Iowa Section of the MAA

Business meeting

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Coe College

Murphy Waggoner (Chair) called the meeting to order at 11:10am.

1. Welcome and introduction of first time participants.

2. Approval of last year’s minutes: Van Niewaal moved and Czarneski seconded. The minutes were approved without changes.

3. Election for Vice-Chair Elect: Candidates were Russ Goodman (Central) and Brian Birgen (Wartburg). Russ Goodman was elected.

4. The Iowa Mathematics competition was held on Saturday, March 13, 2010 at Grinnell. Nineteen teams from ten colleges participated. Ruth Berger announced that the Iowa State University team Math 414 won with 82 points. The trophy was awarded to ISU and next year’s competition will be held at ISU on Feb. 19, 2011.

5. Scott Searcy, treasurer, presented the Treasurer’s report. The Section is financially healthy and participants were encouraged to buy books at the book sale. There was discussion of why the Section has such a large cash balance and how it could be utilized to accomplish the Section’s mission goals. It was suggested that two years worth of operating expenses is a sufficient cushion of cash to carry forward annually. It was also noted that printing and postage expenses are greatly reduced because of use of the web and this is one factor impacting the surplus. Some ideas that were discussed were to use the Section funds for outreach for increasing membership to college faculty who are not participating in the Iowa MAA Section activities and meetings, or to support students to attend the Section meetings. No decision was made for using the funds at this time.

6. Van Niewaal gave the Governor’s report for Haack who was unable to attend the Section meeting. Three topics were reported: 1) a discussion of the large cash balances of some sections and how and why this money should be used by sections (see above). 2) The MAA will host a website for Section web pages. In the short term, it will provide for “across the board” transfer of content from the Section’s current web pages. In the long term, it will provide a template for content management of the Section web pages.

3) There is a new speaker series: each Section will have a Polya speaker every 5 years and a journal editor about half way in between the Polya speaker time table. Our section can have a Journal editor next year.

7 In discussion, it was noted that Hibbard has done an excellent job with the Section’s Web pages and that the MAA’s website is not a fix for an Iowa problem and that we shouldn’t attempt to fix something that is not broken. Perhaps this would be useful to the Section at a later time. Also, Hibbard has indicated that the Section needs to find a new Newsletter editor. The call was put out for interested person(s) to make themselves known to the Section officers.

8. The Midwest Undergraduate Mathematics Symposium (MUMS) will be held April 1 & 2, 2011, at Simpson College. Students are encouraged to report on projects and independent studies. In the past, 89 – 90 people have been in attendance and about 20 presentations and posters have been presented.

9. Naylor announced a call for nominations for the Outstanding Teacher Award. Typically, the selection committee consists of one member of the Executive committee and two previous recipients.

10. Van Niewaal announced that Al Hibbard is the Section winner of the Meritorious Service Award and that he will receive the award at the Joint Meetings in January.

11. Waggoner announced the exploration of a possible merger of 4 relatively small (membership-wise) Sections: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska/South Dakota. There was considerable discussion of possible advantages and disadvantages of such a move and MAA representative, Rick Gillman, who was in attendance, answered some questions and shared some of the vision behind this exploration. He has arranged an initial meeting for discussion on this topic among officers of the four sections to be held in Kansas City on Nov 6.

Four members of the Executive Committee (Baker, Hibbard, Hitchman, and Searcy) have agreed to attend the meeting. A motion for reimbursement of expenses in the amount of $100 each was requested for those going to Kansas City by Van Niewaal and seconded by Freeman. The motion passed.

12. Several general announcements were made about MAA programs and REUs. Iowa NExT members met on Friday and have 5 new members.

13. Details about lunch places near campus were made before adjournment.

Respectfully submitted,

Bernadette M. Baker

IA MAA Section Secretary