Adrian College
[reported by Cindy Bosio]Nancy Colwell has been granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. • Pete Boudreau has been promoted to Prof. • In recognition of exemplary teaching, Pete Boudreau received the “Newsome Award in Teaching” at the Adrian C Fall Convocation. [cbosio@adrian.edu]Central Michigan University
[reported by Ahmad Assaf]We have three new Assist. Profs.: Esther Beneish in Algebra, Lisa Demeyer in Differential Geometry, and Peter Vermeire in Algebraic Geometry. • Sivaram K. Narayan is on sabbatical for the Fall at William and Mary C in VA • Kiya Famoye is on sabbatical for the Spring semester of 2003. • Yury Ionin is on a research professorship this semester. • Professor Emeritus Donald Hazekamp died on Oct. 18, 2002. Hazekamp was a member of the math faculty at CMU from 1961 to 1993. [Assaf1am@mail.cmich.edu]Eastern Michigan University
[reported by Tim Carroll]Barb Britton was tenured and promoted to Assoc. Prof. • Nelly Ullman and Mary Yorke retired. • Odiviu Calin and Bingwu Wang were hired as Assist. Profs. • Jean Pedersen, Peter Hilton, and Richard Fleming were among our Colloquium speakers. • The EMU Math Education Conference will be on March 22. [mth_carroll@emuvax.emich.edu]Ferris State University
[reported by James Howard]During the past year, we had the following colleagues retire: George Wales, Betty & Gene Arnold, and Vaclav Konecny. • We are also pleased to welcome Darrell Allgaier to our Department as our new Chair. He comes to us from Belhaven C where he was Chair of the Mathematics Department. [James_M_Howard@ferris.edu]Grand Valley State University
[reported by Paul Fishback]Jan Shroyer has retired. • Don VanderJagt and Jody Sorensen are enjoying sabbaticals this year. • The department welcomes three new members: Jonathan Hodge, Assist. Prof., Ph.D. WMU; Reva Kasman, Assist. Prof., Ph.D. U Illinois-Chicago; Jan Figa, Visit. Assist. Prof., Ph.D. U Illinois-Urbana/Champaign. • Tenure was awarded to David Austin and Jody Sorensen. Jody was also promoted to Assoc. Prof. • An NSF-sponsored REU program ran at GVSU during Summer 2002. GVSU faculty Steven Schlicker, Edward Aboufadel, Jody Sorensen, and Clark Wells worked with eight students from around the country (California, Oregon, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan) on research projects in distance geometry, wavelets, dynamical systems, and topology. Three of the students were from Michigan schools: Lisa Driskell from CMU, Rana Mikkelson from Kalamazoo C, and Keith Dailey from GVSU. The REU program included funded trips to Northwestern U on the July 4th weekend and a trip to Mathfest in Vermont in early August. At Mathfest, talks by students were well received. [fishbacp@gvsu.edu]Hope College
[reported by Todd Swanson]The mathematics department hosted a “Week of Math” October 28–November 2. Some of the department activities during this week included a career dinner; a student problem-solving session; dinner and a mathematical movie; and a mathematical poetry writing contest. [swansont@hope.edu]Kalamazoo College
[reported by Michele Intermont]We are happy to report that Michael Tanoff has joined the department as Visit. Assoc. Prof. Mike comes to us from the Kellogg Company. We continue to have an active Colloquium series (Wednesday afternoons, 4:10 p.m.). Recently, Helen Moore from Stanford U and the new American Institute of Mathematics spoke on “Fun With Bubbles”. While here, she also gave a lecture entitled “Using Mathematics to Improve Medical Treatments”. We’re always looking for speakers; please contact Michele Intermont (intermon@kzoo.edu) if you’re interested. [intermon@kzoo.edu]Lake Superior State University
[reported by Brian Snyder]Tom Mickewich retired after 35 years of service. • John Jaroma has accepted a position at Austin C (TX). • Scott Lewis (Ph. D. in dynamical systems from Montana State U) and George Voutsadakis (Ph. D. in algebraic logic from Iowa State U) have joined the faculty. • Evan Schemm and Brian Snyder are the new co-directors of the Michigan Section High School Visiting Lecture Program (HSVLP). [bsnyder@gw.lssu.edu]Lansing Community College
[reported by JingLing Wang]The Mathematics and Computer Science Dept. welcomes a new full-time faculty member, Kelly Sakkinen. Kelly has degrees in mathematics and statistics; she brings experience teaching on-line courses and working in teacher preparation, in addition to teaching other math and statistics courses. • We are also happy to have Dan Harned working full-time for our department for the 2002–2003 academic year. Among other things, Dan is teaching a new course, Investigations With Math, which satisfies our general education math core requirement for the Associate Degree and has as prerequisite Beginning Algebra. Another new course is in the works, Art of Geometry, to be piloted Spring 2003. • Sue Halick, who has been training teachers in LCC’s Center for Teaching Excellence while teaching part-time in math, is now also serving as the department’s official on-line resource person, providing invaluable technical and pedagogical support for faculty who teach on-line or incorporate on-line elements in their face-to-face courses. LCC will be hosting the MichMATYC 2003 fall conference. For more information, please contact Nan Jackson (Nan_Jackson@lansing.cc.mi.us). [Jingling_Wang@lansing.cc.mi.us]Lawrence Technological University
