News from the Campuses


Albion College

[reported by Robert Messer]
Paul Anderson is on sabbatical leave this year at the University of Nevada at Reno. Teresa Magnus is a visiting faculty member this year. She received her PhD from the University of Virginia and is most recently from Saint Mary's College in Indiana. Farrokh Saba (WMU) has also joined the Department in a part-time position this semester. · Bruce Berndt, mathematics graduate in 1961, returned to Albion College this fall to receive a Distinguished Alumnus Award. Currently a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Illinois, he has devoted his research efforts to proving the results in the notebooks left by Srinivasa Ramanujan.


Calvin College

[reported by Gerard Venema]
This summer the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science split into two new departments: the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and the Department of Computer Science. · Pete McGill is new; he has a degree in applied mathematics from Washington State University. Mike Stob is spending a sabbatical year at Notre Dame University. Gerard Venema has been appointed Interim Chair in Mike's absence. Speakers and visitors this fall include Frank Connolly, Peter Hilton, Leo Jonker, Jean Pedersen, and Marlin Thomas.


Central Michigan University

[reported by Ahmed M. Assaf]
Ahmed Assaf and Donna Ericksen have been promoted to Professor. Carl Lee and William Miller are on sabbatical in the Fall, and George Grossman and Susan Lenker are on sabbatical in the Spring. Yury Ionin and Felix Famoye will have the Research Professorship in the Fall and Spring, respectively. · Sam Brannan, Bob Clason, and Bert Schmidt will be retiring at the end of the Fall. Mary Beth Searcy of the University of Georgia is joining the Department as an Assistant Professor. Boris Bekker of the University of St. Petersburg, Russia, is visiting for the Fall. · Last summer the Department hosted two TI graphing calculator workshop with Denny St. John and Chuck Vonder Embse. In September the second annual Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education Conference was held in Mt. Pleasant.


Eastern Michigan University

[reported by Tim Carroll]
Barbara Britton is a new Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education. JoAnne Rankin retired after 34 years of service to EMU. Jiuqiang Liu was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor and awarded tenure. · Joanne Caniglia received the EMU Distinguished Faculty Award in Teaching. She also received a Dwight D. Eisenhower Higher Education Professional Development Grant for her proposal "Number & Pattern in African Culture: A Preservice Mentorship Program". Donald Buckeye and Bette Warren were the EMU recipients of the 1996-97 Michigan Association of Governing Boards' Distinguished Faculty Awards. · On October 25 EMU hosted the 28th Midwest Graph Theory Conference (MIGHTY XXVIII). The EMU-MCTM Mathematics Education Conference will be held on March 28. For further information, contact Geraldine Green or Carla Tayeh.


GMI Institute

[reported by Brian McCartin]
Stefanka Chukova was promoted to Associate Professor of Applied Mathematics and Statistics and granted tenure. Boyan Dimitrov was granted tenure. Undergraduate applied math major Michael Fisackerly was awarded a Barry S. Goldwater Scholarship, one of only 17 awarded in mathematics in the entire United States. · Effective January 1, 1998, GMI will become Kettering University. It will be named after Charles F. Kettering, renowned inventor, founder of General Motors Research Labs, and "godfather" to GMI throughout his life.


Grand Valley State University

[reported by Don VanderJagt]
New faculty include Assistant Professors Jody Sorensen (PhD from Northwestern in dynamical systems, previously at Bates College and Gettysburg College) and Clark Wells (PhD from Kentucky in distance geometry), Associate Professor George Sturm (PhD from Ohio State in statistics, previously at GVSU and in Albania), and Visiting Assistant Professor John Golden (PhD from Penn State). · Georgianna Klein and Cathy Gardner were promoted to Associate Professor. Karen Novotny and Alverna Champion are on leave, the latter to NSF.


Hillsdale College

[reported by Mark Watson]
Dean Evasius has resigned to accept a position at Pacific University in Oregon. Bob Hesse from the University of Minnesota and John Boardman from Morehead State University have joined the faculty.

