The Emerging Scholars (ES) Program is an enrichment program in the mathematics department at the level of precalculus, calculus 1, and calculus 2. It was developed at Berkeley in the late 1970’s under the guidance of Uri Treisman (now at the University of Texas, Austin). It has spread to about 100 schools in the US and has been at MSU since 1992. Its purpose is to help students’ transition from high school mathematics to university level mathematics, and to prepare students for later technical courses that use mathematics, whether they are science, engineering, economics courses or whatever. As a fringe benefit, Emerging Scholars students do much better in their current math course; for example, the average grade in MTH 132, first semester calculus, is 2.4, but the average Emerging Scholars grade is 3.0. That is a significant difference, and it indicates how much more mathematics students learn in a program where students end up enjoying the math a lot more.
Emerging Scholars enrichment classes run alongside of the student’s regular math class. The enrichment classes meet two or three times a week with about 25 students, and the students work on problems that help them understand math and technical courses better. Some of the problems are straight forward, but some are challenging. There is credit for the course, but it is on a pass/fail basis, so there is no pressure to do well for a grade. Students just have fun working with other people, helping each other understand and learn the material. There is no homework, either; you are just expected to work on the problems in the program. Of course, the regular math class has plenty of homework and a grade is given; it is by this and ensuing grades that the program is evaluated.