[reported by M. Merscher]LTU hosted the MAA Michigan Section Annual Meeting on May 10–11, 2002. The Local Arrangements Committee—chaired by Mike Merscher, and including Ruth Favro, Tom Lackey, and Pam Lowry—wishes to thank the many LTU people who helped make the meeting a success, notably our department chair, David Bindschadler. Thanks also to John Mooningham of SVSU, who was Program Chair, and to the many presenters and attendees. Robofest 2002, led by Chan-Jin Chung, was a rousing success again this year, with teams from many local schools competing. The 33rd Annual LTU High School Mathematics Competition, led by Mike Merscher, was held on April 28, 2002. First Place went to Ryan Timmons, who also scored a second-place Gold Award on last year’s MMPC. [merscher@ltu.edu]Michigan State University
[reported by Peter Lappan]The following are new tenure track faculty in the Mathematics Department this fall: Kening Lu (Prof.), Guowei Wei (Assoc. Prof.), and Rajesh Kulkarni (Assist. Prof.). In addition, Katherine Socha is a new Assist. Prof. in Lyman Briggs College with a partial appointment in Mathematics. Alguta Buse, Faouzi Triki, and Alexandru Tupan are new postdoctoral fellows. Nikolai Nikolski from the Steklov Institute and the U of Bordeaux is visiting MSU during the Fall semester. • Dennis Dunninger, Charles Seebeck, and Lee Sonnaborn have retired in the past year. • The Richard E. Phillips lectures were given this fall by Lawrence C. Evans, of the U of California-Berkeley. He spoke on “Partial Differential Equations Methods in Dynamics” in three lectures on October 7, 8, and 10. [plappan@math.msu.edu]Michigan Technological University
[reported by Lynn Murphy]Phillip Merkey was appointed Research Assist. Prof. and Dir. of Computational Science and Engineering. • Russell Reid accepted a position at Apple Computer. * Darrell Hicks retired. • Barbara Bertram and Allan Struthers were promoted to Prof. • Michael Gilpin is on sabbatical leave for the Spring semester at Southern Polytechnic State U in Georgia and NASA in Houston. • Jeffrey Bonn and Kathleen Bonn are Visit. Assist. Profs., David Pray is a Lecturer, and Rolf Rees, from Memorial U of Newfoundland is Research Assoc. Prof. • Adjunct Faculty: Bin Tean Teh, from Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids. • Ilene H. Morgan from the U of Missouri-Rolla, gave a colloquium October 8 titled, “Dice and Polynomials” and a Combinatorics Seminar October 9 titled, “Latin Squares and Related Structures”. [murph@mtu.edu]Mott Community College
[reported by Karen Sharp]Bernie Cunningham is a new full-time math faculty member. [ksharp@mcc.edu]Northern Michigan University
[reported by Roxin Zhang]Jeffrey Horn and Randy Appleton in Computer Science and David Buhl in Mathematics Education have been promoted to the rank of associate professor. • The 53rd Annual Conference of the Michigan Council of Teachers of Mathematics was held at Northern Michigan University on October 10–12. It was co-hosted by the Seaborg Center for Science and Mathematics Education and included some sessions in science and social studies. The presentations and workshops incorporated the curriculum standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and of the Michigan Curriculum Framework, and included sessions on using technology as prompted by the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning. The Saturday sessions focused on assessment in Michigan, and included MI CLiMB (a clarification of the MCF benchmarks) and changes in the MEAP tests. For more information, go to http://www.mictm.org. • NMU will be sending five teams to this year’s ACM programming contest on November 9th. Our Computer Science Program will continue its hosting of an unofficial Programming Contest this spring. This year we expect four schools and about twenty-five teams to attend. Contact rappleto@nmu.edu for more information. [rzhang@nmu.edu]Oakland University
[reported by Jerry Grossman]Former chairperson Marc Lipman has become the dean of arts and sciences at Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne. Jack Nachman is serving at least one year as Interim Chairperson. • We have two visiting faculty this year: Gary McDonald, retired as the Director, Enterprise Systems Lab, General Motors Research & Development Center, and Irina Siverguina, formerly a senior research scientist with our Engineering School. Gary works in statistics, and Irina in various areas of applied mathematics. • Datta Kulkarni has resigned and now works for General Motors Research. • Fiki Shillor and Curt Chipman are on leave this semester. • Our 2002 Summer Mathematics Institute was a great success, with a full roster of 36 exceptionally bright high school students getting college credit in Number Theory and Linear Algebra. Information on the 2003 program is available at http://www.math.oakland.edu/ousmi.html. [grossman@oakland.edu]Schoolcraft College
