Adrian College
[reported by Cindy Bosio]Elizabeth Lamprecht was granted tenure. * The newly remodeled Shipman Library has reopened. It has doubled in size to accommodate the Electronic Information Center (formerly known as The Computer Center) as well as the College library collections.Albion College
[reported by Robert Messer]Pamela Cutter (PhD in number theory from U of Georgia) is a Visiting Assistant Professor. * Robert Osserman (Stanford U) gave a colloquium talk on The Shape of the Universe. * As host institution of the Michigan Mathematics Prize Competition, Albion College looks forward to the participation of Michigan Section members in the grading of Part II of the MMPC on January 6. Joan Hutchinson and Stan Wagon (Macalester C) will be the speakers at the MMPC Awards Program on March 10.Alma College
[reported by Mel Nyman]John Hawley has joined the Computer Science side of the department as a tenure-track Associate Professor. He was Assistant Dean of the College of Engineering at U of Oklahoma, having completed a PhD in computer science there after a 20-year career in naval aviation. Joseph Palen has been appointed to a one-year sabbatical position on the Mathematics side of the department. He completed his PhD in number theory at UM last year. Robert Molina is on sabbatical leave for the academic year. * Outside speakers have included Scott Grissom (GVSU), Mark Hanisch (Calvin C), and Felix Famoye (CMU).Andrews University
[reported by Don Rhoads]Theodore Hatcher, who chaired the Department of Mathematics for the past two years, has retired. He first taught at Andrews in 1960. Donald Rhoads succeeds Ted as chair. * Joon Hyuk Kang has been appointed Assistant Professor; he recently received his PhD from MSU in non-linear partial differential equations.Calvin College
[reported by Daryl Brink]Gerard Venema has returned after two years in Washington, DC as NSF program director for Topology and Foundations. Mark Hannisch has been appointed to a tenure track position. Tom Scofield has been appointed to a tenure-track position, having returned after a year at UM-Flint. * Dorette Pronk has joined the faculty at Dalhousie U after a two-year temporary appointment at Calvin C. Judy Lalani has finished a one-year appointment and is now teaching at Hope C. Jim Bradley continues on leave at the State Department in Washington, DC.Central Michigan University
[reported by Ahmed Assaf]Dan Wang is a new Assistant Professor in statistics. Lisa Murphy and Sr. Jeanne Moenk are new Instructors, both in mathematics education. Sachin Bhattacharya is a Visiting Professor, specializing in PDEs. Robert Molina (Alma C) is a Visiting Professor in graph theory. Functional analyst Zhidong Pan is visiting from SVSU. * Mohan Shrikhande is on sabbatical for one semester. He was also awarded the distinguished university professorship. Doug Nance, William Miller, and Ed Kaufman retired last year. * The first four students have graduated from the new PhD program.Delta College
[reported by Jim Ham]Kevin Lawson (who holds two masters degrees and is pursuing a doctorate at WSU in educational research and statistics, and has taught at several Michigan community colleges in recent years) and Randy Nichols (who earned a masters degree from Miami U in Ohio) have joined the faculty. John Kostoff retired in June after 38 years of teaching. * Dawn Schmidt received the prestigious Bergstein Award for teaching excellence, given to two Delta faculty members (out of 210) annually. * Delta C hosted the MichMATYC Fall Conference on October 13-14.Ferris State University
[reported by James Howard]Kent Sun, Mary Forintos, and Nyuydinkong have joined the faculty in tenure-track positions. Nolan Hudson retired last May; Alex Khoury is retiring this December; and Edward Straley is retiring in May.Gogebic Community College
[reported by Larry Hopkins]Larry Hopkins (Larry.Hopkins@faculty.gogebic.cc.mi.us) has resigned the division chair position after a three-year tenure. He is interested in hearing about any approaches to the use of the TI 92+ in the calculus sequence, in Differential Equations with Linear Algebra, or in Finite Mathematics. (He plans to use maple in Calculus III.)Hope College
