Our Spring, 1998 meeting at Morehead State University promises more of the same. Check out our meeting web site at:
www.morehead-st.edu/people/d.spickler/maa_info.htm.
As the program develops, more information will appear there. Make your reservations early; the Holiday Inn has reserved 50 rooms for us.
Elsewhere in this newsletter you will find a description of and nomination form for the Section Award for the Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. These are to be submitted to the Section Secretary, Karin Chess. She will, in turn, submit the nominations to our selection committee after requesting his/her department chair to assist the nominee to submit additional information required to complete the nomination. Please note the deadlines. This award is central to the philosophy of the MAA so I hope it will give it serious consideration.
At this year's Annual Meeting we will elect a Vice-Chair. You will note that the term limits for all of our officers have been added to the address page at the end of this newsletter.
John Oppelt
I believe there is less reading undertaken by most people, and in particular our students. I can't support this statistically (except perhaps with regards to my own children), but I do know for a fact that newspaper readership is down dramatically. I also observe how much information comes to us visually with sound bytes. Now, reading is the ultimate symbolic manipulation. We envision and understand what the author is telling us by putting together the symbols that make up the words we are reading. Of course, we also do this if we hear the words, but less so if we are looking at a visualization simultaneously.
Additionally, technology, even the four function calculator, lessens our practice of symbolic manipulation. Here, the symbols are numbers and the mental discipline comes in the form of the arithmetic algorithms. Accepting these assumptions, one concludes that our students come to us with lessened skills and a diminished valuation for symbols. (How successful are you when you try to get students to memorize a definition?)
These days, those of us who practice the teaching of mathematics are aware of the existence of symbolic manipulators (Maple, Derive, the TI-92). I am not in the camp that is opposed to the use of technology, even though when I was in college, I never caught onto the slide rule--now a genuine antique (the slide rule, not me!). But I have serious questions. What should we be teaching? What role does symbolic manipulation have in the development of a professional mathematician? What role does it have for one who needs to apply mathematics? What should our curricula look like? Can we seriously include it in our courses? Can we demand these skills? If we were teaching high school, would we tell students they cannot use the calculator to divide 752 by 36? Will we be able to tell them not to use technology to find an antiderivative of Sin 4q? More to the heart of the matter, do we even have a chance to expect them to value the mental exercise that is involved in symbolic manipulation?
Congratulations are in order to Chris Christensen from NKU; he received a Polya Award for Writing in the College Mathematics Journal. Underwood Dudley has been elected Editor of the CMJ. He will serve as editor-elect until the end of 1998, when Bart Braden of NKU steps down as editor after a five-year term. Bart has certainly served our association with distinction in this capacity. Paul Zorn was elected editor of Mathematics Magazine. It was also announced that 70 new NExT fellows have been selected. Two are faculty members in Kentucky: Lisa Elderbrock, at NKU, and K. Renee Fister, at Murray State University.
The MAA Department Liaison program continues to provide a communication link between the National office and colleges and universities across the country. If your school has not identified a faculty member to serve as liaison, please select someone and notify Jane Heckler in the National office. If you have internet access, be sure to check the MAA website at http://www.maa.org . There are a lot of great new books being published this year by the Association.
Peter Moore
The meeting is scheduled to begin Friday afternoon March 27 and end on Saturday after lunch. Get your MAA Student Chapter or your math club involved. Start thinking about a topic for your math presentation. If you have questions, feel free to contact me by e-mail (wilson@centre.edu) or by phone (606-238-5409). Let's make this the best section meeting ever.
John Wilson
Anyone is entitled to make a nomination, but nominations from chairs or MAA representatives in departments of mathematical sciences are especially solicited. For this reason, this call for nominations is sent to both department chairs and MAA representatives so that the responsibility for nominations can be shared between them.
We urge you to submit a nomination if you have someone eligible and qualified in your department. Even if not selected this year, it is an honor for someone to have been nominated. Your department will receive recognition for its commitment to excellence in teaching, and the work done in preparing a nomination folder for your candidate is not wasted, since your candidate can be nominated again in a future year. Self-nomination is not permitted.
In addition to discussing this memo with your colleagues, preferably at a department meeting, please post it in a prominent place in your department.
