Winter 2001 Newsletter
From the Chair
Nominations: At the next annual meeting, we will hold elections for three officers: Chair-Elect, Vice-Chair (3 years), and Student Chapters Coordinator (3 years). Please let one of the section officers know if you would like to suggest someone. For more information see Call for KYMAA Nominations below.University of Kentucky: Our next section meeting will be held April 6 - 7, 2001 at the University of Kentucky. Soon there will be a webpage for the meeting with information on proposal deadlines, registration, hotels, and directions to the University of Kentucky. Dave Shannon, our chair-elect, from Transylvania University, has more about the meeting below at: The Annual KYMAA Meeting. Please think about presenting a paper at the meeting - March 2nd is the deadline for submitting an abstract.
I look forward to seeing you in April in Lexington on the University of Kentucky campus.
Ray Tennant
Chair for KYMAA
The Annual KYMAA Meeting
The 2001 Annual Meeting for KYMAA will be be held April 6 - 7, 2001 at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. This should be an outstanding meeting and we strongly encourage you to join the fun. Perhaps you can give a talk, or just come and listen to what your fellow mathematicians are up to these days.More information is provided below, including a description of the invited talks, a call for papers, information for students, and the various meeting forms.
We are presently assembling information to facilitate your attendence of the meeting, including directions, and lodging and meal information. This information will be available through this site soon, and will appear in the next newsletter in early March.
The Invited Talks
The short course on Friday afternoon will be conducted by Professor Michael Freeman of the University of Kentucky. The title of the course is How Can Mathematicians Help Prepare Secondary Math Teachers? Professor Freeman's answer:| |
By teaching them mathematics, of course. But what do they really need to learn? Yet more abstract content or how to enjoy and think like a pro at all levels of math? Many aspiring teachers have been scarred by less than happy experiences in fast-paced upper-level math courses. What can we do to restore their confidence and their pleasure as participants? We need teachers who actually like math, who take the same pleasure we do in acquiring and expressing its ideas with clarity and precision. I will offer and demonstrate an approach that seemed to work recently in a special course for teachers at UK. I found a few topics that were relatively accessible and especially good vehicles for learning how to enjoy and explore mathematical ideas. I intend to stimulate discussion and sharing. Participants are encouraged to bring their own ideas and experience. | |
On Friday evening, the invited talk will be given by Professor Edward Barbeau from the University of Toronto. Professor Barbeau received his doctorate in functional analysis at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in England in 1964, and has been in Toronto since 1967. For many years, he has been interested in mathematics education, mathematical enrichment and competitions. He has served on the problems committees for the Canadian Mathematical Olympiad and the Putnam Competition and was the Academic Chairman when the IMO was held in Toronto in 1995. His publications include Polynomials (Springer-Verlag), Power Play (MAA) and Mathematical Fallacies, Flaws and Flimflam (MAA). He was named Distinguished Educator by the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, was presented with the David Hilbert Award from the World Federation of National Mathematics Competitions and received the Adrien Pouliot award for contributions to mathematics education from the Canadian Mathematical Society. He has given short courses on Problem Solving and Lagrange Multipliers for the Mathematical Association of America. The title of his talk is The Problem Setter. Professor Barbeau explains:
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Preparing problems for competitions and training can be a lot of fun. But it is also quite a challenge. There is now an enormous literature of problems, generally poorly indexed, and it is hard to come up with something new, or even something new to the students, who thanks to modern communication can range widely over source material. I will talk about some of my experiences, describe some of the pitfalls, and share some of my favorite problems. However, these experiences have affected the way I deal with all students, not just the talented ones writing contests. | |
The featured speaker on Saturday morning will be Professor Georgia Benkart from the University of Wisconsin. Professor Benkart is currently a George Polya Lecturer for the MAA. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University, the 29th of Nathan Jacobson's 33 students. Her main research interests are Lie algebras and groups, representation theory, and combinatorics. At the annual meeting in January, 1994, Professor Benkart gave the AMS-MAA Invited Hour Address, "A Tale of Two Groups," which "told in Dickensian fashion the story begun 80 years ago by Issai Schur tying the knot between the symmetric groups and the general linear groups of invertible matrices." In 1987, Professor Benkart received the University of Wisconsin's highest prize for distinguished teaching. She has been an editor of the Journal of Algebra since 1991 and serves on the editorial board of the AMS's Surveys and Monographs series. The title of her talk is Algebras That Go Up and Down. The talk, based on recent research interests of Professor Benkart, is described as follows:
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A partially ordered set has its ups and downs. That is, on any set with a partial order there is an up operator and a down operator. Sometimes these operators behave so nicely that they act like the operators in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. You can be certain that during this talk will be one of those times. |
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In addition to these events, members of the MAA are invited to attend the:
MathExcel Celebration
A Conference and Workshop at UK in conjunction with the KYMAA meeting on
Saturday, April 7.