Hope College [reported by John R. Stoughton]

The Mathematics Department has the following new personnel: Assistant Professors Donatella Delfino, Claudia Polini (Claudia is finishing a post-doc at MSU before officially joining our facultyshe will be at Hope next fall), and Darin Stephenson; and Visiting Assistant Professors Alan Koch and David Hahn. · Two faculty members will be on sabbatical leave this academic year. Janet Andersen will be staying in the Holland area while she works, with NSF support, on the development of a general education course for mathematics and science. Elliot Tanis will also be in the Holland area this spring working on revising his laboratory manual, which uses Maple, so that topics parallel the topics in the fifth edition of his textbook. · Tim Pennings has been appointed Chair for the next three years. · The Department has been awarded its third REU grant from the NSF, to begin in the summer of 1998.


Kalamazoo College

[reported by John Fink]
Eric Barth, who received his PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Kansas in 1995, joined the faculty. Eric's interests include molecular dynamics and applied linear algebra. Before joining our faculty he held a post-doctoral position with the Howard Hughes Medical Center at the Courant Institute in New York City. · George Nielsen will retire at the end of this year after 30 years of service to the college. Bill Calhoun has left to accept a position as assistant professor at Bloomsburg State College in Pennsylvania. · Visiting faculty this year include Kenneth Mulder (University of Oregon), Lily Nordmoe (Northwestern), Kelly Schultz (WMU), and Janet Andersen (Hope College).


Lansing Community College

[reported by JingLing Wang]
Nan Jackson joined the full-time mathematics faculty this fall semester. · The Mathematics and Computer Science Department is currently testing a new teaching program to introduce computer technology in the teaching of calculus. The new effort, led by JingLing Wang, uses the Converge and Derive programs.


Lawrence Technological University

[reported by M. Merscher]
The 28th Annual LTU Mathematics Competition for High School Students was held in April. This year's winner was Goutam Reddy of Detroit Country Day School. · Gloria Rivkin and William Sverdlik were encouraged with the results they obtained with a summer algebra workshop to prepare students for calculus. They plan to repeat the efforts this summer.


Macomb Community College

[reported by Art Daniel]
Three faculty members retired: James Blanzy, George Gorte, and Ron Sturza. Ron LaPorte moved from South to Center Campus. The entire Center Campus Department moved into the new N Building this fall.


Michigan State University

[reported by Dick Phillips]
The administrative face of the Department has changed considerably over the last few months. Pete Lappan has assumed the position of Chair, replacing Jon Hall, who served as Chair for three years. The new Director of Undergraduate Studies is Susan Schuur, who succeeded Bill Sledd after four years. Ed Palmer is currently helping out as Associate Chair. · New Assistant Professors in the Department are Baisheng Yen (PDE's) and Fedor Nazarov (analysis), while visitors for all or part of the year are Jim Cannon (topology), Marianna Della Molle (group theory), Ivko Dimitric (geometry), Muhammad Salam (combinatorics), Hector Salas (analysis), and Silvia Weigand (commutative algebra). Congratulations to Sharon Senk for her promotion to Professor and to John Masterson as recipient of the J. S. Frame Teaching Award. Harvey Davis, Indranand Sinha, David Winter, and Irv Vance are soon to join the ranks of Emeriti Professors. · With a talk by Gang Tian of MIT, the Department has initiated an annual lecture series.


Michigan Technological University

[reported by Lynn Murphy]
Otto G. Ruehr has retired and been made Professor Emeritus. Allan A. Struthers was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. · On leave for all or part of this year are Sidney W. Graham (National Science Foundation), Russell M. Reid (University of Wisconsin), Thomas D. Drummer (Yellowstone National Park), Donald L. Kreher (University of Vermont), and Vladimir D. Tonchev (Universities of Heidelberg and Augsburg). · Edem Ibragimov, John P. McSorley, Kenneth J. Morgan, David W. Pray, and William P. Vockel are visitors. · The Department will be hosting the Fifth International Conference on Integral Methods in Science and Engineering, August 10-13.


Northern Michigan University

[reported by Jeff Horn]
The MAA Upper Peninsula Zonal Meeting was held on October 17-18. It featured Zhiqiang Chen (William Patterson University) speaking on statistics. Jeff Horn was the conference organizer.


