NSF Project

The overarching goal of the National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored project is to provide targeted support to nurture the growth of the regional Communities for Mathematics Inquiry in Teaching Network (COMMIT Network) represented on the project leadership team and to investigate the impact of these communities in each region, with the intent of elucidating which community-building strategies are most effective in supporting faculty to adopt, sustain, and promote the use of effective inquiry techniques in undergraduate mathematics education.

Funded COMMIT Communities

Our NSF-sponsored project focuses on a few regions to start, with more added in the 2020-2021 academic year, listed below. The project also established a COMMIT Network, to expand the sharing of expertise beyond these initial communities represented by this project. For more detail about our larger network, click the Home button at the top right of this page.


Leadership & Research Team

The project team has received an NSF grant (NSF-DUE #1925188) to support and study regional COMMIT Communities. In 2020, we received supplemental funding from NSF to expand this to additional communities.

By supporting the growth and sustainability of regional COMMIT communities—and broadening participation in those communities among faculty from underrepresented groups—the project will help promote the use of effective inquiry strategies in undergraduate mathematics classrooms across the country.

To contact our leadership team, e-mail COMathInquiry@gmail.com.

Call for Mini-Grant Proposals (Ended Summer 2022)

We are happy to announce mini-grant funding for those in the general area of our supported regional COMMIT communities. These mini-grants come in two flavors: (1) Travel Mini-grants to regional COMMIT events, and (2) Peer Collaboration Mini-grants for projects such as classroom visits, course collaborations, professional learning communities, book discussion groups, or other collaborative projects which have the potential to stimulate or expand use of inquiry across our regions; the word cloud above includes key ideas from many of our mini-grants in the first year of this project. The default grant amount is $500 per collaborator, but other amounts will be considered. Note that funds will be disbursed as grants, rather than reimbursements, to minimize paperwork.

We invite college educators of mathematics, statistics, or other related quantitative courses in or near the following regions to apply.

  • 4 Corners

  • California-Nevada

  • Hawaii

  • Iowa, Nebraska, & South Dakota

  • Maryland, DC, Virginia

  • Michigan

  • New England

  • San Antonio

  • Southern Arizona

  • Upstate New York

For full details on Peer Collaboration Mini-grants and Travel Mini-grants, see our Request for Proposals: www.tinyurl.com/2axfny5g. To apply for a mini-grant, please reach out to the COMMIT leadership of your region. If you are unsure of who to contact, the website for your local COMMIT (listed on the homepage of the main COMMIT website) is a good resource.

Recipients of funded proposals may be contacted by the University of Nebraska at Omaha, which is processing funding paperwork. Questions about regional events and funding decisions should be directed to your regional leadership team.

Advisory Board

For this grant project, we are gaining advice about the big picture aspects of the project from the following individuals.

  • Annie Yi Han, EdD. Past Chair in the Department of Mathematics at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

  • Ryan Gantner, PhD, St. John Fisher College. Past Director of the UNY IBL Consortium.

  • Ami Radunskaya, PhD, Pomona College. Past President of the Association for Women in Mathematics.