Fall 2007 Newsletter

From the Chair   Henry L. Adler Teaching Award
From the Chair-Elect Call for KYMAA Nominations
  From the Vice-Chair The Annual KYMAA Meeting
From the Student Chapters Coordinator Don Bennett Nominated for Meritorious Service Award
The Governor's Corner
KYMAA Teaching Award    News from the Chapters!!!

From the Chair

The MAA's website identifies it as "the largest professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level."

Making mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level requires a solid secondary preparation, and Kentucky is doing something great for our best and brightest high school students.

The first classes of Kentucky's Academy of Mathematics and Sciences began in August. Located on the campus of Western Kentucky University, the residential Academy provides a challenging curriculum for 60 high school juniors and 60 seniors. The Academy will be known as the Carol Martin Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Sciences in Kentucky, thanks to a generous donation of $4 million from Bristol, TN businessman C. M. "Bill" Gatton. The inaugural bunch of 120 students comes from 62 counties. The juniors will finish with a high school diploma and 60 hours of college credit. Tuition, housing, and board are covered by the state. One opportunity for KYMAA members to get more details on the aims and operation of the Academy will come at our March 28-29, 2008 meeting at WKU, which will include a panel discussion by Academy students, instructors, and administrators.

While the Academy's goals and successes are laudable, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that Kentucky must continue to do great things for all our high school and post-secondary students.

The KYMAA meetings are an excellent showcase of the accomplishments of students and faculty members across the state. Plans and ideas for the 2008 meeting were a major component of the September 8, 2007 meeting of the Executive Committee. We have some excellent speakers lined up, the Section NExT is thriving, and we will initiate a T-shirt design competition. As always, if you have suggestions for other activities which would enhance our meeting, please let any officer know.

Attendance was up at the 2007 meeting at NKU; we hope this trend will continue in 2008. Please encourage your colleagues and students to attend, especially those who are new to the Kentucky Section or unfamiliar with our meetings.

Tom Richmond
Chair
Tom.Richmond@wku.edu  


From the Chair-Elect

Our 2008 Annual Meeting will take place on March 28 and 29, at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green.  The Invited Speakers will be:

  • David Bressoud, Macalaster College, President-Elect of the MAA

  • Chris Christensen, Northern Kentucky University, 2007 recipient of the Section Distinguished Teaching Award

  • Lou Gross, University of Tennessee, Director of the Institute for Environmental Modeling

 Our program will also include contributed talks from you, the faculty and students at Kentucky institutions of higher learning, and I very much look forward to learning more about what you do.  Abstracts for these talks will be solicited in early February, so there is plenty of time for you to make your plans to speak.

I hope to see you in Bowling Green in March!

Will Harris
Chair-Elect
wharris@georgetowncollege.edu

From the Vice-Chair

We will hold our first annual t-shirt design contest for undergraduates in the mathematical sciences. The winning design will be placed on t-shirts to be given to all undergraduate attendees to this year's KYMAA spring meeting to held at Western Kentucky University. The winner will be awarded a prize during the meeting. This contest is sponsored by Humana Inc of Louisville.  Faculty, please encourage your students to enter and to attend the spring meeting. The entry deadline is February 8, 2008, and rules and submission requirements may be found on the KYMAA website www.maa.org/Kentucky .

The origami display by Duk Lee of Asbury College at last year's spring meeting was well received. So, this year I would like to invite faculty to continue this practice. Should you wish to display your mathematically inspiring curios and designs at the KYMAA spring meeting, please contact me at dillerys@lindsey.edu .

Scott Dillery
Vice-Chair
dillerys@lindsey.edu


From the Student Chapters Coordinator

Hey, Students!

My name is Mike Dobranski, and I'm the 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.  Chapter or club meetings are a great place to share summer research experiences with other students and faculty.  Here's a link to the MAA page with information on starting a student chapter at your school - http://www.maa.org/students/chapter_index.html.