Oakland University

[reported by Jerry Grossman]
The Department's new PhD program in Applied Mathematical Sciences started this fall, as we moved into our offices in the new Science and Engineering Building, under the leadership of our new Chair, Marc Lipman. · The Summer Camp for talented area high school students finished its second summer. · We hired Eddie Cheng, a specialist in combinatorial optimization. · Datta Kulkarni is organizing a major research conference on algebraic combinatorics, to be held May 1-3, 1998.


Schoolcraft College

[reported by Randy Schwartz]
Rodman Doll has announced his retirement effective December 31, after nearly 30 years of service. This past summer he was one of 30 participants in a faculty enhancement workshop in differential equations, held at DePaul University. · At the Michigan Section meeting in May, Janina Udrys and Larry Williams spoke as members of a four-person panel on "Alternative Delivery Systems". Janina discussed her experience with a video telecourse for Intermediate Algebra, and noted that Addison-Wesley has offered her a contract to upgrade her video study guide for nationwide distribution. Larry described his new interactive television (ITV) calculus course. The course is delivered live to students at Clarenceville High School, some of whom were so captivated by the experience that they switched their career goal from Journalism to Math Education. · Rheta Rubenstein has helped launch the Southeastern Michigan Mathematics Education Study Group, for educators from various colleges engaged in teaching mathematics education courses. The first meeting was September 19. For more information, contact her at rrubenst@schoolcraft.cc.mi.us.


Siena Heights College

[reported by Toni Carroll]
Rick Trujillo has been named a Project NExT Fellow. Toni Carroll is temporarily serving as McNair Program director. · On November 8 the Department co-sponsored a math conference for high school students in Lenawee County: "What's In It For Me?". Speakers included Melissa Holobach (Industrial Engineering for General Motors), Eugene Krause (UM-Ann Arbor), and Linda Rowland (Marketing Technology for Bank One). · Lana Taylor is experimenting with a course in Visual Mathematics.


Spring Arbor College

[reported by Garnet Hauger]
Last spring the Department had about 200 middle and high school students on campus for a Mathematics-Science Colloquium. Our own college students gave 10-minute talks in two parallel sessions and we had about 50 posters of other college students' mathematics and science projects. This event was funded by the Bauervic Foundation and was a screaming success. · One of our recent graduates, Alan Demlow, received an NSF Fellowship to pursue a PhD program in mathematics at Cornell University. · We received NCATE approval for our mathematics program that prepares elementary and secondary teachers. · The Department just finished a two-year study of general mathematics skills of entering freshmen. We correlated scores on a locally-devised test with ACT MATH score (r = .66) and made a recommendation that students with an ACT MATH score less than 18 must take our basic college mathematics course before they take their quantitative literacy course (business mathematics, computer science, calculus, or mathematics for elementary teachers). · In the last three years computer technology has been greatly upgraded on our campus and used in more and more classes. As a result students are more able to use standard and mathematics production tools (like EXCEL and MATHEMATICA) to complete mathematics assignments and projects. This has been an exciting area of growth for us. For example, we used EXCEL almost exclusively in teaching Numerical Analysis last spring.


University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

[reported by H. Montgomery]

The renovation of East Hall, which now houses both the Mathematics Department and the Psychology Department, is complete; the formal dedication was held on October 18. · Sasha Barvinok has just received an NSF CAREER Fellowship. · Jean Bourgain gave the Ziwet Lectures, "KAM Theory for PDE's", in November. · New faculty include Zhong-Hui Duan (mathematical biology), Razvan Gelca (topological quantum field theory), Nicolae Gonciulea (algebraic geometry), David Grabiner (combinatorics), Richard Hind (global analysis), Smadar Karni (numerical analysis), Erica Klarreich (hyperbolic geometry), Robert Lazarsfeld (algebraic geometry), Ernesto Lupercio (algebraic topology), Joe McGrath (applied math), Claudia Miller (commutative algebra), Peter Selinger (computer science, category theory), Ronnie Sircar (applied math), Michael Sze (actuarial science), Arpad Toth (automorphic forms), Dror Varolin (several complex variables), and Jerome Wolbert (algebraic topology). · Visiting faculty for all or part of this year include Hyman Bass (algebraic geometry), Klas Diederich (several complex variables), Axel Hundemer (complex dynamics), Alex Ryba (computational group theory), Pedro Sanchez (algebra), and Michael Tsfasman (arithmetic geometry). There are several visiting scholars, as well.

