Fall 2006 Newsletter

From the Chair Call for KYMAA Nominations
From the Chair-Elect The Annual KYMAA Meeting
From the Student Chapters Coordinator KYMAA Visiting Lecturer Program
The Governor's Corner
KYMAA Teaching Award News from the Chapters!!!
Henry L. Adler Teaching Award

From the Chair

If you have ever wondered what is done with all those evaluation forms that you fill out at meetings let me assure you that each one is read and comments are shared with all members of the executive committee.  We use them to help us decide on specific speakers or types of talks for future meetings (“talks geared to students or research”; “something on math and biology”).  We use them to make adjustments to the schedule of the meeting (“fewer parallel sessions”; “more time for the book room”).  Here are a few comments that let you know what some of those attending thought of the meeting:

·         The addition of Kentucky NExT is excellent!

·         Thank you! This conference was so personally inspiring to me!  I have suddenly envisioned several major plans that I hope to implement because of the experience.

·         The atmosphere was wonderful.  It was very relaxed and cheerful.  I loved the conference and will definitely be attending again.

I must thank all my colleagues here at Centre who made sure all the details of the meeting were carried out smoothly.  Clearly this is something you do not want to miss next spring.  I want to particularly urge faculty members who are new to Kentucky to come. 

As approved at our business meeting last spring we have amended our bylaws to split the office of secretary-treasurer into two offices.  The new bylaws were approved by the Board of Governors at the MathFest in August and thus go into effect.  In an effort to get our officer elections on a balanced schedule we will elect our first treasurer in spring 2007 for a 4 year term.  All subsequent elections of Treasurer will take place in years numbered 3k+1 for a 3 year term. If you want to read our new and approved bylaws you will find them here.

In addition to the Treasurer’s position we will hold elections for Vice-Chair and for Chair-Elect as well as Newsletter Editor at our spring meeting.  Look for more information about opportunities to become involved as an officer in the KYMAA in the Call for Nominations section of this newsletter.  You may read descriptions of these officer positions in the bylaws.   Please let me know if you or someone you know is interested in serving the section in any of these offices.  

I want to thank Renee Fister for her service as the State Liaison Coordinator for the last three years. Alex McAllister has agreed to do the coordinating for the next few years. He will be in touch with all the schools in the section to create an updated list of liaisons in the near future.

Finally I want to remind everyone to submit those nominations for the Kentucky Section's 2006 Distinguished Teaching Award. December 1 is the official deadline for submitting applications; more details can be found in the Distinguished Teaching Award section later on in this newsletter.

John Wilson at wilson@centre.edu
KYMAA Chair


From the Chair-Elect

Mark your calendars for our 2007 meeting at Northern Kentucky University on March 30-31, 2007. Our featured speakers will be

  • Austin French, Georgetown College, 2006 recipient of the section Distinguished Teaching Award
  • Aparna Higgins, University of Dayton, national Project NExT Co-Director
  • Bernd Sturmfels, UC Berkeley, MAA Pólya Lecturer

Again I look forward to a wide selection of contributed talks from faculty members and students. It is always nice to discover the variety and extent of mathematics being done in Kentucky. The deadline for abstracts is about 5 months away, so you still have plenty of time to plan to for a contributed talk.

I hope to see you at NKU!

Tom Richmond at Tom.Richmond@wku.edu
KYMAA Chair-Elect


From the Student Chapters Coordinator

Hello, students.

My name is Mike Dobranski, and I'm the new Student Chapters Coordinator for the KYMAA. I hope your fall term is going well so far. If your institution does not have a student chapter or a math club, talk to your professors about starting one. I will try to give you some ideas for activities that your chapter or club might offer.