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/people/plinnell/Vtregional/.  Institutional registration is due by Thursday, October 4, and the competition will take place on Saturday, October 27 at your institution.  The second competition is the Sixty-Eighth 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 12. The competition will take place at your institution on Saturday, December 1.

The final competition that I'll mention is the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) and the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM).  These are competitions that run for an entire weekend.  This year the competition starts on Thursday, February 14 and ends on Monday, February 18.  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 2008 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 2008-2009 school year, you should consider applying for REU's for Summer 2008.

Mike Dobranski
Student Chapters Coordinator
m.dobranski@moreheadstate.edu


The Governor's Corner

Mathfest was held in San Jose this August. It is understandable that attendance from Kentucky was not large, but overall attendance at the meeting was very good. One interesting addition to the meeting was the concurrent meeting of the Mathematical Biologists. 

The MAA continues to do well financially. In summary we have around $10 million in operating budget, $7.5 million in endowments and investments, $9 million in building and $6 million in grants. The renovated Carriage House behind MAA HQ is already being used extensively both by mathematical groups and by outsiders. The latter meetings are expected to provide a steady income stream for the MAA.  Membership is solid, around 23,000, but there is concern about convincing younger mathematicians of the value of being members.

The next joint meeting will be in San Diego, California, January 6-9, 2008. It should be a great meeting, but again it is a bit of a trip for us here in the Commonwealth.

Be sure to check out MAA Online, and also all the excellent publications from MAA. The MAA will be 100 years old in 2015. Plans are underway for a big celebration in Washington, DC. Our section is one of the oldest, two years younger than the MAA, 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 Chair.) Be sure to look for opportunities to share your interests and ability, either by serving the KYMAA, or the national MAA.

My term as Governor ends next year. The Nominating Committee is soliciting nominations. I also would be glad to pass on to them any suggestions you may have. I would also be glad to discuss the duties of the Governor with anyone who might be considering tossing the hat in the ring.

Dan Curtin
Governor
curtin@eku.edu


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/sections/teachingawards.htm or via the following links:

If the Nomination Form is received by the Section Secretary by November 8, 2007, 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, 2007. 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 42301

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, 2008, 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:

Chair   Daylene Zielinski                     dzielinski@bellarmine.edu

            Rob Donnelly                          rob.donnelly@murraystate.edu

            Chris Christensen                    christensen@nku.edu

            Alex McAllister                      alexmcal@centre.edu

            Kirby Chelgren                       kirby@kwc.edu


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

Dan Curtin's term as the Governor of our section will be expiring this spring, so we are seeking nominations for candidates for this office. A list of at least two nominees must be submitted to the national office of the MAA by November 15th. Information from the MAA website about the office is reprinted below.  If you have any questions about this position, please feel free to contact Dan at curtin@nku.edu. Please forward the name and affiliation of any Section member you would like to nominate to any member of the Nominating Committee:

        John Wilson (chair) from Centre at john.wilson@centre.edu

        Christine Leverenz (Georgetown) Christine_Leverenz@georgetowncollege.edu

        Steven Wilkinson (NKU) wilkinson@nku.edu

        Robin Blankenship (Morehead) r.blankenshi@moreheadstate.edu

Elections will be conducted by the national office of the MAA; members of the KYMAA should expect to receive a ballot by mail in the spring.  Please remember to vote.

INFORMATION ABOUT THE OFFICE OF GOVERNOR

Each section elects a member of the MAA Board of Governors, who serves for a three-year term. A committee appointed by the section chair must nominate at least two eligible members of the section.  The national MAA office conducts the election.  Approximately one-third of the sections elect a new governor each spring.  The new governors' first official meeting immediately precedes the summer MathFest in the year they are elected.

A section governor must be an individual member of MAA and of that section.  A section governor cannot be a candidate for a second consecutive term. 

The section governor is expected to represent the section at all meetings of the Board of Governors of the Association and to report the MAA activities at the national level back to the officers and members of the section.  A section governor who is unable to attend a meeting of the Board of Governors may appoint a past governor of that section as a substitute with voting rights; prior to the meeting, the governor must notify the MAA Secretary of the substitution.  The section governor should be a member ex officio of the section's executive committee.   (See Chapter IX, Article III-2 on section bylaws.)