** "influence beyond their own institutions" can take many forms, including: demonstrated lasting impact on alumni; influence on the profession through curricular revisions in college mathematics teaching with national impact; influential, innovative books on the teaching of college mathematics; etc.
Nominations must be submitted on the Nomination Form attached. Please follow the instructions on that form precisely to assure uniformity in the selection process both at the Section and National level. If the Nomination Form is received by the Section Secretary by November 14, 1997, the Secretary will ask the nominee's Department Chair (whose name must also be submitted) to work with the nominator in supplying the additional required materials. Ultimately, a complete nomination must also include Evidence of Success in Teaching as described on the back of the nomination form. Final deadline for receipt of all materials is December 12, 1997. If the file on the Section's awardee significantly exceeds the limits prescribed, it will not be considered for a national award and will be returned to the Section. Please send one copy of all materials to the Section Secretary:
Professor Karin Chess Department of Mathematics Owensboro Community College 4800 New Hartford Road Owensboro, KY 42303The Section Selection Committee will select the Section awardee during December and January and communicate its selection to the National Selection Committee no later than February 1, so that the National Committee can then make its selections.
We look forward to your participation in this exciting MAA venture of taking substantive action to honor extraordinarily successful teaching. We want to see such teaching recognized at all post-secondary school levels. We depend on you to help us identify those who merit such recognition.
Name of Nominee (last name first): ________________________________________________
College or University Affliliation: ________________________________________________
College or University Address: ________________________________________________
Nominee's number of years of teaching experience in a mathematical science: _____________
Has the nominee taught at least half time in a mathematical science during the current academic yeat or during the previous year if on approved leave or sabbatical? ____________
In the space below, please briefly describe the unusual personal and professional qualities of the nominee that contribute to his or her extraordinary teaching success.
Name of Nominator (first name first): __________________________________________
Address of Nominator: ______________________________________________________
Telephone: ___________________________ E-mail: ______________________________
Nominator's Signature: _________________________________________________________
Ray Tennant
This past spring, the department successfully completed a self-study, led by then-chair Ken Rietz, that was mandated by our Provost as a part of the college's on-going self- assessment program. Our report document, faculty, program, students and alumni were reviewed by an external committee consisting of two on-campus non-math faculty and two math/computer science faculty from other colleges. Much was confirmed and learned from this experience. [Reported by Ron Welling-- ron.welling@asbury.edu]
Bellarmine College -- John Oppelt is serving as Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences for the 1997-98 school year. David O'Toole will retire in December, 1997 after 39 years at Bellarmine, including 17 years as department chair.
The Student MAA group is planning a trip to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in November. Also, they will have a guest speaker from General Electric to talk about applications of statistics.
The college dedicated a new Mathematics Laboratory on October 2 in honor of Professor O'Toole. This facility has 17 new computers, arranged to encourage group learning. This semester it is being used for Calculus I, Discrete Mathematics and Probability and Statistics. The funding for the laboratory comes from a NSF-ILI grant awarded to the department. [Reported by Bill Fenton--wfenton@bellarmine.edu]
Centre College -- Matt Cropper is a visiting instructor in mathematics this fall. He is a graduate of Northern Kentucky University and is ABD at West Virginia University. Christine Shannon will serve as the chair of the Science and Mathematics Division for the next three years. Two math faculty members have received newly endowed professorships. Christine Shannon is the Margaret V. Haggin Professor of Science and Bill Johnston is the Dowling Professor of Science. Neil Eklund is on sabbatical leave for the fall term. He is visiting at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs, doing research on the effectiveness of calculus reform courses in preparing math majors.
Officers of the Student MAA Chapter for the 1997-98 school year are: Michael Bradshaw, President; Kelenda Allen and Jason Neiser, Vice-Presidents; Emily Upton, Secretary/Treasurer; and Sarah Wolfe, Public Relations. Events for the year include: a pizza party with web page constuction, student research talks, a croquet match against the chemistry program, a math problem contest in the school paper, Mathematics Awareness Week activities, and a spring picnic. [Reported by John Wilson-- wilson@centre.edu]
Eastern Kentucky University -- Ruth Simms and Kay Black have joined the faculty as visiting instructors. Robert Buskirk was awarded tenure. James Brooks retired after several years of service. Dr. Smith Park, chair of the department from the early 1930s until 1966, died at the age of 99.
