Mathematics

Overview

The Department of Mathematics at Indiana University is almost as old as the university itself. The state legislature established the Indiana Seminary in 1820. The first class was taught, most likely, in 1825. The first professor was Baynard Rush Hall, and the first courses were suppose to be in Latin, Greek, and mathematics. 

Since Hall was not comfortable teaching mathematics, the first courses taught were only Latin and Greek.  In 1827, a second professor arrived, John Hopkins Harney, the first professor of mathematics. However, it wasn't until about 1890 when President David Starr Jordan introduced specialty degrees, the precurser to majors as we now know them, that a real Department of Mathematics formed. 

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