Whether or not you have a chapter or club, there are several competitions you may want to attempt. The first competition is the Virginia Tech Regional Mathematics Competition (VTRMC). You need to have a faculty member who is willing to register your institution and proctor the exam. Information is available from http://www.math.vt.edu/events/competitions/Vtregional/. Institutional registration is due by Wednesday, October 4, and the competition will take place on Saturday, October 28 at your institution. The second competition is the Sixty-Seventh Annual William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. Information is available from http://math.scu.edu/putnam/index.html. The faculty advisor needs to request a registration packet as soon as possible in order to return the registration materials by Friday, October 13. The competition will take place at your institution on Saturday, December 2.

The final competition that I'll mention is the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) and the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM).  These are weekend long competitions that run for an entire weekend.  This year the competition starts on Thursday, February 8 and ends on Monday, February 12. This competition is for three-student teams. Your institution may have more than one team, but a student may be on only one team and each team works on only one problem. More information is available from http://www.comap.com/undergraduate/contests/mcm/.

Students who are planning to go to graduate school in fall 2007 should be preparing to apply. Application deadlines may be as early as November for the most competitive programs. Ask your professors for recommendation letters as soon as possible so they have time to write good letters. If you'll still be an undergraduate in the 2007-2008 school year, you should consider applying for REU's for summer 2007.

It is great to see that our Student Chapters and Mathematics Clubs are very active. Northern Kentucky University has a lunch for majors and a chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon. At Asbury College, the department chair hosts a monthly social called Math First Friday for their math majors. At Centre College, there is a Math Enthusiasts group, a croquet match between the mathematicians and the chemists, and Pizza and Problems sessions. Here at Morehead State University, our Math & CS Club meets every other Wednesday for supper and an activity. Some of the activities have been Game Night (with chess, Mastermind, Set, etc.), Movie Night (with "Proof", "Hackers", or other mathematics or computer science related movie), or a guest lecture in mathematics or computer science.

I look forward to hearing about more great activities that your departments host. I hope you continue to have a great fall term!

Mike Dobranski at m.dobranski@morehead-st.edu
KYMAA Student Chapters Coordinator


The Governor's Corner

Knoxville was a great meeting, though I was glad to be driving home, not flying under the new rules put in place while the meeting was underway. There were over 100 pages of agenda, plus a small pile of handouts. I can only mention a few highlights here. Please call on me if you have questions about any MAA matter. I may well not know the answer, but I will try to find out.

The MAA is in good shape for membership and also financially. In summary we have more than 24,000 members, around $8 million in operating budget, $7.5 million in endowments, $7.5 million in building and $6 million in grants. A large gift form Paul and Virginia Halmos is funding the renovation of the historic Carriage House at MAA HQ. there is a link from the MAA homepage, if you would like to see pictures and descriptions of the work. Plans are underway for a grand opening this year.

The winter meeting will be in New Orleans January 5-8, 2007. It will be a great meeting as always, and a chance to give battered NO some needed business.  See http://www.maa.org/meetings/national_meetings.html for more details.

Our section NExT program is well launched. . A section can also sponsor a national NExT Fellow for around $2500. At the moment this is prohibitive for KYMAA, but if it was thought worthwhile we could seek funding.

All MAA members are asked to consider joining one of the many MAA committees. Please see http://www.maa.org/committees/ for a presentation of opportunities. In particular the MAA is committed to a continuing process of strategic planning. The current for planning are Governance, Membership, and Student Activities.

MAA Online just keeps getting better. Be sure to check out Classroom Capsules Online and MAA Reviews Online.

Our KYMAA Bylaws changes were accepted.

The MAA will be 100 years old in 2015. Plans are underway for a big celebration location TBA, Our section is one of the oldest, two years younger than the MAA, I believe, so we should also be thinking of a celebration in 2017. Some sections are writing section histories, ours among them. There is an idea to pull them together into a history of the MAA. This task has tentatively been delegated to HOMSIGMAA, the MAA special interest group in the History of Mathematics (of which I am now Chair.)

This is just a taste of all the activities of the MAA. There is plenty to do in our great organization.