[reported by Todd Swanson]Elliot Tanis retired after 35 years at Hope C, and Richard Vandervelde retired after 33 years. Claudia Polini has accepted a new position at the U of Oregon. Dyana Harrelson (PhD from Georgia Tech in probability) has joined the faculty. There are also three visiting faculty members: Judy Lalani (masters in mathematics from Clemson U), Jillian McLeod (masters of mathematics from Howard U), and Rolland Swank (PhD from MSU in topology). * Janet Andersen has become the department chair. * Darin Stephenson has received a $26,000 National Security Agency Young Investigator grant for research in ring theory. Donatella Delfino has received a $75,000 grant from the NSF's Professional Opportunities for Women in Research and Education Program to spend the current academic year at Rutgers U to study computational commutative algebra. Janet Andersen has received a $71,000 NSF-CCI grant to integrate linear algebra and biology courses. * The annual meeting of the Michigan Section will be held at Hope College April 27-28.Kettering University
[reported by David Green, Jr.]Ruben Hayrapetyan joined the faculty in applied mathematics. Brian McCartin received the Outstanding Researcher Award.Lake Superior State University
[reported by Tom Mickewich]John Jaroma (from Gettysburg C; PhD in delay differential equations from U of Rhode Island) and Brian Snyder (PhD in number theory from Ohio State U) have joined the faculty.Lansing Community College
[reported by JingLing Wang]Louise Paquette, who for 17 years has been teaching a variety of departmental courses as an adjunct, joined the full-time faculty.Lawrence Technological University
[reported by M. Merscher]John Stock has retired and been named Professor Emeritus. George Towfic has left the department. * The student chapter of the ACM and the department co-sponsored a chalk talk on Online Fingerprint Verification by Anil K. Jain (MSU).Macomb Community College
[reported by Daniel Art]Steve Fasbinder has retired after teaching at the South Campus for 15 years.Michigan State University
[reported by Peter Lappan]There are several new faculty members this fall: Associate Professor Brian Keller, Assistant Professors Casim Abbas and Peter Magyar, Postdoctoral Instructors Rieuwert Blok (algebra), Roman Hilscher (control theory), Ruben Martinez-Avendano (analysis), and Claudia Miller (algebra), Teaching Specialists Lisa Keller and Pavel Sikorskii (previously an Instructor), and Instructors Irini Kadyrova, Rebecca Leefers, Michael Masterson, Stephanie Petermichl, and Hsiu Chuan Wei. Also, Sharon Griffin is the new Director of the Mathematics Program of the Charles Drew Enrichment Laboratory, replacing Charles Roberts, who is leaving after the fall semester. * Long-term visitors include Heinz Dovermann (U of Hawaii), Curtis Bennett (Bowling Green State U), Byon Kee Kim (Chongju U, Korea), Young Ho Kim (Hyungpook National U, Korea), Hu Hsiung Li (National Taiwan Normal U), and Alfredo Peris (Universidad Politechnica de Valencia). * Glen Anderson, Chi Lo, and Chester Tsai retired during the last academic year.Michigan Technological University
[reported by Lynn Murphy]Tao Jiang (PhD in graph theory from U of Illinois) and Alan C. H. Ling (PhD in combinatorics from U of Waterloo) have joined the faculty. Anant P. Godbole resigned to become chair at East Tennessee State U; Kalpana A. Godbole also left. Kenneth L. Kuttler departed for Brigham Young U. * Individuals on leave include Darrell L. Hicks (U of Alaska), Iosif Pinelis (Lehigh U), and Russell M. Reid (Apple Computer). Jeffrey T. Bonn and Kathleen L. Bonn are visiting from Mayville (ND) State U, and Robert L. Pastel is visiting from U of New Mexico. * Outside speakers have included Tran van Trung (U of Essen, Germany), W. D. Wallis (Southern Illinois U), Allen (Zhiyu) Han (Ford Motor Company), Ismail Celik (West Virginia U), Brian Edwards (U of Tennessee), and Boyko Metodiev (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences). * MTU just converted to semesters, and the department completely overhauled the curriculum. For example, incoming majors are Exploring Symmetry Groups, in addition to taking calculus. Other new courses are built around modern uses of mathematics, like cryptography and derivative securities. * The Young Scholars Program gives promising young minority students with an interest in science, math, and engineering an early start to college and a chance to work with faculty mentors doing real research. Faculty members invite students to be co-researchers on nationally funded projects. This summer, four students participated in the program. Students were required to attend classes (9 credits) during the second track of the summer session and spend 20 hours per week on their research work. At the end of the summer, students made presentations on their work to an audience of faculty and visitors, and each submitted a research paper.Northern Michigan University
