I am honored to serve as the president of the Florida Section of the Mathematical Association of America.  I appreciate the opportunity to work with such a dynamic executive board and to meet so many new mathematicians in Florida and the United States.  I feel honored to represent my colleagues in MAA.

I would like start with a word of thanks to all who made the 2006 Joint Annual Meetings of the Florida Section of the Mathematical Association of America and the Florida Two-Year College Mathematics Association such a success at Florida Atlantic University.  These meetings are made successful through the hard work of the planning committee, the excellent presentations, but most importantly by the interaction among the diverse group of attendees.  The Joint Meetings of the FL-MAA and FTYCMA are a great opportunity to share ideas and make new friends.  I would also like to thank the 2006 executive board as they prepare for the 40^th Annual Meeting and for their insightful discussions as we share new ideas for the future of the Florida Section.

Exciting plans are underway for the 2007 Joint Annual Meetings of the FL-MAA and FTYCMA to be held at Tallahassee Community College on February 16-17, 2007.  I hope you are able to attend and will encourage your students and junior faculty members to come with you.  I want to let everyone know that student presenters at our section meetings receive free membership to the National MAA, or a free MAA book if they are already student members of MAA.  In addition we have expanded the prizes for student mathematics competitions at the conference.

On the national level, MathFest was a fun filled week.  The Mathematical Association of America is planning a Centennial celebration for MathFest 2015.  Our section flag should appear in a parade of section flags.  In addition, MAA national is looking for a Centennial Section Planner from each section.  Please contact me if you are interested in working on the Centennial celebration (jacci.white@saintleo.edu).  The MathFest centennial celebration will take place in Washington, DC on August 5-8, 2015.

The 2007 Joint Annual Meetings will be hosted by Tallahassee Community College on February 16-17, 2007.  The plenary speakers for the conference will be Carl Cowen, Bruce Edwards, and James Tanton.

Dr. Cowen is the current President of the MAA and is the Dean of the Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis School of Science.  He will give a talk presenting the connections between mathematics and biology.  For more information, visit http://www.science.iupui.edu/ccowen/.

Dr. Tanton is the director of the Mathematics Institute at St. Mark’s School in Massachusetts.  He is the author of Solve This: Mathematical Activities for Students and Clubs, which won the 2005 Beckenbach Book Prize.  After missing the past Joint Meetings due to the weather, Dr. Tanton has again been invited to discuss various "proofs" that 1=2.  For more information, visit http://www.stmarksschool.org/contact_us/profile.aspx?LinkID=42506&pageaction=VPSFaculty.

Along with these plenary speakers, there will be the annual business meetings, awards banquet, invited speakers, workshops, and presentations.  More information will be available soon.

Preliminary Program

Abstracts

Call for Papers

We invite talks and workshops (45 minutes) from mathematicians in the State University System, the Florida Community College System, and the state’s private colleges and universities.  Undergraduate students are also invited to participate with presentations (20 minutes).

One of the concurrent sessions will focus on Connections to Mathematics.  This session will emphasize the importance of exposing new connections to the art and sciences and educating students of the importance of these connections.  Contributed talks or workshops identified for this special session may address (but are not limited to) the following sample issues:

1. Research topics related to new connections to the arts and sciences.
2. Novel contextual problems that have been successfully incorporated into a mathematics course.
3. Examples of the use of mathematics in painting, sculpture, music, literature and architecture.
4. Examples of the use of mathematics in crafts such as quilting, weaving, crocheting, knitting and needlework.

Those who wish to be considered for the program should send their name, institutional affiliation, category of the presentation (research, exposition, pedagogy, student paper, problem-solving session, etc.), title, and an abstract of fifty words or less to the Vice-President for Programs:

Joel Berman
Valencia Community College – East Campus
jberman@valenciacc.edu

The deadline for submission is December 15, 2006.

Accommodations

We will continue our integral contest for a third straight year at the Sectional Meeting in February.  We are still offering a $50 first prize and a $25 second prize.  The winners in 2006 were Cody Hadley (1^st place) and Thom Dodge (2^nd place) from Manatee Community College.

This year, we will offer a sudoku contest for undergraduates.  Students who correctly solve the puzzles in the allotted time period will be placed in a drawing for prizes.

We are continuing a small stipend for student speakers.  Any undergraduate student speaking at this year’s meeting will receive a $25 stipend, as well as a free banquet the first night of the meeting.  At the 2006 meeting, Robert Lamar and Martin Storm of Stetson University each gave presentations.

Florida International University

Julian Edward is our current Department Chairman.  Our former Chair for almost a decade, Enrique Villamor, took a sabbatical last year and has returned this Fall to guide as Director, and teach in, our new Master’s track, Risk Analysis and Management.  Tom Leness and Bao Qin Li have also returned this Fall from sabbaticals.

In April this year, the department hosted the Southeastern Meeting of the AMS with over 300 attendees.  Principal departmental coordinators for this major event were Laura Decarli, Tedi Draghici, Gueo Grantcharov, Abdelhamid Meziani, and Philippe Rukimbira.

Gueo Grantcharov and Louis Tebou have been promoted to Associate Professor and tenured.  Philippe Rukimbira has been promoted to Full Professor.

FIU has over 40,000 students now and the department has grown significantly, especially at the fulltime instructor rank.  Four new instructors have been hired for this Fall:  Solange Kouemou, Patricia McDermott-Wells, Martha Royer, and Yizhi Yang.  Another instructor, Anna Wlodarczyk, is the new Lower Division Coordinator.  She replaces Mike Rosenthal who held the position for several years.

Tony Shershin is retiring this December, having been in the DROP program for five years.  He is the last of the Founding Professors of 1972.  Recently, in addition to his applied research and teaching duties, Tony has been the Service Courses Advisor.

Miami Dade College

St. Petersburg College

David Allen and David Bueller have joined the St. Petersburg/Gibbs Mathematics Department as full-time faculty.

David Allen earned his B.S. in Mathematics Education from Michigan State University in 1986 and his M.A. from the University of South Florida in 2001.  He taught high school for Pinellas County Schools for 16 years and taught as an adjunct at SPC beginning in 1998.  David is looking forward to teaching and contributing to the math community for many years to come.

David Bueller earned his A.A. from St. Petersburg College, his B.S. in Mathematics from Clearwater Christian College, and his M.A. in Mathematics from the University of South Florida.  He and his wife enjoy tropical birds and have both a macaw and a cockatoo.

Karen Estes has transferred to the St. Pete/Gibbs Mathematics Department after teaching for 23 years at the Tarpon Springs campus Mathematics Department.  Karen earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mathematics from Eastern Illinois University and her Ph.D. in Mathematics Education with an emphasis on technology from the University of South Florida.

Jeff Linek, St. Pete/Gibbs campus, accepted a faculty position in the Mathematics Department at the Cartersville campus of Georgia Highlands College northwest of Atlanta.  Jeff and his family are enjoying the small-town atmosphere and open spaces in their area.

Jim Rutledge was recently appointed as the founding Mathematics editor for the Pedagogic Service for Digital Libraries Project at SERC, the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College (http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/index.html).  He will develop model learning activities in math as well as assist with development of a new portal within MERLOT (www.merlot.org) that will link MERLOT learning materials to SERC pedagogic modules.

Jim Rutledge co-authored an article entitled "Dialogue: A Route to ACT-ive Learning" that was published in NCTM’s Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School, Vol. 12, No. 1, August, 2006.

Jim Rutledge also co-authored an article entitled "Con-fusing Pairs: An Intriguing Investigation of LCMs" that was published in NCTM’s Mathematics Teacher, Vol. 100, No. 2, September, 2006.