Dan Curtin at curtin@nku.edu
KYMAA Governor


KYMAA Teaching Award - Call for Nominations

In 1991, the MAA created the Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics in order to honor college or university teachers who have been widely recognized as extraordinarily successful and whose teaching effectiveness has been shown to have had influence beyond their own institutions. In 1993 the MAA Board of Governors renamed the award to honor Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo. Each year at most three college or university teachers are honored with this national award, each of whom is honored at the National MAA meeting and receives a $1,000 award and certificate. The KYMAA gives an annual teaching award, and the winner of our section award is automatically considered a nominee for the national Haimo Award. Most winners are chosen from among these (from either the current or the previous year), but the committee will also consider direct nominations from MAA members. Nominations for the Kentucky Section's 2007 Distinguished Teaching Award are now being accepted. The Kentucky Section Selection Committee will choose one of the nominees for the Section Award. The awardee will be honored at the KYMAA Annual Meeting in Spring 2007. The awardee will also be the official Kentucky Section candidate for the pool of teachers from which the national recipients of the MAA Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics will be selected, although the committee does also consider direct nominations from MAA members. More information on the award, past winners, and nomination instructions can be found on the national MAA website ate: http://www.maa.org/awards/haimo.html. Past winners of the KYMAA Distinguished Teaching Award can be found at: http://www.maa.org/kentucky/teaching.html

We urge you to submit a nomination of someone who is eligible and qualified in your department. Even if the nominee is not selected this year, it is an honor to be 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.

Eligibility

  • College or university teachers assigned at least halftime during the academic year to teaching a mathematical science in a public or private college or university (from two-year college teaching through teaching at the Ph.D. level) in the United States or Canada. Those on approved leave (sabbatical or other) during the academic year in which they are nominated qualify if they fulfilled the requirements in the previous year.
  • At least five years teaching experience in a mathematical science.
  • Membership in the Mathematical Association of America.

Guidelines for Nomination

The nominees should:

  • be widely recognized as extraordinarily successful in their teaching*;
  • have teaching effectiveness that can be documented;
  • have had influence in their teaching beyond their own institutions**;
  • foster curiosity and generate excitement about mathematics in their students.

* "teaching" is to be interpreted in its broadest sense, not necessarily limited to classroom teaching (it may include activities such as preparing students for mathematical competitions at the college level--for example, the Putnam Prize Competition or the Mathematical Contest in Modeling--or attracting students to become majors in a mathematical science or to become Ph.D. candidates).

** "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 include the appropriate "Evidence of Extraordinary Success in Teaching," the first page of which is the "Nomination Form." Please follow the instructions on that form precisely to assure uniformity in the selection process both at the Section and National level. The form and instructions can be obtained at the MAA website: http://www.maa.org/awards/teachingawards.htm or via the following links:

If the Nomination Form is received by the Section Secretary by November 8, 2006, the Secretary will ask the nominee's Department Chair 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 1, 2006. 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 (electronic submissions preferred):

  • Leanne Faulkner at LeanneF@kwc.edu
    Department of Mathematics
    Kentucky Wesleyan College
    3000 Frederica St.
    Owensboro, KY 42302-1039

The 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, 2007, 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.

The committee to choose this year's distinguished teacher for KYMAA is:


Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching

Henry L. Alder Award for Distingushed Teaching by
A BEGINNING COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY MATHEMATICS FACULTY MEMBER

In January 2003 the MAA established the Henry L. Alder Award for Distinguished Teaching by a Beginning College or University Mathematics Faculty Member to honor beginning college or university faculty whose teaching has been extraordinarily successful and whose effectiveness in teaching undergraduate mathematics is shown to have influence beyond their own classrooms. An awardee must have taught full time in a mathematical science in the United States or Canada for at least two, but not more than seven, years since receiving the Ph.D. Each year at most three college or university teachers are to be honored with this national award and are to receive a $1,000 award and a certificate of recognition from the MAA. Award recipients will be expected to make a presentation at one of the national meetings of the MAA.

Nominations for the award may be made by any member of the MAA.

For more information, see http://www.maa.org/awards/alder_award.html.


