College math professors may be the original "woke" crowd, trying to slip formal methods into their math classes in a desperate attempt to indoctrinate yet one m

College math professors may be the original "woke" crowd, trying to slip formal methods into their math classes in a desperate attempt to indoctrinate yet one more mathematician. My college experience: Freshman Fall semester: abstract algebra was the first math course (yes, the full blown groups, rings, lattices, fields, etc.). There was no opt-out (this was a small college) and all science students took the same course. We were mystified - why study this? The three declared math majors were delighted. Freshman Spring semester: we were finally offered calculus. In the classroom physics, chemistry and biology professors were stunned to find students had no knowledge of calculus! When my physics prof first drew an integral on the blackboard, the class unanimously protested: "We haven't been taught that yet!" [To his credit and our undying relief, he taught us calculus for the next 3 classes and did a beautiful job of it. Turns out he had once been a math professor!] Faculty meetings ensued with much shouting. The verdict: an unspoken assumption among faculty was that the first freshman math class would be calculus. But the university had, in the summer hiatus, hired two new mathematics professors, both proponents of a particularly rigorous school of thought. One of them, the new mathematics department chairman, had decided without consultation to change the math curriculum. Ergo abstract algebra as an intro course. The mathematics department chairman was fired and a new chairman installed ASAP. Normality was restored.