EPaDel Section Governor's Report
Section Governor, William Dunham, Muhlenberg College
January 2013
The MAA Board of Governors met on Tuesday, January 8, 2013, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego. President Paul Zorn was in the chair.
The meeting began with Paul's remembrance of Doug Faires, a gifted teacher, successful textbook author, and devoted supporter of the MAA. Doug passed away last month. In 2011, he and wife Barbara (the MAA's secretary) were inducted into the Icosahedron Society, recognizing financial support of the highest order.
After this, our discussion moved to the 2013 budget. As MAA members know, finances have been a concern over recent years, as the organization has run deficits and drained away cash reserves. Our 2011 deficit was $109,000, and the deficit for 2012 came in around $240,000. At the previous Board Meeting, the governors voted for targeted "investments" in areas that would temporarily increase the deficit but that were meant to reap financial benefits in the not too distant future. See my report of August, 2012, for specifics.
Thus, for 2013, we considered a budget with a projected deficit of $627,000. This, needless to say, is an enormous amount of money, representing 7.6% of the overall $8.2 million annual budget. Prolonged discussion among the governors focused on whether the potential pay-off from the targeted investments was worth the risk of falling so far into debt. The MAA treasurer (Jim Daniel) and associate treasurer (Rick Cleary) addressed many questions on this proposal. They noted, for example, that next year's one-time expenditure of $200,000 — necessary to change MAA customer service from an out-sourced to an in-house operation — should quickly pay for itself. Indeed, Jim Daniel said he was optimistic that the MAA's budget, by 2015 at the latest, would be in the black, allowing the organization to rebuild its cash reserves.
When a vote was taken, the Board agreed to this 2013 budget.
Our other major topic was a new, streamlined dues structure for the MAA, to be implemented in 2014. Its key feature is a reduction of membership categories to just five (down from the current situation, where there are scores of different membership permutations). These new categories will be (1) Member, (2) Member Plus, (3) K-12 Teacher, (4) Student Member, and (5) Departmental Member. This should greatly simplify a chaotic situation.
Two striking features of this new dues structure are:
The basic individual MAA membership will decline from the current $199 to $169! (That's an exclamation point, not a factorial.)
Members will receive all four MAA journals — the Monthly, Math Magazine, the CMJ, and Math Horizons — albeit in electronic form. Anyone wanting paper journals will have to pay an additional amount. For instance, a print version of the Monthly will cost an additional $57 per year.
It was noted that this sort of reform had been discussed for many years but had never before been brought to the Board. In a vote, the Governors approved the new fee system. Members should be alert to the transition in dues that will be forthcoming.
Beyond these changes, the Board discussed a few other matters. One was a proposed improvement for selling MAA books at Section Meetings. Of late, such sales have been complicated by tax concerns that have significantly reduced the ease of buying books in these venues. The new system should be in place for our spring meeting at Dickinson. Stay tuned.
As the meeting ended, the Board thanked Paul Zorn for his two years of service as MAA President and welcomed Bob Devaney of Boston University as Paul's successor.
Let me close with two final matters:
At the Prizes and Awards ceremony of the Joint Meetings, three EPaDel colleagues were recognized for their excellent work. One, Yuhou (Susan) Xia of Bryn Mawr College, was a runner-up for the 2013 Alice T. Schafer Prize for Excellence in Mathematics by an Undergraduate Woman. John Allen Paulos of Temple University received the Communications Award from the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics. And Robert Ghrist of the University of Pennsylvania won the MAA's Chauvenet Prize for his paper "Barcodes: The persistent topology of data" that appeared in the Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society in 2008. Congratulations on these fine honors.
Finally, with this meeting I completed my three-year term as EPaDel Governor. I have certainly enjoyed the opportunity to learn about the inner workings of the Mathematical Association of America and have appreciated the honor to serve in this capacity.
EPaDel members should be alert to the upcoming election to choose my successor. Please vote!