University of Michigan-Dearborn

[reported by Margret Höft]
Joan Remski, a UMD alumna, has joined the Department as Assistant Professor. She received her PhD in applied mathematics from MSU in May 1997. Eileen Kaller, who has taught in the Department on an adjunct basis since 1991, became a Visiting Lecturer. John Gillespie was promoted to Professor. He returned from a one year sabbatical in September. David James and Paul Lin are on sabbatical leave during the Fall term; Richard Dahlke will be on sabbatical leave during the Winter term. The Department's web site (http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/math) contains information such as seminar schedules. · The Department has received an NSF grant to purchase equipment for the establishment of a Mathematics Learning Center.


University of Michigan-Flint

[reported by Steve Althoen]

Harry D'Souza was promoted to Professor and is on a worldwide sabbatical this year. · The Department will hold its 31st annual Math Field Day, a competition for high school students from throughout the state, on March 3. Thirty-four teams participated in 1997, when first places in the divisions of large, medium, and small schools were won by Detroit Country Day, Catholic Central-Detroit, and Linden, respectively. For more information, call Bob Bix at 810-762-3314. · On April 4, we will host the 1998 Lower Michigan Mathematics Competition, organized by Ricardo Alfaro, Ken Schilling, and Matt Wyneken. · Renate McLaughlin gave an invited address entitled "What I Have Learned Since Visualizing Mathematics Has Become Easier" at the regional NCTM meeting in Milwaukee on October 11. Meanwhile, Robert Bix is presenting a contributed paper "Conics and Cubics" on an accessible introduction to algebraic curves at the Special Session on Rethinking Upper-Level Core Mathematics at the joint meetings in Baltimore.


Wayne State University

[reported by Daniel Frohardt]

Brian Taylor has been appointed Assistant Professor, while Patricia Bonesteel, Leonard Boehn, Chris Nazelli, and Donald Sherry have been appointed Lecturers for the 1997-98 academic year. · Steven Kahn has been promoted to Professor. Kay Magaard has been promoted to Associate Professor and granted tenure. Alexander Korostelev has also received tenure. Jeffrey Strom is visiting the Department for the 1997-98 academic year. · John Irwin, Jinyal Pak, and Martin Wechsler have retired. Jose-Luis Menaldi, Daniel Frohardt, and George Yin are on sabbatical leave for one term this year. · There is a full colloquium schedule this year; it is posted on the Department's Web site (http://www.math.wayne.edu). · Robert Bruner has received a teaching award from the College of Science. · Finally, the Department wishes to thank all those who helped to make the MAA/AMS joint meetings last spring a roaring success.


Western Michigan University

[reported by Dennis Pence]

New Assistant Professors are Robert Buck from the Harvard School of Public Health (PhD, City University in London, UK) in computational statistics, Kate Kline from Eastern Washington University (PhD, UM) in elementary mathematics education, Michael Raines (PhD, Auburn University) in combinatorics, and Stephen Ziebarth (PhD, University of Iowa) in secondary mathematics education. New Associate Professor is Yuri Ledyaev from Rutgers University (PhD, Moscow Institute for Physics and Technology and a member of the Steklov Institute for Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Science) in analysis and differential equations. Radu Teodorescu had been appointed as the director of the Modular Math Program. John Martino and Joshua Naranjo have received tenure; the latter has also been promoted to Associate Professor. Robert Blefko has retired after 30 years on the faculty. · The Department hosted the Fourth Kalamazoo Symposium on Matrix Analysis and Applications on October 24-25 with featured speaker and Visiting University Scholar G. W. Stewart (University of Maryland). Other principal speakers were N. J. Higham (University of Manchester), Charles R. Johnson (College of William and Mary), Charles Van Loan (Cornell University), and Henry Wolkowicz (University of Waterloo). The directors of the Symposium were Niloufer Mackey and Thomas Richardson. · The Department is pleased to be hosting the Annual Meeting of the Michigan Section on May 1-2. The local arrangements committee consists of John Petro, Joseph Buckley, and Paul Eenigenburg.

On to Student Chapter News
Back to the Newsletter Table of Contents