Faculty attended a development seminar on October 2. Speakers discussed the state of high school education to answer two questions: (1) What can we expect an incoming freshman to know? (2) What do we need to teach our mathematics teaching majors?
This past April, fourteen students went with Pat Costello to the national Kappa Mu Epsilon convention in Springfield, Missouri. Elizabeth Barrett, a junior, gave a talk entitled, "The Language of Mathematics: Teaching in the Proximal Zone." C. E. Davis, a graduate student, gave a talk entitled, "An Algorithmic Method for the Construction of a 4 by 4 Magic Square Consisting Only of Prime Numbers." At the meeting, Pat Costello was installed as President of KME. In September, faculty and students had a picnic at Lake Reba Park.
At the Fall Conference of KCTM to be held on November 7 in Lexington, fifteen participants from EKU will join Mike Freeman of the University of Kentucky to present a panel discussion of the MathExcel program. Members of the panel include students from current and previous MathExcel classes, along with those who have attended the workshop on collaborative learning which is held annually in Austin, Texas. MathExcel is an elective laboratory course which accompanies the Calculus sequence. Each week, the students have two 2-hour sessions where they collaboratively solve challenging problems from the worksheets provided each session. [Reported by Margaret Yoder--yoder@eagle.eku.edu]
Georgetown College -- Christine Leverenz has been promoted to Professor from Associate Professor. Austin French was on sabbatical leave this past spring. He used this time to write a discrete mathematics text and a college algebra text that are in use this fall. Ann Heard is on sabbatical leave during the fall semester.
The Student MAA Chapter, in conjunction with the Student ACM Chapter, held their annual welcome-here and welcome-back picnic for all math/physics/computer science students. For the first time, it rained, and the picnic was held in the Science Center with grilling on the side door stoop; good food and good times prevailed. The group also met in October and has monthly meetings scheduled for the rest of the year. [Reported by Chris Leverenz--cleveren@gtc.georgetown.ky.us]
Hazard Community College -- Joining the faculty are Raymond Kuezinke--Assistant Professor--Ph.D., Oklahoma State University, and Sharon Stewart--Instructor--M.S., State University of New York at Geneseo. [Reported by Dianne Adams-- daadams@ukcc.uky.edu]
Lees College Campus of Hazard Community College -- Judy Penington-Price has joined the faculty. [Reported by Calvin Gillett--ccgille@pop.uky.edu]
Midway College -- Deborah Stoops has joined the math faculty on a temporary assignment as Instructor. She holds an M.A. degree from the University of Kentucky. Sarah H. Laws has taken the assignment of Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the College. She will return to her original position when a new Vice President is named. [Reported by Martha L. Harris--mharris@midway.edu]
Morehead State University -- Joining the faculty are Tabitha Mingus--Assistant Professor--Ph.D., University of Northern Colorado, and Donald E. Spickler, Jr.-- Assistant Professor--Ph.D., University of Virginia. Thomas J. Klein received tenure and has been promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. Robert J. Lindahl has retired after 27 years of service.
Three MSU students presented at the Miami (Ohio) conference: Katie Evans, on semi- groups, Eric Hudson on the TI-92, and Brian Lewis on surface approximations. Katie Evans was a participant in the Research Experience for Undergraduates in Mathematics at Lousiana State University this past summer. [Reported by Gordon Nolen-- g.nolen@morehead-st.edu]
Murray State University -- Joining the faculty is Rob Donnelly--Assistant Professor-- Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research area is combinatorics. Also joining the department is April Ross--Lecturer, M.A., Murray State University. Hosae Lee and Ed Thome have been awarded tenure. Harold Robertson has retired after 31 years of service.