The section governor is the primary liaison between the national organization and the section. This individual should assume a leadership role to see that recommendations from the Board of Governors are implemented in the section.  The governor should report at the section business meetings on major actions taken by the Board of Governors.   Section governors may also write reports for the section newsletter or section web site.


The Annual KYMAA Meeting

Our 2008 KYMAA Annual Meeting is scheduled for March 28-29, 2008 at Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Further information will be appearing on our 2008 Annual Meeting and 2008 Meeting Program webpages in the coming months.

Some of the relevant dates and deadlines:

  • February 1, 2008 - Call for Contributed Papers in Winter Newsletter
  • February 27, 2008 - Deadline for Abstracts for Contributed Papers
  • March 10, 2008 - Publication of Meeting Program on KYMAA website
  • March 14, 2008 - Deadline for Meeting Registration
  • March 28 - 29, 2008 - Mathematics and Fun at the Annual Meeting!

Our schedule of hosts for future section meetings is:

March 27-28, 2009 Kentucky State University
March 26-27, 2010   University of Kentucky
Spring 2011    Your school here?

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


Meritorious Service Nomination - 2008

Kentucky Section

 

Donald E. Bennett of Murray State University has been a member of the Kentucky Section of the MAA since 1970.  He as been actively involved in mathematics education at all levels ranging from the elementary school through the University.  He has worked closely with the Education College at Murray State to develop programs that target mathematical proficiency for elementary, middle, and high school teachers.  At the local level he has worked with high school administrators on testing 11th grade students to determine college math readiness in time to take a 12th grade math course if needed.  He has worked on the state level to develop standards for middle school mathematics.  He has been an outside evaluator for math programs at other universities.  In our Kentucky Section Don has been very active for many years.  He served as Chair-Elect and then Chair from 1985 - 1988 and as Governor from 1999 - 2001.  He was the site coordinator three times when Murray State University hosted the KYMAA annual meeting in 1985, 1996 and 2004.  He has served on many nominating committees and teaching award committees for the section over the years.  In 2006 he served as a panel member discussing the tenure process at our first KY Section NExT meeting.  For more than thirty years Don has traveled from one end of the state to the other to participate in section meetings.  For all his work on behalf of the mathematics community throughout the state we are pleased to nominate Donald Bennett to receive the MAA award for Meritorious Service. 

(This nomination was presented to the MAA Executive Committee, via email, on June 13, 2007, and then presented to the MAA Board of Governors in August 2007.)
 


News from the Chapters

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

Adam Molnar is a new assistant professor. He is in the last stages of a Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Chicago. He will play a major role in our actuarial science program.

Anne Raymond has returned from her sabbatical in the spring semester.

Our student chapter has weekly social meetings during the 11:00 free period, with occasional mathematical events mixed in.

We have re-instituted our monthly Math Chats series, for which a faculty member gives a talk accessible to undergraduates on a topic outside the typical classroom content. This fall Bill Fenton spoke on "Symmetry on Wine Corks", Mike Ackerman will speak on centrality in graphs, Anne Raymond will present "Math behind Secret Codes", and Daylene Zielinski will wrap up the semester with a talk on using fractals to create holiday ornaments.

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

As the MAA liaison for Centre I am happy to report the following news for the fall newsletter.

After nineteen years at Centre our colleague Bill Johnston has left to become Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs at Randolph Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. Bill was an active member of the KYMAA, serving as the section newsletter editor from 1991-1994 and giving talks at meetings. We will conduct a search to fill the tenure-track position resulting from his departure. Jeff Heath joins the math faculty this year as a Visiting Assistant Professor. Jeff is a graduate from Georgetown College and earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland.

Alex McAllister has been selected to receive a Stodghill Research Professorship for the spring term. This is an internal professional development grant that will provide him with a two course release in the spring to pursue a research topic.