[reported by Randy Schwartz]On Sept. 25 we hosted a presentation by Lynne Hansel, Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation at Henry Ford CC. Lynn spoke to us about her experience using the BlackBoard communication system for online mathematics courses. [rschwart@schoolcraft.cc.mi.us]University of Detroit Mercy
[reported by John O’Neill]Michael Canjar and Kevin Daimi have been promoted to Full Prof. Nancy Dwyer has been promoted to Assoc. Prof. Ron Mosier is retiring from the Department as of January 1. On October 18 our College held its annual Technology Discovery Day. Over 800 students from 30 high schools participated in the many scientific competitions. A good time was had by all. [oneilljd@udmercy.edu]University of Michigan-Dearborn
[reported by F. J. Papp]Michael A. LaChance has returned from a one year leave. He spent the year at the U of Southhampton, in England, following which, he recently presented the Department with an interesting discussion of the differences between the mathematics departments at Southhampton and UM-Dearborn. • We are happy to welcome a new visiting colleague: Montaha Shamoon. • Timothy E. McKenna’s new book “Precalculus: A Light and Lively Course” along with 10,000 PowerPoint slides is to be published next Fall by Books/Cole as ancillary material for the Cohen Precalculus book we use. He also authored “Calculus: A Light and Lively Course” with 7,500 PowerPoint slides. Both of these books are currently in use in his classes. [fjpapp@umd.umich.edu]University of Michigan-Flint
[reported by Steven C. Althoen]Larry Kugler retired in May. His career at UM-Flint began in 1966. At the Spring 2002 Commencement he sang the National Anthem. Previously he had participated in commencements as Dean of CAS (for nine years), Acting Provost, Acting Chancellor, Commencement Speaker and Faculty Marshall—all the other speaking roles. He was also Mathematics Department Chair, responsible for initiating Math Field Day (now in its 36th consecutive year), and extensively involved in the Honors Program. • A representative from the Digi-Block Company (http://www.digi-block.com) made presentations in several sections of the math content course for elementary teachers, demonstrating the new math manipulative for understanding positional notation and arithmetic operations. • Last June, Steve Althoen and Matt Wyneken piloted a two-week workshop for elementary teachers on “Understanding Our Number System, Arithmetic Operations, and Fractions.” The workshop was sponsored by the UM-Flint Office of School Partnerships and the Flint Community Schools. Participants reported that the workshop was successful, and more such workshops will be held. Together with Mott CC, we are hosting 16 Family Math Fun Nights at 14 local elementary schools and two on campus. UM-Flint played host to the Math Education Study Group on September 20. • The 36th annual Math Field Day, a team competition for high school students from throughout Michigan, will be held on Tuesday, February 25, 2003. For more information, visit the event’s Web site, (http://www.flint.umich.edu/Departments/math/Field_Day). [salthoen@umflint.edu]Washtenaw Community College
[reported by James Egan]Roger Palay is serving as Interim Vice President of Instruction and Dennis Bila is serving as Department Chair. The department welcomes new full-time faculty members Hanan Wahab, Mike King, and Lisa Rombes. [ jegan@wccnet.edu]Wayne State University
[reported by Daniel Frohardt]Po Hu (Ph.D., UM-Ann Arbor) and Sheng Zhang (Ph.D., U of Pennsylvania) are new Assist. Profs. • Nguyen Hung, National U of Vietnam (algebraic topology), Zbigniew Jurek, U of Wroclaw, Poland (probabilistic limit theory), and Sergey Shpectorov, Bowling Green State U, are visiting this year. • Sarah Ferguson has been promoted to Assoc. Prof. with tenure. Guozhen Lu, Kay Magaard, and Zhimin Zhang have been promoted to Prof. • John Klein has been awarded a Career Development Chair from WSU. Kevin Knudson received a 2002 Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award. • Robert Berman is on a third leave of absence to work on the University’s Banner system. • Kevin Knudson, Charles McGibbon, Brian Taylor, and Daoqi Yang have resigned. Leon Brown is on long term disability leave. Rafail Khasminskii, Frank Okoh, and Zhimin Zhang are on sabbatical leave this semester. Sarah Ferguson is on a leave of absence this year. Kay Magaard and will be on leave of absence next semester and Daniel Drucker will be on sabbatical leave. • The home page for this year’s colloquium series is: http://www.math.wayne.edu/research/seminars/colloq.html. Alice Chang of Princeton U will be the Owens Lecturer, on March 3–4. John Conway of Princeton U will speak on January 27. • WSU will host an NSF-CBMS Regional Conference in Mathematical Sciences on Free Boundary Problems in Partial Differential Equations and Applications, May 18–22. The conference will be partially supported by the IMA. • The department is undergoing its periodic seven year review. • This Fall marked the opening of the first dormitory on the WSU campus for many years. There are plans for more, with the second dormitory currently under construction.
Back to the Fall
Newsletter
This page is maintained by Earl D. Fife