Renee Fister has been selected as a Project NExT fellow. Mike Prophet has been awarded a Presidential Research Fellowship. [Reported by Bob Pervine-- bpervine@math.mursuky.edu]
Northern Kentucky University -- Kevin Kerby has been awarded tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. Chuck Frank has been elected President of the Faculty Senate. Daniel Curtin has been appointed Acting Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Lisa Elderbrock has been named a Project NexT fellow. Kevin Kerby was named Outstanding Young Professor. [Reported by Peter Moore-- moorep@nku.edu]
Owensboro Community College -- Joining the faculty this year are Jeanette Ward-- Instructor--M.A., Indiana University, Ellen B. (Missie) Jones--Instructor--M.S., Western Kentucky University and Vickie Curtis--Instructor--M.S., Western Kentucky University. Kathy Mowers has been promoted from Associate Professor to Professor. Kathy Mowers is on sabbatical during the 1997-98 academic year. [Reported by Kathy Mowers--mowersk@aol.com]
Paducah Community College -- Joining the faculty is Gary Goodaker--Instructor-- M.S., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. [Reported by Jackie Blagg-- jwblag0@ukcc.uky.edu]
Pikeville College -- Joining the faculty is Bernadine Cochran--Instructor--M.A., East Tennessee State University. [Reported by John W. Legge--legge@kymtnnet.org]
St. Catherine College -- Sr. Ann F. Leonard is now serving as Math/Science Division Chair. [Reported by Sr. Ann F. Leonard]
Somerset Community College -- Neleta Jeffries has retired after 26 years of service at SCC. [Reported by Roger Angevine--rlange00@pop.uky.edu]
Transylvania University -- Joining the computer science faculty is Kenneth Moorman--Assistant Professor--Ph.D., Georgia Institute of Technology. His area of research is artificial intelligence. [Reported by David Shannon-- dshannon@mail.transy.edu]
University of Louisville -- Joining the faculty this year is Manav Das--Assistant Professor--Ph.D., Ohio State University. He recently completed a year as a postdoctoral lecturer at OSU. The title of his dissertation was "Pointwise Local Dimensions," and his research interests include fractals/multifractals and geometric measure theory. Matt Scobee--Ph.D., University of Kentucky, has a one-year postdoctoral position. His dissertation was in matroid theory, and his interests include graph theory, matroid theory and oriented matroid theory. Keith Kearnes--Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley joins the department as Visiting Assistant Professor. He held a Humboldt Fellowship for two years and is interested in algebra and logic.
Udayan Darji, Andre Kezdy and Chi Wang have been awarded tenure and were promoted to Associate Professor. Richard Davitt, Inessa Levi, Kzrysztof Ostaszewski and Ron Sahoo have been promoted to Professor. [Reported by Wiley Williams-- wwwill01@homer.louisville.edu]
Western Kentucky University -- Joining the department in statistics is Scott Richter-- Assistant Professor--Ph.D., Oklahoma State University. Shirley Wildermuth--M.S., Murray State University is coordinating the math program at our Glasgow campus this year. Bettina Richmond and John Spraker have been promoted from Associate Professor to Professor; Doug Mooney and Randy Swift have been promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor. Mark Robinson has been granted tenure.
Bruce Kessler, who had been coordinating the math program at our Glasgow campus, received his Ph.D. in Mathematics at Vanderbilt University in 1997 and is now teaching on the main campus as an Assistant Professor. Pat Hooper has started full- time retirement after 30 years of service, but she is continuing to teach for the department on a part-time basis. John Jander, a retired WKU math faculty member, passed away in August.
In May, over 30 mathematics faculty from Kentucky and surrounding states attended the New Horizons workshop, co-directed by Wanda Weidemann and Mary Barr Humphrey of WKU. Representatives of the Kentucky Department of Education and Educational Testing Service led the group in discussions of the PRAXIS examination (required for teacher certification) and mathematics portfolios for grades 5, 8, and 11. Dr. Don Ryoti of Eastern Kentucky University also led a session on using Logo to teach recursion.
The Department of Mathematics at WKU was one of seven sites to host the PRISM Secondary Mathematics Initiative last summer. About 40 high school teachers participated in the one-week workshop. The title of this year's WKU Mathematics Symposium, held on October 17-18, was "Bringing Mathematics To Life: Technology and Applications Throughout the Curriculum." The featured speakers were Ed Packel of Lake Forest College, John Emert of Ball State University, and Western math faculty David Neal and Claus Ernst.
Wanda Weidemann was the recipient of a 1997 Mathematics Education Service and Achievement (MESA) Award from the Kentucky Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the advancement of mathematics excellence in Kentucky. Randy Swift received this year's Award for Research in WKU's Ogden College of Science, Technology, and Health. [Reported by Mark Robinson--robinson@wku.edu]
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