MathExcel and similar Excel programs in science are collaborative workshops in support of fundamental courses in math and science. Excel students volunteer for scheduled group study in a communal and supportive atmosphere. MathExcel and its adaptations have been operating for several years at UK, LCC, and several other schools in Kentucky and elsewhere. They have demonstrated substantial advantages in both grades and retention.
Uri Treisman, a nationally known educator and the originator of this model, will be the keynote speaker on Saturday afternoon. This Conference will bring together faculty, students, and other interested education professionals to review the successes and challenges of MathExcel programs nationwide. It will feature successful programs in Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Oregon. Hear from Leaders of these programs how they have adapted the model to their own campuses. Learn how to initiate, organize, and manage one. See how you can have fun offering your own students the same opportunity for superior achievement. This conference is supported by UK and the Kentucky Council for Postsecondary Education.
Call for Papers
One of the main activities of each annual meeting is the presentation of papers by faculty and students. Please consider giving a talk at this year's meeting. Use this opportunity to share with colleagues mathematical ideas and insights, an interesting mathematical application or an effective teaching innovation. For students, consider reporting on an honor's project or a summer research project. A panel presentation on current mathematical issues is always interesting.For both faculty and students, if you wish to make a presentation, fill out the Presentation Abstract Form and submit by March 2, 2001. A copy of the form can be obtained below under Forms for the Meeting. In general, talks are scheduled for 20-minute intervals. (Special presentations can be allocated if a longer time is necessary.) It is important to note any special needs and a time preference on this form. Submit the Presentation Abstract Form by either regular mail, e-mail, or fax to:
Transylvania University
300 North Broadway
Lexington, KY 40508-1797
e-mail: dshannon@transy.edu
fax: 859-233-8171
Hey Students
We have some fun things planned for the meeting for students and we'd love to have you join as at the meeting! Pizza will probably be involved and we'd love to have any of you present a paper or talk at the meeting. Students also have reduced rates - check out the registration forms via the links below...
Forms for the Meeting
Future KYMAA Meetings
Our schedule of hosts for future section meetings is:| 2001 |
University of Kentucky |
| 2002 |
Georgetown College |
Please contact any officer of KYMAA if you would interested in hosting a future meeting, we're always on the look out for a good meeting site. The following schools have already expressed an interest in hosting a future meeting:
- Bellarmine College
- Murray State University
Call for KYMAA Nominations
The terms of our current Chair-Elect, Vice-Chair, and Student Programs Coordinator will be expiring this spring, so we are seeking nominations for candidates for these offices. If you have any questions about these positions, please feel free to contact any of the current officers (see KYMAA Officers). In brief, the duties of each include:- Chair-Elect -- organizes program of annual meeting (initial 2 years) and becomes Chair for the following 2 years;
- Vice-Chair -- conducts survey and MAA booksale at annual meeting (3-year term);
- Student Programs Coordinator -- plans annual meeting events for students (3-year term).
- Lyn Miller at lyn.miller@wku.edu,
- Peter Moore at moore@nku.edu,
- Vivian F. Cyrus at v.cyrus@morehead-st.edu,
- Lillie Crowley at lillie@pop.uky.edu.