[reported by John Kiltinen]Robert McGinty retired at the end of the 1999-2000 academic year after over 30 years of service. Sue Hewitt is serving in a full-time adjunct instructor position this year. She is a retired teacher from Marquette Senior High School and taught part time at NMU last year. John Kiltinen is on sabbatical for the 2000-2001 academic year. He is working on a book and software project and will spend most of the year at home in Marquette. David Powers in on leave of absence this academic year. He is working in Arizona for FinanCenter, Inc., a company that develops Web-based financial calculators for banks and other financial institutions. * Two new people are teaching part-time this year: Loren Clifford, a retired physicist from CMU, and Patrick Jennings, who has taught previously at Bay de Noc CC and also practices law. * Recent outside speakers have included John Aarsvold (Department of Radiology at Emory U), who is a SIAM lecturer, S. Brent Morris (National Security Agency), and Charles R. Hadlock (Bentley C). * The department has moved into its new quarters in the New Science Building, just completed in phase I of the Seaborg Science Complex. * NMU fully launched its Teaching, Learning, Communicating program at the start of this semester, under which every student leases an IBM Thinkpad laptop computer from the University, while on-campus general computing labs are being phased out. In response to the fact that students have laptop computers, the department can no longer require that students have a graphing calculator for courses which previously required them. Instead, the University has purchased a site license for TI InterActive! so that it can be installed on the University-owned laptops of students taking these courses.Oakland Community College
[reported by Gladys Rockind]Mark Hopkins, from Lansing CC, has joined the faculty. Kathy Chiasson and Gladys Rockind will be making presentations at MichMATYC, AMATYC, and the League for Innovation on the calculus program they have developed. The course is taught in a computer lab and utilizes Converge, Derive, and Journey Through Calculus, as well as Internet sites to help students assimilate the subject.Oakland University
[reported by Jerry Grossman]Two new assistant professors joined the department: Serge Kruk (PhD in optimization from U of Waterloo) and Anna Spagnuolo (PhD in numerical analysis from Purdue U, and a former undergraduate and graduate student at OU). In addition, Dan Singer (PhD in combinatorics from UCSD) is visiting for one year, and Babette Benken (PhD in mathematics education from UM) began a joint appointment with the School of Education. * James Pan was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, and Marc Lipman was reappointed to a second three-year term as chair. * Barry Turett is on sabbatical leave for the year at Universität Karlsruhe. Jack Nachman is on sabbatical this fall, developing an interactive computer graphics course; Jack Tsui will be on sabbatical this winter, as will James Pan, who will be a visiting scholar at UC-Berkeley. * Our first PhD student successfully defended his dissertation in October.Saginaw Valley State University
[reported by Tom Zerger]Two new faculty joined the department: Associate Professor Bing Liu (PhD in applied mathematics from SUNY at Buffalo; previously at St. Scholastica C in Duluth, MN) and Assistant Professor Gholamreza Akbari (PhD in modern analysis from U of Georgia; previously at U of Minnesota at Morris). Tom Zerger was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor.Schoolcraft College
[reported by Randy Schwartz]Audrey Mingela-Walsh has been hired as a full-time mathematics instructor effective Fall 2000, replacing recently retired Professor Carolyn Tews. Audrey, an alumna of Schoolcraft College, taught here part-time from 1993 to 1998. * Rheta Rubenstein and Adele Sobania are now co-directors for the Detroit Region of the Michigan Middle School Mathematics Reform Project (MMMRP), through which public school districts bring together teams of teachers, administrators, and community persons to focus on improving instruction. The project is administered through WMU and funded under the Eisenhower Higher Education grants program. * Randy Schwartz attended the joint European-Arab mathematical congress, Alhambra 2000, in Granada, Spain in July, a satellite meeting of the Third European Congress of Mathematics held later that month in Barcelona.Siena Heights University