The officers for the student chapters of MAA and AWM have been elected. For the AWM we have Mandy Smith (Pres), Leah Campbell and Molly Lindle (VP) Kelly Bickel (Sec) and Ashley Ivey (Treas). For the MAA we have Leah Campbell and Jordan Lake (Pres), Molly Lindle (VP), Kelly Bickel (Sec) and Mandy Smith (Treas). These groups have several activities planned for the year, including the annual fall croquet match with the chemists and an origami booth at the spring carnival.

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

Eastern Kentucky University has hired several new faculty members:

  • Vince Castellana, tenure track faculty, PhD (Mathematics), Auburn University
  • Pat Coen, lecturer, MS degrees in Higher Education from the University of W. Virginia and the University of Michigan.
  • Ken Dutch, lecturer, PhD in Mathematics from Stanford University
  • Jason Gibson, tenure track faculty, PhD from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
  • Chaoyuan Mary Liu, tenure track faculty, PhD from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana.
  • Michelle Smith, visiting Asst. Professor, PhD, Statistics, from the University of Kentucky.
  • Shawn Clift, Lecturer, ABD degree in Mathematics from the University of Kentucky.

Matt Cropper and Robert Thomas have received tenure, and Matt Cropper has also been promoted to Associate Professor.

There are many retirements:

  • Paul Bland, 38 years

  • Betty Givan, 24 years

  • Don Ryoti, 29 years

  • Brenda Speller, 20 years

During the Spring 2007 semester Professor Jeno Lehel held the Vernon Wilson Endowed Chair in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Eastern Kentucky University. He conducted a Seminar in Graph Theory and Combinatorics and hosted a number of invited scholars to present their research to the seminar and collaborate with faculty in the department.

During the 2nd week in June, EKU ran the Mathematics and Science Academy, where junior and senior high school sttudents had the opportunity to work alongside well respected faculty. They explored links between science and mathematics and the arts or liberal arts.

The mission of the Mathematics and Science Academy is to elevate the status of young Kentucky science and mathematics scholars nationally. The MSA promotes a sense of academic inquiry and disciplined learning combined with exploration and curiosity.

Georgetown College reported by William Harris at William_Harris@georgetowncollege.edu

We welcome David DeSario to our department. Dave earned his Ph.D. this year from Temple University. His area of research is discrete geometry (specifically, theta series over polyhedra).

Homer White has been promoted from Associate Professor to Professor. In June 2007, he helped to lead an MAA PREP workshop on "The Mathematics of Asia's Past." The workshop was built around The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: A Sourcebook, newly-published by Princeton University Press. This book is a resource for college teachers of courses in the history of mathematics, as well as for those who wish to incorporate history into regular mathematics courses.

Austin French has placed online these books he has authored: Truth Gems for Teacher and Student, Analysis of Precalculus for Teachers, College Algebra, Calculus I, and Discrete Mathematics. They are available at his homepage on the Georgetown College website.

Maysville Community and Technical College reported by Darrell H. Abney at darrellh.abney@kctcs.edu

Maysville Community and Technical College has two new tenure track mathematics instructors this fall.

Dr. Christopher Sears received his Ph. D. in Mathematics in August 2007 from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. He has a M. S. in Mathematics from UWM and a B. S. in Mathematics from Ball State University. While working on his Ph. D., Dr. Sears taught for 6 years at UWM. Dr. Sears is teaching Precalculus, college algebra, and intermediate algebra this fall. He is originally from Plattsburgh, New York. Dr. Sears has a wife, Emily, and has two children, Connor and Julia.

Frank Appiah received his Masters Degree in Mathematics from Youngstown University in May 2007. He is teaching college algebra, basic algebra, intermediate algebra and math for elementary teachers this semester. His bachelor's degree is from the University of Cape Coast, Ghana- West Africa, in the area of Mathematics Education. He relocated to the United States to pursue a master's degree in mathematics and has completed coursework in statistics, finance and economics. He likes playing soccer and listening to music.

Dr. Dana T. Calland is on special assignment this year directing the Quality Enhancement Project for the SACS reaffirmation. Calland recently earned her Ed. D. from Grambling State University majoring in Developmental Education with a focus on curriculum and instruction.

