Duh. The best math teacher I ever had was at a junior college, which worked at the level at which he was teaching (entry level calculus). Still, that obsolete approach doesn't work when it comes to attracting top students and it didn't teach new approaches to the computational methods that are rapidly rendering the continuous mathematics he so ably taught obsolete. Clearly, Patrick Henry isn't using their facility with imparting an understanding of mathematics as part of their marketing program, which is too bad.
It is not necessary to offer degree programs in order to provide quality classes in a variety of disciplines.
It's not necessary only if you assume that the discipline doesn't change much over time. Unfortunately, I was burned on that one when it came to finite difference equations and won't let that happen to my kids. There are many areas where the academy is way behind industry, and both experimental design (which can be applied to a whole array of disciplines) and finite mathematics are but two of them.
Frankly, I had thought about whether to include math in the list of lab courses and was waiting for a smartass rejoinder such as your first post. After some consideration of how much my math education had missed when it came to preparing me for real world problems, I decided to proffer the bait.
You took it.
The issue is providing sufficient mathematics to qualify someone as "college-educated" in a meaningful sense of the term (instead of "another ignorant peasant with dung on his boots"). The requirements for that are lower than those for a specialized math degree... but still a lot higher than what is found in PHC's course catalog.
I had thought about whether to include math in the list of lab courses and was waiting for a smartass rejoinder such as your first post.
I am reminded of the old joke, "Why do you physicists need all this expensive equipemnt? All the math department asks for are paper, pencils, and erasers. And the philosophy department is even better -- they don't ask for erasers."