[reported by Toni Carroll]Jeff Morisette, Lana Forbes, and Ellen Fanfalone have given recent talks. The University received an Ameritech grant to enhance teaching with technology. It will be used to improve the faculty's ability to use Blackboard, TI-Presenter, TI InterActive!, and Smartboard in new high-tech classrooms on campus.University of Michigan-Dearborn
[reported by Frank Papp]The department has two new Assistant Professors, Judy Flowers in mathematics education and John Clifford in mathematics. Both held visiting appointments during 1999-2000. Richard Dahlke is on retirement furlough. James Brown will be on sabbatical leave in Winter 2001. Frank Papp is on sabbatical leave for the fall semester; among other projects, he is revising the department's upper undergraduate-level integral equations course. * Timothy McKenna is developing an asynchronous distance learning format for the intermediate algebra course (Math 090). This course will feature lectures via CD-ROM, Web-based assignments and testing, and a live call-in tutorial. The course is offered to both on-site students and students in the UAW-Ford program. McKenna's notes for Intermediate College Algebra were published by Pearson Custom Publishers this year. These interactive notes correspond to the Power Point presentation lectures for the distance learning version of Math 090 . * The Masters degree program in Applied and Computational Mathematics started in Fall 2000. * Sandra Wray-McAfee won the Susan B. Anthony award for her work with minority students.University of Michigan-Flint
[reported by Steve Althoen]Lixing Han has been hired as Assistant Professor. He holds a PhD from U of Connecticut and has interests in optimization and matrix theory. * The 34th annual Math Field Day, a competition for high school students from throughout Michigan, will be held on February 27. Thirty-four teams participated in 2000; the team from Detroit Country Day won the championship. For more information, contact Ken Schilling (810-762-3244, ksch@flint.umich.edu) or visit the event's Web site (http://www.flint.umich.edu/Departments/math/Field_Day).Washtenaw Community College
[reported by James Egan]John McGill and Johanna Wirbel have retired, though they plan to return to teach on a part-time basis. Janet MacDonald is on sabbatical leave for the semester. Michael Quail has been elected department chair and will share a number of duties with Brenda Foster. Robert Hatcher has joined the full-time mathematics faculty. Jim Egan has returned to the department after serving as Interim Dean for the past year. Martha Showalter is now serving as Interim Dean. Hanan Wahab and Diane Turelli have full-time temporary appointments in the department.Wayne State University
[reported by Daniel Frohardt]Complex analyst Guozhen Lu from Wright State U has joined the faculty as Associate Professor. Lowell Hansen is now the department chair, and Daniel Frohardt is the associate chair. Chorng-Shi Houh has retired. Tachen Liang has been promoted to Professor. * Alex Korostelev is on sabbatical leave this term. Paul Chow, TaChen Liang, and Brian Taylor will be on sabbatical leave for the winter term. Robert Berman is on a one year leave of absence to work on a special assignment from the provost's office. William S. Cohn is on a one-year administrative leave following his five-year stint as chair of the department. * Visitors this year include Robert Liptser (stochastic processes), Dae-Woong Lee (Myungsin U, South Korea), and Nguyen H. V. Hung (National U of Vietnam). The Owens Lecturer this year will be David Eisenbud.Western Michigan University
[reported by Dennis Pence]Jay Wood (PhD in algebraic topology from U of California-Berkeley, recently at Purdue U-Calumet) has been hired as Professor with tenure and has been appointed chair of the department. New Instructors are Maryann Babcock, Lynn Breyfogle, David Cowles, Loren Heun, Karen Hileski, and James Thurmond. * Christine Browning and Yuri Ledyaev have been promoted to Professor, and Ping Zhang has been promoted to Associate Professor. Radu Teodorescu has been promoted to Academic Specialist II. In addition, Yuri Ledyaev, Niloufer Mackey, Laura Van Zoest, and Qiji Zhu have received tenure. * John Petro retired after 39 years on the faculty, and Philip Hsieh retired after 36 years. Stanislaw Leja , a member of the faculty from 1956 to 1982, died at the age of 88 in Orlando, Florida, in September. * More than 200 people attended the Ninth Quadrennial International Conference on Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Algorithms and Applications, held at WMU in June.
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