The Eighty Second Annual Meeting of the Illinois Section of the Mathematical Association of America will be held March 28 and 29, 2003 in the new Parker Science Building on the campus of Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois.
The meeting includes an Assessment Forum led by Tom Rishel of Cornel University and addresses by John Sullivan of the Unversity of Illinois, M. Vali Siadat of Ricard J. Daley College, and Frank Farris of Santa Clara Univerity. In addition there will be presentations from your colleagues from around the state. A special Project NExT program will be held in conjunction with the ISMAA meeting.
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March 27, 2003
The opening session of the conference is the first of two hours devoted to an Assessment Forum. Very much an area of current concern, Assessment Forums at sectional meetings are sponsored this year through the MAA SAUM (Supporting Assessment in Uundergraduate Mathematics) Project.
The Forum will be led by Tom Rishel of Cornell University, Ithaca, New York with the local assistance of Herb Kasube of Bradley University in Peoria, IL. The second hour of the forum will be held following the close of the regular meeting from 1:15-2:15 p.m. on Saturday.
The sessions include a brief overview of assessment as viewed in the SAUM project; a discussion of some assessment case studies from SAUM and MAA Notes #49; and a discussion of what's happening in assessment in ISMAA.
We are pleased to have as our banquet speaker this year John Sullivan of the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
His topic is Soap-bubble Singularities and Deltahedra. Over 120 years ago, Plateau observed the geometric structure of soap froths: at any corner where bubbles meet, there are exactly four bubbles, in a tetrahedral pattern. Plateau's rule was not proved rigorously until the 1970s; the proof relies on ruling out seven other possibilities. For instance, when we dip a wire-frame cube into soapy water, the resulting soap film has four Plateau corners instead of one of a new type. We will examine how these eight candidates arise from the eight polyhedra with equilateral-triangle faces (including Platonic solids as well as less familiar ones.)
Speaking at the Saturday morning opening session will be M. Vali Siadat of Richard J. Daley College, Chicago, recipient of the 2002 ISMAA Award for Distinguished Teaching of Mathematics.
The closing address on Saturday will feature Frank Farris of Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA.
He is the editor of Mathematics Magazine and is our selection from the MAA speakers bureau. Forbidden Symmetry: Relaxing the Crystallographic Restriction is his topic. If you look at enough swatches of wallpaper, you will see centers of 2-fold, 4-fold, and 6-fold rotation. Why not 5-fold centers? They cannot occur, according to the Crystallographic Restriction, a fundamental result about wallpaper patterns, which are defined to be invariant under two linearly independent translations. Even so, we offer convincing pictures that appear to show wallpaper patterns with 5-fold symmetry. What is going on? The talk is intended to be accessible to students also.
Friday afternoon speakers will include Michael J. Long, Division Administrator for Professional Preparation and Recruitment, Illinois State Board of Education, and Barbara Risse, Director of Transfer Programs, Illinois Community College Board.
A Panel Discussion on CUPM (Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics) is scheduled with Herb Kasube, Bradley University, and Patrick Dale McCray, Systems Project Leader, Pfizer Inc.
An expository lecture for undergraduate students on Rational Points and Rational Lines will be given on Friday afternoon prior to the student math contest by Tom Bengston of Augustana College, Rock Island, IL.
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Amoung the items on the agenda is the election of a Director for Community Colleges and three Directors at Large.
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The banquet will be held Friday evening at 7:00 in the Cummings Dining Hall. Presentation of the annual ISMAA Distinguished Service Award and the Distinguished College or University Teaching Award will be made at the banquet. A talk by John Sullivan of the University of Illinois on Soap-bubble Singularities and Deltahedra will follow the banquet.
The cost of the dinner is $25.00. Banquet tickets must be purchased in advance. The meal will be served buffet style and includes carved prime rib, Grecian chicken breast, and vegetarian lasagna.
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On Fridy morning there will be a field trip to Springfield to visit some places of architectural interest. The trip includes a tour of the Illinois State Library and the Dana-Thomas House.
The schedule is as follows:
ISMAA members traveling to the conference on Friday morning and wishing to join the group directly in Springfield may be at the Illinois State Library at 9:00 a.m. and/or the Dana-Thomas House at 9:45 a.m. To facilitate planning, please pre-register on the Annual Meeting Registration Form.
If you have any questions about the field trip, please contact Carol Schmidt at carol.schmidt@llcc.edu.
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A number of activities of particular interest to Mathematics Students are scheduled including a mathematics contest Friday afternoon, a Friday evening Pizza Party, and student presentations Saturday morning.
For information on participating in the math contest or presenting a paper, see the Call for Student Participation.
The officers and members of the Math Club at Illinois College are enthusiastically planning to serve as hosts to students attending from other colleges. As such, they have created an informational website for students attending 2003 ISMAA.