Maysville Community and Technical College's focus for this year was revitalizing the pre-engineering program. The pre-engineering program has fifteen students this fall after several years of dormancy. Credit for the numbers in the program can be accredited to a merit scholarship program and aggressive recruiting by math and science faculty.

Program students are taking three common classes: Chemistry taught by Dr. Angela Fultz, Pre-calculus taught by Dr. Chris Sears and an orientation to college section for engineering majors taught by Professor Darrell Abney. The chemistry and pre-calculus courses are taught via ITV to both the Maysville and Cynthiana campuses. On Tuesdays, students attend classes and chemistry lab at the Maysville campus. The program will continue with calculus and chemistry during spring 2008 and Calculus II & II and engineering physics next year.

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

Doug Chatham and Rus May were granted tenure and promoted from Assistant Professors of Mathematics to Associate Professors of Mathematics.

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

Murray State hired one new faculty member this year: Marcia Edson, Assistant Professor, Ph.D. from the University of North Texas in 2007. She has a music undergraduate degree from University of North Texas and a Master of Science in mathematics from there as well.

Ted Porter received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor.  K. Renee Fister was promoted to full Professor and will be on sabbatical leave in Spring 2008.  David Roach is on sabbatical leave this semester.  Gary Jones is retiring after 35 years of service and four years of half-time retirement.

The Euclidean Math Club has organized a student colloquium series that has been well attended. They have continued their monthly meetings with the inclusion of social activities as a Halloween Party, Calcutta NCAA event, and joint events with Pi Mu Epsilon. Currently, Scott Lewis is the faculty sponsor.

Dr. David Gibson received one of the select Regents Teaching Awards for the College of Science, Engineering, and Technology.  The pure math symposium has been active throughout the past year.  The NSF UBM grant (Biology and Mathematics in Population Studies - BioMaPS)  involving collaboration with mathematics and biology faculty has given students and faculty of both disciplines the ability to present their joint work at local, regional, and national meetings.  We invite you to attend the Southeast Regional Conference on Differential Equations, which will be held at Murray State University on October 19-20, 2007.   See http://campus.murraystate.edu/searcde for more information.

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

Northern Kentucky has one new hire: Lisa Holden, Assistant Professor, with a PhD in Mathematics from Northwestern University. 

During 2007-2008 Kirsty Fleming is serving as Interim Executive Director of the Kentucky Center for Mathematics (KCM). The Kentucky Center for Mathematics supports diverse teacher and student populations across the Commonwealth by facilitating the development of mathematical proficiency, power for future success, and enjoyment of teaching and learning mathematics.

During 2007-2008 Gail Mackin is serving as Interim Chair for the Department of Mathematics.

Steve Wilkinson will be on sabbatical during the 2008 Spring semester.

Frank Dietrich is retiring at the end of the spring, 2008 semester after teaching statistics in the department since 1979.  He was instrumental in the design and implementation of the successful statistics program at the university, and served the department as an assistant chair for many years.

Tom Kearns retired 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 was the NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative for NKU for over twenty years.

The new member induction ceremony for the Pi Mu Epsilon chapter is scheduled for Monday, November 5, 2007.  Craig Bauer, the editor in chief of Cryptologia, is the invited speaker for the evening.

The Northern Kentucky Teaching and Learning Network (NKTLN) has recently received funding from the Kentucky Department of Education to form the Northern Kentucky Algebra Community, an online and face-to-face learning community of Northern Kentucky teachers of Algebra. As the name suggests, the purpose of the Community is to create a sustainable professional learning community where Algebra teachers share ideas, reflect on their lessons, and improve their techniques of teaching to promote student success. The Network is supported by a number of partners, including the Northern Kentucky Cooperative for Educational Services, The P-16 Council of Partners, the Kentucky Center for Mathematics, the Center for Integrative Natural Science and Mathematics, the Northern Kentucky Council of Teachers of Mathematics, the Northern Kentucky University Department of Mathematics, and several local Northern Kentucky school districts. Requests for information should be directed to Dr. Mike Waters at watersm1@nku.edu .