Elections will be held at the KYMAA Annual Spring Meeting, but we are hoping to collect nominations as soon as possible.
KYMAA Visiting Lecture Program - Call for Participants
We are starting a visiting lecture program for KYMAA. We will compile and publish (electronically and possibly hard-copy also) a list of those willing to give visiting lectures, the titles of those lectures, a short bio of the speaker, and contact information. We are also interested in submissions from those who would be willing to speak at high schools.Lectures should be undergraduate accessible, but not necessarily freshman/sophomore accessible (please indicate which talks are accessible to high school students). Being listed does not obligate a speaker to accept invitations, but participants should be willing to travel within a reasonable radius of their home institutions. Participants should not require or expect an honorarium from the host institution. However, the host institution is expected to take full responsibility for making all arrangements directly with the speaker, covering all travel expenses, publicizing the event, and acting as a host throughout the speaker's visit.
Those interested in being visiting lecturers should email their information to either: Dr. Kathryn Lewis of Morehead State University at k.lewis@morehead-st.edu or Dr. Daylene Zielinski of Bellarmine University at dzielinski@bellarmine.edu by February 23rd. Please send us the following information:
- Name as you wish it to appear,
- Title and Institution,
- Contact Information including: address, phone, email, fax, url,
- A short professional bio that gives some idea of your expertise; please limit your bio to a maximum of 150 words,
- Titles of lectures you are interested in giving; please indicate which talks are accessible to high school students.
The Governor's Corner
The Joint Mathematics Meeting was held in New Orleans January 10 - 14. The Board of Governor's met on January 9th and, as usual, had a long agenda of routine business, reports, and action items that required Board approval.Overall, the MAA is moving in a positive direction. Due to an increase in membership and several grants, the Association is able to provide more programs and services. As of November, 2000, MAA's total membership was 27,074 which is an increase of 4.52% over last year's total membership. Moreover, there were 53 new Institutional memberships. In order to continue current programs, add new programs, and provide better service, the Board approved a 3.5% dues increase for the 2002 year. Due to my concern that if dues get too high, people will have to choose among professional memberships, I voted against another increase so soon (4% in 2001); however, the increase passed by quite a large vote.
There were 16 new books published during the past year and I encourage you to add them to your personal and departmental libraries. The MAA continues to publish great books at a very reasonable cost to its members.
Coming soon to MAA Online is the Mathematical Sciences Digital Library (MathDL), an important new resource for mathematics faculty. The MathDL site will provide a catalog of commercial mathematics products with editorial reviews, online mathematics resources with reader reviews, and a new MAA publication, the Journal of Online Mathematics and Its Applications.
The MAA Online continues to thrive with more that 10,000 hits per day. Check it out at www.maa.org and our section site at www.maa.org/kentucky. There is a wealth of information at these sites.
The MAA has been involved with many initiatives. While too numerous to mention in totality, here are two that will potentially have strong impacts:
- A three year Professional Development program (funded by a NSF-CCLI grant) to offer faculty enhancement workshops covering a variety of topics such as career development and teaching undergraduate mathematical sciences.
- The CUPM project will lead to a Curriculum Guide for Undergraduate Programs. The CUPM conference report is out and the final curriculum guide will complement the recently completed Guide for Departments and Programs, which is on the web.
The Board approved the site for MathFest 2002 to be held in Burlington, Vermont, August 1-3. MathFest 2001 will be in Madison, Wisconsin, August 2 - 4 and I hope many of you will include it in your summer plans.
For those who like to plan ahead, here is a list of future Joint Meeting dates and locations. The January 2005 meeting is undetermined at this time.
- Jan. 6- 9, 2002 San Diego
- Jan. 15-18, 2003 Baltimore
- Jan. 7-10, 2004 Phoenix
- Jan. 12-15, 2006 San Antonio
Don Bennett
Governor for KYMAA