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Iowa Section of the Mathematical Association of America |
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This is the web edition of the Iowa Section Newsletter. To receive a printed copy of the newsletter or to make suggestions/comments, please contact the editor, Joy Becker, joy.becker@wartburg.edu.
This past August 6 was the most recent meeting of the Board of Governors at MathFest in Portland, Oregon. We started with the typical reports and action items: Reports from the President, President Elect, First Vice President, Secretary, Associate Secretary, Treasurer, Associate, Executive Director and others; motions on commendation for Project NExT leaders, changes to section by-laws, elections to committees and positions, and other items. There were also discussions about locations for future MathFest and JMM meetings. Note that next year's MathFest will be held in Washington, DC, and will be an extra day longer to celebrate the centennial of the MAA.
Regarding the finances of the association, things are still healthy but there is a need to address the ongoing operating deficit (9th consecutive year) and the related slipping membership and the financial implications of these. I am on the audit committee, and the auditor was very pleased with how things currently look. A number of years ago, efforts were begun to aim for increasing the amount of the free reserve to be about 70% of the annual operating budget. We are getting closer, but the deficit budgets erode the progress. The investments were relatively recently moved to TIAA-CREF and this seems to be working well. It is hoped that the new membership structure will also help. The MAA has been expanding and improving development efforts, and these also help. It is also hoped that the new and improved website will make it easier to make purchases and meet membership needs. Work is also underway to allow a new payment model for dues using a credit card with monthly payments.
In addition to these business issues, we also spent time again looking at the work being made on a new report from CUPM. We also spent time exploring the possibility of restructuring how governors could/should work, focusing specifically on a model that would involve an executive committee of governors which allow a smaller group to apply greater focus on the many issues at hand. No decisions were made, but the pros and cons of various versions of this were explored. This will likely be discussed further at the 2015 JMM.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask me.
Al Hibbard
Central College
hibbarda@central.edu
No report submitted
The Iowa Section NExT meeting is Friday, October 24 at Clarke University, approximately 9:30am-2:30pm, immediately preceding the MAA Iowa Section meeting. Recent PhDs in pre-tenure academic math positions in Iowa as well as grad students in the final two years of their PhD program are welcome to join. There will be opportunities for networking, discussions and presentations in line with the goals of the national Project NExT, but open to a wider audience. Topics include pedagogy and other aspects of the math faculty profession. Please spread the word to eligible colleagues. If you are eligible, interested, and haven't applied yet, please complete the application form at this section site and send it to Joy Becker at joy.becker@wartburg.edu.
The winner of the 2014 Iowa Collegiate Mathematics Competition, ISU, will host the next competition in February or March 2015. The date will be discussed at the October Iowa MAA meeting and announced on the competition website by late October.
See the contest page for further information. For questions or comments, contact:
Ruth Berger
Luther College
bergerr@luther.edu
October 24-25, 2014 - Annual Meeting of the Iowa Section, Clarke University, Dubuque.
January 10-13, 2015 - Joint Mathematics Meetings, San Antonio, TX.
August 5-8, 2015 - MathFest 2015, Washington, DC.
The following items have been submitted by the liaisons for the corresponding departments. If your department has news that is not included, please contact your liaison so that it can be included and have them e-mail the the editor, Joy Becker, joy.becker@wartburg.edu.
Central College
Russ Goodman
GoodmanR@central.edu
Luther College
Ruth Berger
bergerr@luther.edu
Mount Mercy College
Jitka Stehnova
jstehnova@mtmercy.edu
Dr. Jitka Stehnova (Assistant Professor of Mathematics) and Dr. Elizabeth Kleiman (Assistant Professor of Computer Science) received a Transamerica STEM grant from the AEGON/Transamerica Foundation for their ExploreU program. ExploreU is a week-long summer camp for middle school girls interested in STEM fields.
The University of Dubuque
Monica Meissen
mmeissen@dbq.edu
In the academic year 2013-2014, students were invited to solve one problem per month (nine per year) which were listed in the MATHEMATICS TEACHER. Jack Stefanski, Ben Garrett and John Lucas submitted a solution to a problem posed in the January 2014 edition of the MATHEMATICS TEACHER. The problem was: In the year 2013, two dates—4/16/13 and 6/18/13—have the special property that month2 + day2 + year2 is a perfect square. For example, 42 + 162 + 132 = 212. Which dates in 2014 have this same property?
Jack Stefanski submitted a solution to a problem posed in the February 2014 editon of the MATHEMATICS TEACHER. The problem was: Which event is more likely to occur— exactly 1 head in 2 flips of a coin or exactly 5 heads in 10 flips of a coin?
Solutions developed by the University of Dubuque students were published in Vol. 108, No. 1, August 2014 of the MATHEMATICS TEACHER.
If you have additions, corrections, or comments on anything on this page, please pass this information to the newsletter editor.
Last modified: 10/20/2014
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