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Winter 2013 Newsletter
From the ChairThe Joint Meetings in Boston were fantastic! Over 7,000 mathematicians from around the world came together to network and share their enjoyment for mathematics. It was full of excitement. If you did not get to go to the Joint Meetings, I hope our Kentucky Section meeting is on your calendar. It too promises to be an amazing event. Our Chair-Elect, Duk Lee, our colleagues at Bellarmine University, especially Daylene Zielinski, and the executive committee, have been working hard to organize an excellent meeting. The program has an array of impressive speakers. What an opportunity! Begin talking to your fellow faculty members and your students and get them excited about participating. Make it a point to encourage folks that have never attended a KYMAA meeting to join us this year. Send your abstract well before the deadline; register early and get your first choice of hotel room. Bellarmine University is the place to kick off your Math Awareness Month activities in 2012! I look forward to seeing you March 30-31 at Bellarmine.> Dora Ahmadi at d.ahmadi@moreheadstate.edu The Governor's CornerThe MAA Board of Governors met at the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) in San Diego. The primary issue underlying all of the Board's discussions was the financial future of the MAA. MAA budgets of the past several years have run deficits - usually in the $200,000 range. While this is not an immediate crisis, deficit budgets at this level cannot continue for more than five or so more years. At MathFest a decision was made by the Board of Governors to invest to keep the MAA operating at the present level rather than reduce what the MAA does. Because of that decision, the proposed 2013 budget projects a large deficit - over $600,000. At the JMM the governors revisited and reaffirmed the decision to invest rather than cut back. Our hope is that the new investments will result in increased revenue - some in the very short term. An important change that should occur in 2013 is that the MAA will bring back in-house customer service which had been outsourced. This will involve additional MAA staff, rehab of some facilities, and improvements to MAA's IT; but bringing customer service in-house is expected to result in a more than $200,000 per year savings. Some of those savings could begin to occur this year. The IT improvements have been in progress for some time and should result in a website that is more attractive and will provide better member services such as membership renewal. Bringing customer service in-house is possible because of the IT upgrade. The MAA will attempt to raise development money from non-members (corporations and organizations who value what the MAA does) as well as members. A focus of that attempt will be the 2015 MAA Centennial. To accomplish this goal, the MAA has hired a person to lead the fund raising efforts. The nature of such positions is that there should be a payoff in the short-term. MAA books are a potential source of increased revenue. The quality of MAA books is recognized as excellent. Approximately 15 to 20 new MAA books are published in a year. New books are a large part of book revenue. (The other good source of book revenue is books that are used as textbooks, but the MAA has few textbooks.) To assist in the "new book" process, the MAA has hired an acquisitions editor to do some of the things that are now done by MAA member-volunteers. The governors hope that this will get books into print sooner. This position is likely not to result in a short-term payoff, however. The expected 2013 deficit consists of about $250,000 of "baseline deficit" and about $350,000 of investment. The Board of Governors will monitor the results and react as needed to keep the MAA financially sound. Memberships are, of course, also a source of revenue. At the moment there are over 300 possible membership categories. The Board approved reducing the number of categories to six for 2014: "member", a second "member" category that would include some additional benefits (for additional cost), a category for K - 12 teachers, a category for all full-time students, and a category for departments. There would be no change in department memberships. Not all the details are in place, but the "member" category, for example, is expected to cost $169 (an essentially revenue neutral amount) and include what are essentially the present benefits except that members would then have electronic access to all MAA journals but would have to subscribe separately for print issues (for a price that would essentially be "at cost"). It should be noted that more than 80% of MAA members are 50 years old or older. The MAA is not acquiring younger faculty. This is a situation that sections could help to address. Of the approximately 2200 new members of the MAA this year, 44 are from Kentucky, but 34 of those are NKU students. The financial situation that the MAA is now facing is not unique to the MAA. Other professional organizations without strong revenue sources are in the same or worse shape. The next several years will be important in determining the MAA's future. Chris Christensen at christensen@nku.edu KYMAA GovernorThe Annual KYMAA MeetingOur 2012 KYMAA Annual Meeting is scheduled for March 30 - 31, 2012, at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. This meeting should be outstanding and we strongly encourage you to participate. Perhaps you and/or your students can give a talk, or just come and listen to what your mathematical colleagues from across the state are up to these days. We are very excited to have the following three invited speakers: Erik Demaine (MIT), Bob Devaney (Boston Univ.), and Christie Perry (Morehead State Univ.). You do not want to miss these awesome speakers! Complete program details will appear in the next newsletter on March 12, 2012. There will also be links to the meeting program and presentation abstracts. Please note the following important dates for the 2012 KYMAA Annual Meeting:
For speakers, the rooms will have available PCs, laptop docks, ELMO document cameras and whiteboard or chalkboard. If you need something other than any of these, indicates so under "Equipment Needs" on the abstract form. In general, the time for individual presentations will be 15 minutes, including time for questions. Special presentations can be allocated more time if necessary. Finally, our schedule of hosts for future section meetings is:
Please contact any officer of KYMAA if you would interested in hosting a future meeting; we're always on the lookout for a good meeting site! Links to abstracts, programs, and a map can be found at KYMAA meetings Complete program details will appear in the next newsletter on March 12, 2012. There will also be links there to the meeting program and presentation abstracts.
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