The Mathematical Association of America Maryland-District of Columbia-Virginia Section

Brief Description

The Sister Helen Christensen Service Award is given each fall for outstanding service to the profession. The award is given at the MD/DC/VA fall Sectional meeting and comes with a certificate and citation published in MAA on-line, the section website and the MD/DC/VA section newsletter. The award is named after Sister Helen Christensen, in honor of her lifetime of service to mathematics education and the section. See here for a list of past winners.

Nominations and questions should be sent to Ann Stewart at stewart@hood.edu. Nominations can be sent in at any time, though nominations received too close to the award date may have to wait until the following year for consideration.

Award Criteria

Individuals who receive this award must work or volunteer in the MD/DC/VA section, be a current member of the MAA and be deserving of recognition for service above and beyond expectations. Service (defined as volunteer or paid work that promotes mathematics and the teaching of mathematics) may include, but is not limited to:

• Service to one's department and institution
• Work with students beyond expected teaching duties
• Work with teachers
• Service to the section
• Service to the MAA
• Service to other mathematical or teaching organizations
• Service to the community
• Outreach

Section Members who have previously won the service award, or who have won an MAA service award are not eligible. Recipients of past MAA service awards can be found at the links below:

• Gung and Hu Award for Distinguished Service
  
• JPBM Communications Award
  
• Meritorious Service

Nomination Procedure

• The call for nominations will go out via the section email list, website and the newsletter in the spring.
• Any member of the section, not on the section service award committee, may nominate any other member of the MAA who is not on the section service award committee. The nomination will consist of a brief letter outlining why the nomination is being made and listing major service performed by the nominee. If the nominator feels it is necessary, s/he may indicate what form of additional documentation would be available should the committee request it.
• Nominations will be retained by the section service award committee for a period of three years or until the nominee leaves the section or receives the award, whichever is shorter.

Award Determination

A section service award committee consisting of five section members will review nominations each summer and early fall (new nominations plus retained nominations from the previous two years). The committee will request additional documentation if (and only if) they deem it necessary to make a determination. Special consideration will be given to active section members and individuals with multiple nominations. The committee will attempt to come to a consensus on which nominee is most deserving. If consensus cannot be met the following procedure will be used to choose a recipient:

1. Each nominee will be considered independently and if at least four of the five members of the committee feel there is sufficient merit in the nomination and/or their own knowledge that in the absence of other nominations the nominee would be deserving of the award, then s/he will remain in the pool for consideration.
2. Each member of the committee will have V=ceiling [n/2] votes where n is the number of nominees remaining in the pool.
3. Each member may distribute his/her votes among the nominees in any manner s/he chooses – that is, s/he may place all V on the candidate s/he thinks is most deserving; s/he may use one vote for each of V candidates or s/he may distribute them any other way.
4. The nominee with the most votes receives the award. In the event of a tie, two awards may be given. In the unlikely event that there is a more than 2 way tie, the committee will develop a simple voting procedure to choose one or two recipients. Award Committee: The Sister Helen Christensen Service Award Committee has five members. Each fall, after the award has been given, at least one or two members of the committee (to be determined later) will retire and (a) new member(s) will be appointed for a three year term by the section executive committee well before the following spring sectional meeting. Before the spring sectional meeting, the next chair of the committee will be elected by the committee members. All award nominations will be sent to the committee chair and the chair will report the award recipient(s) to the section chair at least one month before the next fall sectional meeting.

Awards Committee

See the section officers page for the current members of the awards committee.