Sehner Lecture 2007
Dr. Rose Mary Zbiek, Associate Professor of Mathematics Education, Penn State University.
Scheduled for Monday evening, October 29, 2007

Dr. Zbiek is a former Pennsylvania mathematics and computer science teacher. She joined the Penn State faculty in 2002 after a decade of teaching mathematics and mathematics education at the University of Iowa. Her scholarly interests focus on teachers' and students' mathematical reasoning and representations in technology-intensive environments at the secondary and college levels. Her recent work includes theory-building research in the area of representation and models of mathematics teachers' incorporation of technology in classroom practice. She is the series editor for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Essential Understanding project.

John O'Bryan Mathematics Contest

The 14th annual John O'Bryan mathematics contest will be held at Campbell County High School on Saturday, November 10th. About 100 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 ).

Owensboro Community and Technical College reported by Karin Chess at Karin.Chess@kctcs.edu

We are pleased to welcome home Teresa Collins who has returned to Kentucky as an instructor in our mathematics program. She received her MS in mathematics in May, 2004, from Western Kentucky University. Previously she taught at Edison College in Naples, Florida.

Kathy Mowers will complete her term as President of the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges on November 4, and she will return from her sabbatical in January for the spring semester. Kathy is also PI of an NSF CCLI grant, The Right Stuff: Appropriate Mathematics for All Students, designed to provide faculty with resources that will enable them to update, redirect, and improve college algebra. This award provides funds to construct, deliver, and evaluate a strand of AMATYC Traveling Workshops that will assist faculty who wish to reinvigorate their college algebra course.

Lana Barrett retired in May after 21 years of service. She taught both computer science and mathematics since she had earned master's degrees in both subjects from Western Kentucky University.

In May, Jeannette Ward attended the Task Force meeting and participated in preparing materials for the Refocused College Algebra Traveling Workshops as part of the NSF CCLI grant, The Right Stuff: Appropriate Mathematics for All Students.

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

The University of Kentucky has the following new faculty:

  • Benjamin Braun, Assist. Prof., Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis, 2007

  • Claus Schubert, Lecturer, Ph.D. from UCLA, 2007

  • Heide Gluesing-Luerssen, Assist. Prof., Ph.D. from University of Bremen, 1991

Alberto Corso and Michel Jabbour were promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, and Changyou Wang was promoted from Associate Professor to Full Professor.  Professor Zhongwei Shen has become Department Chair and Professor Russell Brown has become Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Alberto Corso, Peter Hislop, Michel Jabbour, and David Leep are on sabbatical for the 2007-08 academic year.   John Lewis is on sabbatical leave for Fall 2007.

Thomas Hayden has retired after 44 years of service.
University of Louisville reported by Wiley Williams at williams@erdos.math.louisville.edu

The Department is happy to announce the appointment of 3 new tenure-track faculty:

Dr. Changbing Hu, Assistant Professor: He received his Ph.D. from Indiana University and came to us after a 3 year post-doc at Texas A&M and two years at Missouri State University. His interests are in partial differential equations and their application to atmospheric science and fluid mechanics of the ocean as well as image processing.

Dr. Jiaxu Li, Assistant Professor: He obtained his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 2004 and has many years of industrial experience in the semiconductor industry. Dr. Li's research interests include mathematical biology, ordinary differential equations, delay differential equations, and dynamical systems. Currently, he focuses on modeling the glucose-insulin endocrine metabolic regulatory system. His major interests in this area is to investigate how the system works, the pathways to diabetes mellitus, and ultimately to provide more efficient, economic, and effective algorithms for diabetes therapy. He also has interests in ecological models, and molecular models.

Dr. David J. Wildstrom, Assistant Professor: After receiving his undergraduate degree from MIT, he entered the graduate program at the University of California, San Diego where he recently completed his Ph.D. under the direction of Professor Ron Graham (formerly of Bell Labs). His research activities to date have dealt primarily with combinatorial optimization and especially with facility location problems; his most recent research is on the viability of facility relocation in response to requests in real-time. Dr. Wildstrom was recently chosen as a Project NeXT fellow for 2007-08.