Requests for Student lodging should be made through Todd Oberg, Department of Mathematics, Illinois College, Jacksonville, IL 62650. (217) 245-3430 mailto:toberg@ic.edu.
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Jacksonville, Illinois is located in approximately 35 miles west of Springfield, Illinois. I-72/US-36, US-67, IL-78, and IL-104 are some of the main roads to Jacksonville. The Jacksonville Area Map shows these roads and the location of Illinois College in Jacksonville.
Illinois College is located in the northwest part of town at 1101 West College Avenue which runs east and west. See the campus map for other streets in the area.
The ISMAA sessions will be held in the Parker Science Building which is located at Lincoln and Mound Avenues which are shown on the Jacksonville Map from the City of Jacksonvile web site. Also see the campus map for additional details.
Specific directions to the college follow.
Parking is available both on the street and in parking lots on the campus. Parking in the lots is not restricted. The parking lots are not explicitly marked on the campus map; however, most of the white rectangular areas that look like they might be parking lots, are indeed parking lots. (Another Illinois College Campus Map Illinois College Math Club's informational website for students attending 2003 ISMAA. The parking lots are more clearly marked on this map and it may load faster than the college map.)
There is a parking lot just north of the Parker Science Building off of Lockwood Place. (If you are coming north on Lincoln Avenue as per the above directions, turn left on Mound Avenue, and then right on Lockwood Place.) There is also a parking lot about a block south of Mound Avenue on the east side of Lincoln Avenue.
The lots down on Park Street are least full. (Park Street is 1 block east of Lincoln Avenue.)
A list of Jacksonville restaurants is available from the Jacksonville Area Vistor & Conventions Bureau web site.
Participants are responsible for making their own hotel/motel reservations.
For information on student campus housing contact Todd Oberg, Department of Mathematics, Illinois College, Jacksonville, IL 62650. (217) 245-3430 mailto:toberg@ic.edu.
A block of rooms is available at the following three motels in Jacksonville at group rates for the ISMAA meeting:
The Comfort Inn is 2 miles from Illinois College. Reservations must be made by March 13.
The Amerihost is 1/2 mile from Illinois College. Complimentary use of the meeting room is available for ISMAA guests Friday evening. Reservations must be made by February 27.
The Super 8 Motel is 1/2 mile from Illinois College. Reservations must be made by March 10.
Additional information on Jacksonville Lodging is available from the Jacksonville Area Vistor & Conventions Bureau web site.
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Publishers are being invited to display and/or present a product demonstration at the annual meeting. Display hours will be from 12 noon to 4:30 P.M. on Friday afternoon. Saturday morning hours will be from 9:30 A.M. to 12 noon. This will be a fine opportunity to speak with representatives from several publishing companies.
Between 2:30 P.M. and 4:30 P.M. on Friday, Anthony "Tony" Peressini will be at the Prentice-Hall publisher exhibit. You may talk with him about the newly published Mathematics for High School Teachers by Zalman Usiskin, Tony Peressini, Elena Marchisotto and Dick Stanley. This book is designed for a course to address the core content of high school mathematics: algebra, geometry, trigonometry and pre-calculus, but it treats this content from the advanced perspective of college mathematics.
Publishers representatives currently planning to attend include Jennifer Koehler fromAddison-Wesley Publishing Company; Paul Coleman from Bedford/W.H. Freeman and Worth Publishers; Amy Waller from Prentice Hall; Houghton Mifflin Company; Glenis Wolfer from Wiley & Sons; and Cynthia Morton from Wolfram Research.
Selected books from the MAA publication list will be available for examination and purchase.
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The registration fee for regular ISMAA members is $25.00 if registration is made by March 17, 2003 and $30.00 thereafter. The registration fee for students and retirees is $10.00; however, the registration fee is waived for students who are presenting a talk or participating in the math contest and for all students who are from an ISMAA sponsor institution.
The cost of the Friday evening Banquet is $25.00. The meal will be served buffet style and includes carved prime rib, Grecian chicken breast, and vegetarian lasagna. Please indicate any additional special dietary needs on the registration form.
A box lunch will be available Saturday after the closing talk and before the second session of the Assessment Forum. The cost is $7.00.
Advanced registration (with payment) is required for the Friday evening banquet and for the Saturday afternoon box lunch. Advanced registration is requested for the Friday morning trip to Springfield and for the Saturday afternoon assessment forum.
The registration form from the printed program is available in Microsoft Word format. There is also a registration form in html format. Please print out one of these froms and send it along with your check made payable to the ISMAA by March 17, 2003 to
Jon L. Johnson
Mathematics Department
Elmhurst College
190 Prospect
Elmhurst, IL 60126
The registration form may be e-mailed to Jon Johnson at jonj@elmhurst.edu; however, you still need to send payment to the above address by March 17, 2003 for the Friday banquet, Saturday box lunch, or the regular meeting registraton at $25.00.
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