Cindy Bosio has assumed the responsibilities of department chairperson. Janet Jagger (U of Leeds) gave a colloquium talk on conic sections and the Dendelin spheres.
There are three new faculty with one-year appointments: Mark Bollman (working on a PhD in number theory from CMU), Michelle Dersch (visiting from MSU), and Carol Seaman. Carol is gathering data from students about how they form concepts in a multivariate calculus course. This study will be part of her PhD thesis at CMU.
Theodore Hertzog has resigned from the Computer Science side of the department. Myles McNally has begun a term as department chair, taking over from Mel Nyman, who has completed a seven-year term. Melissa Desjarlais was at Miami U for seven weeks in their Summer Undergraduate Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. Amy Kuiper was funded by a MacGregor Grant to work on an independent research project with Aklilu Zeleke. Keith Suppes and Chris Rowland participated in the NSF-funded REU in Computer Science at Hope C. Michigan Section MAA members might be interested in The International Journal of Computer Algebra in Mathematics Education, which is based in England and published quarterly (http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/maths/CTMHOME/ijcame.html).
George Van Zwalenberg retired after 39 years at Calvin. New to the department this year are Rikki Wagstrom (PhD in applied mathematics from U of Nebraska), Jim Turner (PhD in algebraic topology from MIT), Judy Lalani (Masters in mathematics from Clemson U), and Pam Plantinga (Masters in biostatistics from UM). Tom Jager has exchanged positions with Russ Howell of Westmont C in Santa Barbara for the Fall semester. Professor Emeritus Jack Kuipers was the keynote speaker at the Fifth International Conference on Geometry, Integrability and Quantization, held at the St. Constantine Resort (on the shores of the Black Sea) near Varna, Bulgaria, in September. Jim Turner is one of only two topologists in the country to receive funding this year from the NSF under the RUI (Research at Undergraduate Institutions) program.
Two new faculty joined the department: Jungsywan Sepanski (statistics) and Stephen Smith (mathematics education). There are also three Visiting Professors for the year: Boris Bekker from Russia, Shengweng Wang from China, and Rustam Ibragimov from Uzbekistan. Dennis St. John is on sabbatical for the Spring.
Walter Parry is on sabbatical for 1999-2000 Joanne Caniglia and Irene Duranczyk were awarded both NSF and Eisenhower grants. EMU will be hosting its annual Math-Ed conference; details are available from Geraldine Green.
New faculty are David Austin (PhD from U of Utah, differential geometry and topology; previously at Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton and U of British Columbia) and John Gabrosek (PhD from Iowa State U, statistics). Charlene Beckmann was promoted to Professor, and Paul Fishback received tenure. Alverna Champion is on leave for the academic year; Paul Fishback is on leave for the Fall, and Salim Haidar, Gary Klingler, Phil Pratt, Mary Ellen Rivers, and Ted Sundstrom are on leave for the Winter. Michael Abramson, who works in groups and geometries, is visiting from U of Chicago. Matt Boelkins has been appointed a 1999-2000 MAA Project NExT Fellow. The 24th annual Lower Michigan Mathematics Competition will be held at GVSU on Saturday, April 1. This exam is designed for teams of three undergraduates to complete during a three-hour time period. More information is available from Matt Boelkins (boelkinm@gvsu.edu). GVSU will be running an Undergraduate Research Experiences in Mathematics (REU) program in which students and faculty will collaborate on projects in chaos and dynamical systems, fractal geometry, linear algebra, and quantum computing. Information is available at http://www.gvsu.edu/mathstat/reu.html or from director Steven Schlicker.
Mary DeYoung was promoted to Associate Professor. Richard Vandervelde and Elliot Tanis will be retiring at the end of the 1999-2000 academic year. Claudia Polini received a $59,000 NSF grant, "Linkage and Cohen-Macaulayness Blowup Algebras".