Call for KYMAA Nominations

This spring we will be holding elections for Vice-Chair, Chair Elect, Newsletter Editor, and Treasurer.  All new officers will begin their terms at the Executive Committee Meeting immediately following the Annual Business Meeting in the spring.  The new Vice-Chair and Newsletter Editor will serve three-year terms.  The Chair Elect will serve for four years, two as Chair Elect and then two years as the Chair of the section.  The new Treasurer will serve for four years simply to balance out the future election schedule.  Subsequently the Treasurer’s term of office will be three years.      

If you have any questions about these positions, please feel free to contact the current people in these positions or read the “job descriptions” in our bylaws.

Please forward the name and affiliation of any Section member you would like to nominate for one of these offices to any member of the Nominating Committee. Self-nominations are entirely appropriate.


The Annual KYMAA Meeting

Our 2007 KYMAA Annual Meeting is scheduled for March 30-31, 2007 at Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, Kentucky. Further information will be appearing on our 2007 Annual Meeting and 2007 Meeting Program webpages in the coming months.

Some of the relevant dates and deadlines:

  • February 2, 2007 - Call for Contributed Papers in Winter Newsletter
  • February 26, 2007 - Deadline for Abstracts for Contributed Papers
  • March 12, 2007 - Publication of Meeting Program on KYMAA website
  • March 16, 2007 - Deadline for Meeting Registration
  • March 30 - 31, 2007 - Mathematics and Fun at the Annual Meeting!

Our schedule of hosts for future section meetings is:

March 30 - 31, 2007 Northern Kentucky University
Spring 2008   Western Kentucky University
Spring 2009    Your school's name here?

Please contact any officer of KYMAA if you would be interested in hosting a future meeting.


KYMAA Visiting Lecturer Program

We would like to remind everyone of the Visiting Lecturer Program for KYMAA. We have compiled a list of those willing to give visiting lectures, the titles of those lectures, a short bio of the speaker, and contact information. This list also includes speakers willing to speak at high schools. You are invited to consider our list of speakers on the webpage for the KYMAA Visiting Lecturer Program

Lectures are undergraduate accessible, but not necessarily freshman/sophomore accessible (talks are designated as accessible to high school students). Being listed does not obligate a speaker to accept invitations, but participants are willing to travel within a reasonable radius of their home institutions. Participants do 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.

We are still looking for speakers to include on our list of visiting lecturers; those interested in being visiting lecturers should e-mail their information to either: Kathryn Lewis of Morehead State University at k.lewis@moreheadstate.edu or Daylene Zielinski of Bellarmine University at dzielinski@bellarmine.edu. Please send them 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.


News from the Chapters

Asbury College reported by David Coulliette at david.coulliette@asbury.edu

We had four faculty members and one student attend MathFest 06 in Knoxville on 10-12 August. David Coulliette (faculty) made a presentation on classroom techniques for teaching finite difference solution of boundary value problems at the session on 'A good approximation to a numerical analysis course'.

We welcomed our new and returning students at our September 'Math First Friday' social. The theme was 'Pocket Protector Pirates of the Polynomials'. We had a great time and many students wore clever costumes.

Bellarmine University  reported by Bill Fenton at wfenton@bellarmine.edu

Bill Rising is leaving Bellarmine University to become director of education for the Stata Corporation in College Station, Texas.  Daylene Zielinski, with her collaborator James Mai of Illinois State University, gave two talks this summer at the Bridges Conference in London (England, not Kentucky). She is one of the founding editors of the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, which will begin publication in 2007.
Bill Fenton, with his collaborator Sr. Barbara Reynolds of Cardinal Stritch University, hosted an MAA-PREP workshop at Bellarmine on teaching college geometry with The Geometer's Sketchpad and cooperative learning.

Junior Charles Fahringer spent a successful summer at Clemson University on an REU. Senior Dan Kelch scored a 10 (the maximum possible score) on the first actuarial exam.

