Every other week, a quiet but exciting tradition plays out in Kenyon’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics: One intriguing problem is distributed by email and posted online on the department page, via Noah Aydin’s website, inviting students to tackle a formidable challenge during which they are encouraged to exercise their creative and analytical muscles. It’s the long-running “Problem of the Week,” a departmental contest that Professor of Mathematics Noah Aydin has overseen for more than two decades; it carries some significance that, he believes, extends far beyond the bounds of mathematics itself.
“Problem solving is an important quality of mind for a liberal-educated person,” Aydin explained in an interview with the Collegian. “We want our students to be problem solvers. And this is just one aspect, or one dimension, of solving problems. … Problems that require ingenuity.”
The format is simple. Every two weeks, a new challenge is shared, and students are encouraged to submit fully worked-out solutions. Once the submission window closes, answers are verified, and a correct response is randomly selected to receive a $15 gift certificate to the bookstore. But, as Aydin was quick to point out, “The real prize is the satisfaction of solving a challenging math problem.”
Although math majors are well represented among the contestants, the contest is not restricted to them. According to Aydin, students in other disciplines, staff members at Kenyon and even some alumni — who still enjoy tackling the problems long after earning their degrees — have entered the contest. “It is always nice to receive solutions from students who graduated many years ago,” Aydin said. “They keep in touch — this is one way of keeping in touch with former students.”
While rules require students to solve problems on their own, the contest still builds an unparalleled sense of community among problem solvers, linking participants across different class years, academic backgrounds and time zones.
What surprises Aydin most is the innovative approaches in student responses. “Sometimes I see really creative solutions, ingenious solutions, and that tells me something about the student I didn’t know,” he said. “The way you solve a problem, a challenging problem, in creative ways, tells you a lot about the student that you may not know, especially if you don’t have that student in your class.”
Creating the problems, nevertheless, is a time-consuming task in itself. Aydin draws ideas from problem-solving books, personal experience and occasionally invents new problems of his own. “Trying to come up with good problems — it is not an easy thing,” he said. “Trying to come up with a problem that is not insanely difficult, not so easy, and interesting at the same time. A lot of times I tell my students: Coming up with good questions is often more interesting and useful than answering them.”
The contest offers more than just individual successes; it also rewards consistency over time. Throughout the year, Aydin records the number of correct solutions each participant submits. The student with the highest amount is recognized at the department’s spring awards ceremony with the honor of “Best Problem Solver.”
To students who might feel hesitant about trying, Aydin offers reassuring advice: “There is nothing to lose. Just give it a try. … It is a totally private thing. … If you succeed, great. If not, you still learn. … It is not always the end result that matters; it is the process. Learning is a process. It happens internally, in your mind. You should not care about what other people think about it.”
In our contemporary era that often values quick answers and utter confidence, the “Problem of the Week” provides a refreshing alternative as well as an opportunity to slow down, think deeply and delight in the challenge of tackling a difficult problem. As Aydin put it, “Math is amazing. It is both an essential tool to understand the world, and it’s also a form of art. This is more like an ‘art’ aspect of math. And as liberal-educated people, we should have an appreciation [for] the artistic part of mathematics and problem solving — creative problem solving.”
Perhaps that’s the biggest takeaway: By working through a carefully curated problem, students engage in more than just mathematics. They are cultivating curiosity, perseverance and reflective problem-solving skills that lie at the heart of a liberal arts education.