August. All new and returning advisors will be required to participate in training sessions for the new STORM web interface that will take effect after the PeopleSoft v9.0 upgrade in mid-July.

General meeting of academic advisors
Monday, August 18. Tentative time: 8:30 to 10:30 am.

First group meeting with first-year advisees
Wednesday, August 20, 2 pm.

Individual meetings with first-year advisees
Wednesday-Friday, August 20-22.

First day of undergraduate classes
Monday, August 25.

Soon we will be asking advisors to indicate whether they wish to continue serving as an academic advisor in 2008-09. We would appreciate a quick response to this request so that we can recruit new advisors, accordingly. If you have nay questions about advising in 2008-09, please contact Michele (684-6217, micheler@aas.duke.edu).

Spotlight on...

Curriculum Changes in Mathematics: A Review
by Lynn White, Academic Dean for Math Majors

The Mathematics department continues to refine and expand its course offerings for Duke undergraduate students. New changes in mathematics courses are outlined below. We recommend that you take a look at these in advance of your advising meetings later this month.

MATH 41 changed in the fall of 2007. The new version of MATH 41 is a second-semester calculus course for students who are interested both in theoretical mathematics and also how it is used to solve problems in other disciplines. This new course includes some theoretical topics that appear in MATH 32, such as convergence theorems for series and Taylor series. It also includes labs and applications to biology, chemistry and physics, some of which appear in MATH 32L. Students must have completed a full year of high school calculus to enroll in this course. The typical student in MATH 41 will have scored a 5 on the Calc AB Advanced Placement test and have a math SAT score of at least 680, or will have scored on a 4 on the Calc AB test and have a math SAT score of at least 700. This course is not open to students who have already taken a calculus course at Duke. Students who have taken MATH 26L or MATH 31L at Duke should enroll in MATH 32L rather than this course. The red "R" that appears beside this course listing in ACES is there for the 26L/31L restriction only, and it should have no effect on students enrolling in their first Duke math course.

MATH 102 was created in spring 2006 for economics majors. It includes an introduction to linear algebra, vectors in n-dimensional space, partial derivatives, optimization, and integration in several variables. Examples are taken from economics. Prerequisites include MATH 32/32L or MATH 41. Because all engineering students and some Trinity majors require MATH 103, the Economics Department will continue to accept MATH 103 credit in lieu of MATH 102 for students who wish to double major in economics and a major that requires MATH 103. Students who are considering a science major or thinking of transferring to Pratt should take MATH 103 instead of MATH 102, even if they also plan on majoring in economics.

MATH 105 was created as an alternative to MATH 103 for math majors. Its prerequisite is MATH 104. The Mathematics Department strongly encourages prospective mathematics majors to take MATH 104 followed by MATH 105 instead of MATH 103 followed by MATH 104. Special note on scheduling: A student completing second-semester calculus (MATH 32/32L or MATH 41) in a fall semester should not take the MATH 104/105 sequence because MATH 105 will be offered only in the spring semesters. Students completing a second-semester calculus course in the fall should either take MATH 103 in the spring and MATH 104 in the following fall, or take MATH 104 in the spring and MATH 103 in the following fall.

For more detailed information, please visit the Mathematics Department website at http://www.math.duke.edu/ and look under Information for Current and Prospective Undergraduates.

Summer funding: Dannenberg Awards

Many of you have advisees who have expressed an interest in Duke’s many opportunities for undergraduate research – and perhaps have already gotten started! We want to remind you that Academic Advising has funding available for any undeclared Trinity student to use in a project that is planned and/or completed in collaboration with a faculty member.

Dannenberg Awards are given as $350 grants following the submission of a 1-2 page proposal written by the student and signed by the faculty mentor. Proposals may be submitted at any time and are reviewed on a rolling basis. Student applicants must be undeclared at the time of proposal submission and should be working on a project that takes place outside of the classroom, i.e., the student is not eligible for a grant if the proposed project is part of a course taken for academic credit.

Please encourage your advisees to take advantage of this opportunity. All interested first-years and undeclared sophomores can read more about Dannenberg awards on the Undergraduate Research Support website (http://www.aas.duke.edu/trinity/research/) or they can contact Michele Rasmussen for more details (micheler@aas.duke.edu).