In addition, Dr. Sunghyu Han visiting for the AY 2007-08 from Korea. He is supported by a grant from the Korea Research Foundation to visit our Department and to work with Dr. Jon-Lark Kim, Assistant Professor, on problems in coding theory.

Dr. David Swanson, Assistant Professor, is our new Director of Undergraduate Studies overseeing the curriculum, in particular new developments, assessments and program review.

Dr. Wei-Bin Zeng, Associate Professor, took on the job of Undergraduate Advising Coordinator and will be the first stop for any new or prospective mathematics major.

Dr. Grzegorz Rempala continues his joint appointment in Mathematics and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He was recently promoted to the rank of Professor in both Departments.

Dr. Udayan Darji is currently on a one year sabbatical. After spending the summer in Italy and at conferences in Cambridge and Warwick, England, he is currently working on problems involving analysis and algebra with Dr. James Mitchell at St. Andrews University in Scotland. He is planning further visits to Italy as well as to the Netherlands and Brazil.

Dr. Bingtuan Li is on a Fall semester sabbatical working on problems in ordinary differential equations in the area of mathematical biology and population dynamics. He will be traveling to multiple locations and continue working on his NSF funded projects.

Dr. Steven Seif will be on sabbatical during the Spring 08 term and has plans to visit scholars in Hungary where he was invited to present his results at the Renyi Institute and Iceland, where he will work with Dr. Sergey Kitaev on problems in general algebraic structures; further he has plans to work with Dr. Ralph McKenzie at Vanderbilt University.

Drs. Udayan Darji, Mabendra Das and Lee Larson have taken on a leading role in the editing of the journal Real Analysis Exchange and due to their efforts the Department is now home to the editorial office for this journal.

Please visit our website at www.math.louisville.edu for announcements of colloquia, seminars etc. in particular, for our annual Bullitt lecture which is held each year in late March or April.

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

New tenure-track Assistant Professors this year are Melanie Autin (PhD, University of South Carolina), Tilak Bhattacharya (PhD, Purdue University), Bela Csaba (PhD, Rutgers University), Molly Dunkum (PhD, University of Kentucky), Jemal Gishe (PhD, University of South Florida), Hope Marchionda (PhD, Clemson University), Attila Por (PhD, Eotvos Lorand University), and Jonathan Quiton (PhD, University of South Carolina).

We also have several visiting faculty this year. Visiting Assistant Professors are Aniko Csakany (PhD, Budapest University of Technology), Matthew Henderson (PhD, University of Reading), and Mark Lawrence (PhD, University of Washington). Visiting Instructors are Joy Curtis (MA, Western Kentucky University), Kenny Palmer (MS, Western Kentucky University; MS, Purdue University), and Leslie Plumlee (MS, Western Kentucky University).

Bruce Kessler has been promoted from Associate Professor to Professor.    Lan Nguyen has been promoted from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor.

Tom Richmond is on sabbatical leave during the 2007-2008 academic year.

Linda Pulsinelli begins Optional Retirement this year after 35 years of service.    Paul Hill retired after 5 years of service at WKU.

The 27th Mathematics Symposium will be organized on October 12-13, 2007 at Western Kentucky University. The invited speakers are Dr. Bart de Smit (Universiteit Leiden) and Dr. Stan Wagon (Macalester College). The theme of the Symposium is "The Science of Art and the Art of Science", however any mathematics related topics are welcome! The deadline for submitting an abstract is October 1, 2007. The participation is free. We have funds available through MAA NSF-RUMC (NSF Grant DMS-0241090) for student travel. More information can be found at www.mathsymposium.com.                                              

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

Gary Goodaker, Associate Professor of Mathematics, will serve as the Program
Coordinator of Mathematics at West Kentucky Community & Technical College in
Paducah, KY (effective August 1, 2007).