Centre College reported by John Wilson at john.wilson@centre.edu

Ken Dutch has taken a job at EKU this year after 5 years of teaching at Centre in a temporary position while Bill Johnston was serving as Associate Dean. This year we are happy to welcome Art Moore back into the math classroom as he takes a partial leave from being Director of Information Technology Services on campus. Alex McAllister begins his term as the new chair of the math program this fall. New officers for the student math association are Josh Qualls, Mandy Smith, Leah Campbell, Sara DeSanctis, and Rachel Stamper.

Eastern Kentucky University reported by Dirk Schlingmann at Dirk.schlingmann@eku.edu

We have several new faculty members:

Vincent Castellana: Assistant Professor, PhD, Auburn University
Jason Gibson: Assistant Professor, PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.
Mary Liu: Assistant Professor, PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.
Pat Coen: Lecturer, MA, West Virginia University.
Ken Dutch: Lecturer, PhD, Stanford University

Mathew Cropper was promoted to Associate Professor last year and received tenure this year. Robert Thomas received tenure.

We have three retirements to report: Paul Bland, who served 37 years; Betty Givan, who served 25 years; and Don Ryoti, who served 29 years.

Shane Redmond and Pat Costello gave Math presentations at the MathFest in Knoxville, TN.

EKU’s 21st Annual Symposium in the Mathematical, Statistical and Computer Sciences will be held on March 23, 2007.

Hopkinsville Community College reported by James Hunter at james.hunter@kctcs.edu

Hopkinsville Community College has a new math instructor, Meha Darooka, who has an MA in Mathematics and an MBA from Marshall University and is a member of Pi Mu Epsilon.

Morehead State University reported by Kathy Lewis at k.lewis@moreheadstate.edu

We have two new faculty members:

Biswajit Panja, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, is finishing his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Missouri-Rolla this semester.

Sherif Rashad, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, is finishing his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Louisville this semester.

We have one faculty member with a new assignment:  Christie Perry, previously Teacher-in-Residence, now Assistant Professor of Mathematics, is finishing her Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from the University of Louisville this semester.

Charlie Jones, who had retired from Morehead State as an Associate Professor of Mathematics in 1986 with 24 years of service, returned to MSU as an Instructor of Mathematics in 2001 for 5 additional years of service and retired from MSU a second time at the end of the 2005-2006 academic year.

Six students, along with several mathematics faculty members, attended the MAA MathFest this August in Knoxville, Tennessee.

The Friday Afternoon Mathematics, Computer Science, and Statistics Seminar meets from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. in Lappin Hall at Morehead State University. Faculty and students from other institutions are encouraged to attend as well. The schedule can be found by clicking on the “seminar” link on the MSU Mathematics and Computer Science Department’s web page (http://www.moreheadstate.edu/mcs/).

Murray State University reported by K. Renee Fister at renee.fister@murraystate.edu

Dubravko Ivansic, Chris Mecklin, Kelly Pearson, and Tan Zhang received tenure and promotion to associate professor.

Maeve L. McCarthy, Associate Professor, had a research sabbatical in the Spring semester of 2006.

Our Euclidean Mathematics Club initiated a student colloquium series. There were several talks given by graduate students and undergraduates on chaos theory, geometrical design, and mathematical education.

Several members of the department have published literally dozens of papers in national and international journals focusing on mathematical research or the teaching of mathematics. A few examples of these journals are SIAM Journal of Applied Mathematics, Algebraic and Geometric Topology, Algebra Colloquium, and MSU Teaching Chronicles. The department is involved in several grant activities. An NSF grant, Biology and Mathematics in Population Studies, involves Drs. Fister, McCarthy, Mecklin, and Roach from the mathematics department and three biology professors, Drs. Derting, Gerlanc, and Whiteman. These faculty members serve as mentors on interdisciplinary projects for undergraduate students with mathematical and biological emphases. Two recent grants involve multiple faculty members within the department and across the university. These grants are funded by Microsoft and Hewlett Packard and are to enhance learning through technology associated with Tablet PCs.

