John Jay College Of Criminal Justice | The City University of New York

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Math & Science Resource Center is to support the academic success of John Jay students in science and mathematics and to foster their development as active, independent learners.  The center is open to all students enrolled in courses in the Department of Sciences and the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, with a special emphasis on students in the Forensic Science major.  All services are free of charge.

HISTORY

The Math & Science Resource Center is located in room 4300 in North Hall.  Originally called the Math Resource Center, the room has been used as a drop-in math tutoring lab since at least the mid-1980s.  In 1999, the Department of Sciences obtained MSEIP grant funding to start a peer mentoring program to provide peer advisement and content tutoring to freshmen and sophomores in the Forensic Science major.  In 2001, the science peer mentoring program was relocated to 4300N, where it was housed alongside the existing drop-in math lab.  As a result, the name of the facility was changed to the Math & Science Resource Center.  In 2004, funding for the science peer mentoring program was transferred to a Title V grant, which included funding for a half-time administrator to help organize and maintain the program.

In 2007, the math tutoring and science tutoring/mentoring programs were combined to form a single program under the Office of Undergraduate Studies.  A full-time coordinator was hired to oversee the Math & Science Resource Center using funds originating from the CUNY Compact.  That summer, significant further renovations took place to create a reception desk, tutoring area, study tables, and an office for the coordinator.  The following fall, the center adopted the use of TutorTrac and transitioned to appointment-based tutoring.  The center’s existing collection of textbooks and models was expanded and converted into a lending library.

Beginning in 2001, the north half of 4300N slowly transformed into an academic computing lab with the purchase of groups of computers using grant money obtained by both the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science and the Department of Sciences.  However, with little funding available to maintain the lab, the equipment became obsolete.   In 2007, the Office of Instructional Technology Support Services (ITSS) agreed to take over maintenance of the computer lab using funds from the Student Technology Fee.   In the summer of 2008, ITSS tore out the entire computer lab and installed 24 brand new workstations with full internet access and a network printer.  These new machines are continuously maintained and will be replaced with new equipment every four years.  The MSRC computer lab is unlike any other on campus, running both the Windows XP and Fedora Linux operating systems and featuring a range of software packages specific to math and science.

Today, the Math & Science Resource Center remains a unique facility serving a variety of purposes for both students and faculty in math and science.  Student use of the center continues to increase steadily each year, with more than 1,200 students participating in tutoring in the 2008-2009 academic year and many others using the computer lab and resource library.  

To view our transformation video, click here.  

Last updated August 3, 2009