Kenneth Mulder has joined the department for this year. In addition to other duties, Kenneth will be teaching a course on sustainable systems. John Fink is on leave during the Fall quarter, researching the life of mathematician George Temple, and plans to travel to Oxford in connection with this work. On October 2 Kalamazoo College held its first Sonia Kovalevsky Day. The program, entitled "When Sound Meets Symbol", explored the topic of group theory through change ringing. Joan Hutchinson (Macalester C) was the featured speaker.
Duane McKeachie has retired after 50 years of service. Srinivas Chakravarthy transferred to the Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering and Business Department.
Professors Bernard Arbic, Gary Thesing, and Paul Wilson will retire at the end of Fall semester, 1999. They represent a combined 96 years of service to LSSU.
Nan Jackson has become the department faculty chair. Bob Pawlowski, resumes his full-time faculty position after serving as chairperson for about four years.
David Bindschadler is the new chairperson of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. George Towfic has joined the department full-time. Students Matt Frederick and Nathan Kopp both placed among the best in the world on the 1999 Quest for Java Contest. Matt's applet was "Lunar Lander Controller Using Genetic Programming", and Nathan's was "An Evacuation Simulation Model". Both students graduated summa cum laude in May 1999.
Douglas Hall and Martin Fuchs retired in June 1999. Gang Bao and Joan Ferrini-Mundy have joined the faculty as Professors, and Karen King and Peter Ozsvath are new Assistant Professors. New Postdoctoral Instructors are Bertrand Haas, Burak Ozbagci, Karim Ramdini, and Ralph Svetic. Also, Jerome Buzzi (U of Paris) is visiting during the Fall. Fedor Nazarov has won the Salem Prize for 1999. This international prize is awarded annually for the best work by a young mathematician in harmonic analysis. Fedor becomes the third member of our faculty to win this prize. The third annual Invited Lecture Series, in April 2000, will feature Robert Calderbank (AT&T Labs-Research) and Ingrid Daubechies (Princeton U).
Kathleen A. Feigl and Franz X. Tanner have joined the faculty as Associate Professors. Renfang Jiang was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. Several faculty are on leave this year: Jianping Dong (MTU and U of Southern California), Renfang Jiang (UM and U of Southern California), Kenneth L. Kuttler (Brigham Young U), Gilbert N. Lewis (MTU and U of Tulsa), and Francois L. Margot (U of Kentucky). There are also several visitors: Vanere S. Goodwin (Hampton U), Sharad S. Sane (U of Mumbai, India), William P. Vockel, and Vassil Y. Yorgov.
Terry Seethoff, who has served as head of the Department for 19 years, was appointed interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Don Zalewski stepped in as interim head and lists his major concerns as getting the university teachers to model good teaching methods for future K-12 teachers, keeping abreast of changes in technology, and implementing technology into university teaching, especially in the face of the "laptop initiative", which is mandatory for all freshman beginning in the Fall of 2000. Andrew A. Poe (PhD in computer science and engineering from UM, parallel processing) has been appointed Assistant Professor. William W. Babcock retired in July after 31 years of service. The MAA Upper Peninsula Regional Conference held at NMU in October was quite successful. Richard Vitale (U of Connecticut) and Dan Frohardt (WSU) were the invited speakers.
The department has a grant from the state to provide smaller class size and extensive support services to talented but at-risk minority students interested in fields requiring significant mathematics. This program, called Math Plus, is a joint effort with the university's Tutoring Center. The Summer Mathematics Institute for local high school students finished its fourth year in 1999 and is planned to continue next summer. Darrell Schmidt won the all-university Teaching Excellence Award — the third member of the department to garner this honor since its inception around 1980.
Three new Lecturers were hired this year: James Adams (MS from MSU), Hasan Al-Halees (PhD candidate from CMU in functional analysis, with masters degrees from Middle East Technical U, CMU, and U of Toledo), and Tim Weier (MS from CMU). Steve Sepanski was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor. Diana Frederick retired after more than 30 years at SVSU.