Dr. Maeve McCarthy became the eighth member of our department to receive the Presidential Research Fellowship given by the Committee on Institutional Research at Murray State University. Dr. Ed Thome has completed his second year as President of Faculty Senate. Many members of our department continue to give their time and talents to many activities, such as Advisory Board of KY Early mathematics testing program, Postsecondary Placement Policy Committee of the KY Council on Mathematics Alliance, Tiered Mentoring Project associate with the KY Department of Education, AWM summer workshops co-organizers, MAA and SIAM committees, and colloquia at regional, national, and international venues.

Northern Kentucky University reported by Steve Rankin at rankin@nku.edu

We have several new faculty members:

Brooke Buckley, Assistant Professor, with a PhD in Statistics from the University of South Carolina.

Dhanuja Kasturiratna, Assistant Professor, with a PhD in Statistics from Bowling Green State University.

Bethany Noblitt, Assistant Professor, who is finishing a PhD in Mathematics Education at the University of Cincinnati.

Theodore Hodgson, currently Professor of Mathematics Education at Montana State University, will be joining the department in Fall, 2007.

Andy Long is on sabbatical in Haiti for the 06/07 academic year.

Tom Kearns is retiring at the end of Spring, 2007, after a distinguished career in the department spanning thirty-two years. Tom served as chair of the department from 19761986 and 20002002. He has also been the NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative since 1984.

The department now has a new chapter of the Pi Mu Epsilon society, the Kentucky Zeta Chapter. The chapter received its charter on September 18, 2006.  The inaugural student members of Pi Mu Epsilon are: Marla Cordray, Keri Finnell, Joe Gastenvald, Brandon Hanks, Robert Hastings, Jacqueline Hon, Kevin Hoppins, Jennifer Lamb (President), John Joseph Miller, Jeremy Oder, Bernadina Rawe, Kathy Steffen, Elizabeth Whittle. The inaugural faculty members are: Dr. Chris Christensen (Faculty Advisor and Permanent Faculty Correspondent), Dr. Gail Mackin and Dr. Carl Miller.

Brian Winkel, Professor of Mathematics at the United States Military Academy, West Point, NY and Editor of the Journals, PRIMUS and Cryptologia, will present the 2006 Sehnert Lecture on Monday, October 9, at 7:30 p.m. in the Otto Budig Theater in the University Center. The title of his lecture is “Cipher Busting by Edgar Allen Poe, Jules Verne, William F. Friedman - and Beyond.”
For further details, contact Dr. Dan Curtin (curtin@nku.edu).

The 13th annual John O’Bryan mathematics contest will be held at Campbell County High School on Saturday, November 12. Between 100 and 125 students from about 15 local schools are expected to participate. Questions for the contest come from the Rose-Hulman Institute’s High School mathematics test, and NKU provides a written team test as well as graders and judges for the contest. For further details contact Dr. Don Krug (krugd@nku.edu).

University of Kentucky reported by Carl Lee at lee@ms.uky.edu

Alan Demlow, a numerical analyst who received his doctorate from Cornell University in 2002, will join the faculty as a tenure-track assistant professor in fall 2006. After his graduation from Cornell, Dr. Demlow was a visiting assistant professor at Cornell in 2002-2003 and a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, Research Associate, and Guest Scientist at the University of Freiburg in Germany from 2003 to 2006. Dr. Demlow studies finite element methods for the numerical solution of partial differential equations.

Heide Glüsing-Lüerssen, a specialist in algebraic coding theory, will join our faculty as a tenure-track assistant professor in the spring of 2006. She received her doctorate from the University of Bremen in 1991 and her Habilitation from the University of Oldenburg. An accomplished senior scientist with over forty research publications, Dr. Glüsing-Lüerssen is also an associate editor for the SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization.

Professor Ronald Gariepy retired last spring after thirty-six years of service. A research conference and dinner with keynote speakers and longtime colleagues Robert Jensen (Loyola University of Chicago), William Ziemer (Indiana University), and Emmanuelle DiBenedetto (Vanderbilt University) was held in Ron’s honor on May 5, 2006.

