Doing Math in the Real World

by Ira Gerhardt, PhD
Department of Mathematics

We first offered MATH 492 (Topics in Mathematics: Mathematical Modeling) in the Spring 2015 term; its purpose was to provide interested students (typically mathematics majors, but we have also had a handful of engineers and finance majors over the years) with the opportunity to use their mathematics to help clients solve real-world problems and answer real-world questions.  Our first client was Dr. David Mahan, Director of the Office of Institutional Effectiveness here at Manhattan.  Eight students divided into three group projects, using data analytics to answer questions for David about student retention, engagement, and satisfaction.  These student groups presented their findings to an audience of about 50 to 60 members of the College community including Dr. Mahan, Dean Theodosiou of the School of Science, and Provost Clyde.

Over the next two years we work with a pair of non-profit organizations--the Animal Care Center (ACC) of NYC and the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference (NYNJTC)--and new groups of students again analyzed data and made presentations.  However, in this third year (with NYNJTC) we only had six students (after growing to 13 students the year of ACC), and we decided to take a year off with a plan to offer MATH 492 once again in Spring 2019.  I began searching for a client in Summer 2018, at which point my colleague Dr. Helene Tyler put me in contact with Joshua Stevenson in the office of NYC Councilman Andrew Cohen (representing District 11 in the Bronx).  Josh then connected me with Marissa Yanni, the director of the Participatory Budgeting (PB) team in NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson's office.  PB is a process in which regular citizens propose projects for their areas and vote to get them funded through their Councilperson.  Working with PB was the perfect client opportunity; the program was still in its early days (having been around for only seven years at this point) and no data analytics had yet to be performed, so everything that our students did was value-added.  At the same time the students got great exposure to the PB process and a deeper understanding of the workings of the NYC Council.  Marissa (our client) was incredibly supportive and the kids were very enthusiastic; the final presentations were a big hit, and the results presented there--included analysis of what demographic populations PB is successfully reaching and failing to reach, what project type proposal are the most likely to succeed and in which boroughs, etc.--should help PB in the years to come.  

MATH 492 has been a win-win for everyone involved.  Whether the client was the College, a non-profit, or the City Council itself, the work done by our students has always been of a quality that we can talk about with pride.  The students get exposure to real-world data, and in the end can put their work for this course on their resume' as consulting experience.  Several students from the first three years of 492 made a point of telling me that their work in 492 was something they were asked about in their first-round interviews; those individuals are now analysts and projects managers at real estate firms and hedge funds as well as household names like Avon and UPS.

Jaspers Study History of Slavery in the Bronx

How do we find the history that has been forgotten? 

In the Spring 2019 semester, Dr. Adam Arenson offered a new community engaged learning course, History 100, Slavery in the Bronx. As Arenson told his students in the syllabus at the beginning of the semester, "We will work with a community partner—the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground project—to explore how the history of slavery continues to reverberate in the Bronx, and to understand what it means for the local community in Hunts Point, especially its elementary-school students. In consultation with the HPSBG group, we will extend their research and discuss possible ways to memorialize the enslaved people buried at the site, all of which we will present in a public setting at the end of the semester."

Dr. Adam Arenson shows the students the headstones of the Hunt family. 

In 2013, Philip Panaritis, a retired official with the Department of Education, and Justin Czarka, a teacher at P.S. 48, began exploring the history of the unmarked burial ground. Their website chronicles their efforts, along with their students and other community partners to find out exactly where people are buried, who is buried there, and to advocate for the effective commemoration of the people buried there. Through their research, they were able to get the area recognized as the burial place for enslaved people, and got the Parks descriptive sign in the park revised to include mention of it. 

Philip Panaritis talks to the Manhattan College students.

Arenson and his class partnered with them to contribute to their efforts.  Over the course of the semester, they visited Hunts Point five times -- the final time to present the results of their research at a public forum in the Hunts Point branch of the New York Public Library. 

They also visited the Van Cortlandt House Museum, and the Slave Burial Ground there, and partnered with the Kingsbridge Historical Society. They learned about and employed the techniques historians use to discover and uncover historical information, and discussed ways to make this information accessible to the community -- both traditional methods, like oral presentations and signs, and digital methods, like mapping software. 

In May, the HIST 100 students made a public presentation about what they learned. In closing, one student referenced the respect shown the Hunt family, whose burial ground is gated off, and the burial ground of the enslaved persons, which, because it is unmarked, people walk on without being aware of the people buried below.    

To learn more about the course -- and the Hunts Point Slave Burial Ground -- see the coverage on ABC7 and Manhattan College's own website. 

Professor Arenson will be continuing this project in the Fall 2019, as he teaches an Arches class which will also partner with these groups to forward the work of learning about and educating the public about the enslaved persons who lived in these communities.