Welcome from the President

Thank you for taking the time to visit our site and learn more about MATHCOUNTS Outreach: a Yale Undergraduate Organization. We are a recently-formed group of Yale students who are devoted to developing MATHCOUNTS programs in the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS). MATHCOUNTS, founded in 1982, is a nationwide enrichment program "to increase enthusiasm for and enhance achievement in middle school mathematics throughout the United States" (MATHCOUNTS mission statement). Each year, MATHCOUNTS has a positive impact on well over a half million middle school students in 6000 schools across the United States.       In 7th grade, I co-founded the MATHCOUNTS program at my middle school, the New York City Laboratory School of Collaborative Studies. My MATHCOUNTS experience gave me the opportunity to work on problems that closely correlated with topics in the standard math curriculum, and at the same time, included unique twists to make them fun and add a challenge. MATHCOUNTS also created a social network within my school for students who enjoy solving math problems. Both aspects of the program made my MATHCOUNTS experience highly rewarding. My involvement in MATHCOUNTS inspired me to join my high school's math team and has contributed to my lasting interest in mathematics. I am proud that the MATHCOUNTS program that I helped start at the Lab School still exists and that students continue to benefit from it.       Earlier this year, I was pleased to see that over 100 schools in Connecticut currently participate in MATHCOUNTS, but saddened to find out that during the 2005-2006 school year, only one New Haven public middle school, the Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School, took advantage of this fantastic program. After a series of informal conversations with friends, several of whom were former MATHCOUNTS mathletes, we decided to found MATHCOUNTS Outreach: a Yale Undergraduate Organization to share our love of math with New Haven students.       We have worked with Larry Jacobson, Executive Director of the MATHCOUNTS Foundation, to discuss our organization and how we can have the best impact on New Haven students. Our conversations revealed the importance of reaching students who may not yet have discovered their talent in math and how much fun solving math problems can be. We also discussed the potential of MATHCOUNTS to raise students' test scores and the overall levels of interest and achievement in math.       I am deeply grateful to our Executive Board for their energetic leadership and hard work. All of them have approached this endeavor with tremendous enthusiasm and a willingness to take on many more tasks than any of us originally imagined. I especially want to thank our Webmaster, Eli Luberoff, for designing this website. I am also indebted to Larry Jacobson for offering us his personal support on behalf of the MATHCOUNTS Foundation, to Paul Brady, Connecticut MATHCOUNTS co-coordinator, and Charlie Warren, both of whom are with the Connecticut Society of Professional Engineers, for their support, advice, and guidance, and to Ken Mathews, the NHPS Math Supervisor for his enthusiastic support of our program.       I wish to thank the MATHCOUNTS Foundation for their generous donation of coaching materials, Dwight Hall at Yale for making their resources available to our group, and to the Fund for Community Service and Class of '59 Fund for Excellence for their financial support of our program.       MATHCOUNTS Outreach runs because of the extraordinary efforts of Yale students and NHPS math teachers. Every week, they energetically share their math knowledge and enthusiasm with middle-school students. I thank them for their commitment to New Haven students.       Thank you again for your interest in MATHCOUNTS Outreach: a Yale Undergraduate Organization. I hope that you find our website helpful and informative and I welcome any comments and questions that you have regarding our program. Brian Edwards President and Founder MATHCOUNTS Outreach: a Yale Undergraduate Organization January 2007 update       In our inaugural semester, MATHCOUNTS Outreach established MATHCOUNTS programs at 10 New Haven public middle schools. We trained 14 Yale student volunteers to work alongside middle-school math teachers to coach MATHCOUNTS programs at each participating school. Yale students taught middle-school students how to solve creative math problems covering a broad range of topics in the middle-school math curriculum and shared their enthusiasm for math with the middle-school students. Yale students also acted as mentors by giving middle-school students individual attention, inspiring them to challenge themselves academically and develop their potential in math.       We expect that the MATHCOUNTS enrichment program will improve students' test scores, help students discover their interest and talent in math, and encourage them to continue their studies in math. Approximately 100 middle-school students have taken advantage of the MATHCOUNTS programs at their schools.       We are also looking forward to several program improvements for the spring semester. In early February, the MATHCOUNTS Foundation will conduct a teacher-training workshop designed to show math teachers how they can incorporate MATHCOUNTS problems into their regular classes, which will help them expose all their students to MATHCOUNTS. The MATHCOUNTS Foundation has also made a very large donation of books and other materials, which will be distributed to all Yale students and math teachers. In April, we will hold an end-of-year competition for the middle-school students, which will celebrate their hard work and accomplishments and encourage them to continue their participation in MATHCOUNTS next year.