Vassily Gorbounov has accepted a chaired professorship at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Vassily joined the faculty as an assistant professor in 1995, was promoted to associate professor in 1995, and became a full professor in 2005. During his tenure here he achieved international prominence for pioneering mathematical work with close connections to quantum field theory and string theory. He graduated one doctoral student, Daniel Pinzon. Ren-Cang Li has accepted a tenured professorship at the University of Texas at Arlington. Rencang came to the University of Kentucky as an assistant professor in 1995. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2001. During his tenure at the University of Kentucky he was also a consultant to Hewlett-Packard, helping to develop software for the HP’s Itanium chip and for HP calculators. Mary Liu, Director of the Mathematics Resource Center, has successfully defended her Ph.D thesis and has accepted a position at Eastern Kentucky University as an assistant professor.

Richard Ehrenborg was promoted to full professor beginning July 2006.

The Department of Mathematics is an integral partner in UK’s AMSTEMM (Appalachian and Minority Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Majors) program to recruit, retain and graduate Appalachian and minority students in the science, technology, and engineering (STEM) disciplines. Mathematics faculty member Carl Eberhart is a co-principal investigator on the National Science Foundation grant that is funding this program. In June 2006, minority and Appalachian high school juniors attended a one-week program where they met UK faculty and staff, took Math preparation workshops, visited science and engineering laboratories, and toured the Toyota Motor and Manufacturing plant in Georgetown, Kentucky. Students also enjoyed the Woodsongs Old Time Radio Hour at the Kentucky Theatre in downtown Lexington. These recruits will be closely advised and mentored throughout their undergraduate years. You can learn more about the AMSTEMM program at the UK website www.uky.edu/AMSTEMM/

University of Louisville reported by Wiley Williams at williams@erdos.math.louisville.edu

We are happy to announce that Dr. Hamid Kulosman has joined us this year as tenure-track Assistant Professor. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and is working on commutative algebra and its applications. He has post-doctoral experience at UC Riverside and UofL and industrial experience in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and was a coach for the Yugoslavian Math Olympiad team.

Prof. Yongzhi (Steve) Xu was appointed internship director.

Prof. Manabendra Das will be on sabbatical for the 2006-07 academic year.

Prof. George Barnes retired after 30 years of service.

Please see our web-site www.math.louisville.edu for seminar, colloquium and Bullitt Lecture announcements.

Western Kentucky University reported by Mark Robinson at mark.robinson@wku.edu

Peter Hamburger (PhD, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary) joins the department this year as our new Department Head. Dr. Hamburger comes to us from Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne, IN.

Also joining our department as tenure-track faculty this year are Constance (CC) Edwards (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) as an Associate Professor and Di Wu (PhD, Iowa State University) as an Assistant Professor. Hope Marchionda (ABD, Clemson University) is now a full-time Instructor. In addition, Tilak Bhattacharya (PhD, Purdue University) is a Visiting Assistant Professor this year.

James B. Barksdale, Jr., begins Optional Retirement this year after 38 years of service.

The 26th annual WKU Mathematics Symposium will be held November 17-18, 2006. This year's title is "A Tour Through Mathematics...Approximately." Invited speakers are Joseph Gallian from University of Minnesota Duluth and Larry Schumaker from Vanderbilt University. This year we again will have funds available through MAA NSF-RUMC (NSF Grant DMS-0241090) to support student travel and lodging. The call for papers and more information is available at www.mathsymposium.com.

West Kentucky Community and Technical College  reported by Rhonda Adkins at Rhonda.Adkins@kctcs.edu

Jason Taylor was promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor of Mathematics.  Rhonda Adkins was promoted from Associate Professor to Professor of Mathematics.

Gary Goodaker, Associate Professor of Mathematics, received the Phelps Award for Excellence in Teaching, an endowment award presented to a faculty member on the campus of West Kentucky Community & Technical College.