Tim Husband has begged, borrowed, and persuaded donations to put together a new math technology lab. It is equipped with computers and calculators for use with group instruction and individual tutoring. Anthony Scioly has been awarded sabbatical leave for Winter semester. Speakers this semester include Chris Ruckman (Lincoln National Corporation) and Scott Osborn (UM-Ann Arbor).
Robert Kane passed away this summer after some forty years of teaching at UDM. Jeffrey Boats recently earned his Doctor of Arts degree from Carnegie Mellon U. Mike Skaff spoke on the Role of GIS Imaging at the recent conference of the International Association of Assessing Officers in Las Vegas. Dr. Saba gave talks this summer in Monterey, Mexico and Beijing, China. October 22 was Technology Discovery Day here. Students from the high schools visited the campus where displays, exhibits, and competitions exposed them to mathematics, science, and engineering. Ford, GM, Daimler-Chrysler, Ameritech, Edison, and others joined us in making presentations.
Alexander Barvinok received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers at the White House in February. Tom Hales has won the 1999 Henry Russell Award from the University, one of the highest awards given by the University to younger faculty. Don Lewis has returned to campus after four years in Washington, where he served as Director of the Division of Mathematical Sciences of the National Science Foundation. Sean McLaughlin will receive the 1999 Frank and Brennie Morgan Prize for outstanding research by an undergraduate at the joint meetings in Washington. Working with Tom Hales, Sean proved the Dodecahedral Conjecture, which asserts that the volume of the Voronoi polyhedron of a sphere in a packing of equal spheres is at least the volume of a regular dodecahedron with inradius 1. A number of new faculty have arrived, including Professor Hyman Bass (algebraic geometry and math ed); Associate Professors Sergey Fomin (algebraic geometry, theoretical computer science), Zolgan Szabo (topology); Assistant Professors Edgardo Eszter (ode/pde), Brent Carswell (complex analysis), Yinshui Fan (non-linear dynamical systems), Edward Givelberg, Alexander Gorokhovsky (noncommutative geometry), Kristen Moore (nonlinear pde), Bryan Mosher (hyperbolic geometry/geometric group theory), Evangelos Mouroukos (algebraic cycles, Hodge theory, motives), Guergana Petrova (nonlinear pde), Laura Scull (algebraic and differential topology), Krishnan Shankar (Lie groups), Istvan Talata (convex and discrete geometry), Warren Weckesser (mechanics and dynamical systems), Ralf Wittenberg (dynamical systems, math bio, applied math); Lecturers Irina Arakelian (math ed), Dan Boyk (math ed), Karen Rhea (math ed); and visitors Mario Bonk (analysis), Ana Bravo (commutative algebra), Remi Carles (applied math), Harland Glaz (applied math), Harald Hanche-Olsen (analysis), David Hoff (applied math), Renfang Jiang (algebra), Gary Kennedy, Bruce Kleiner (topology), Vincent Koziarz (complex analysis), Ari Naimark (applied math), Thi Ha Duong Phan (dynamical systems), Dietmar Vogt (analysis).
Pending approval of the Board of Regents, the new Master of Science Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics is expected to begin next Fall. There are two Visiting Assistant Professors this year: John Clifford (mathematics) and Judith Flowers (mathematics education). Ronald Morash is on sabbatical during the Fall semester, and Robert Fakler will be on sabbatical leave during the Winter. Andrew Strowe received the University's Distinguished Teaching Award. Several talks are planned as part of the Mathematics Undergraduate Colloquium Series; details are available from jcliff@umd.umich.edu. Michael Lachance has received a grant from the NSF's Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement Program for the revision of the sophomore-level linear algebra course, building on the experiences of the students. Roger Verhey has been awarded an Eisenhower grant for a second year to support a local alliance with Henry Ford CC, Dearborn Public Schools, and Detroit Public Schools aimed at increasing the number of students graduating in mathematics education who are interested in teaching in urban schools. Professor Verhey is also the mathematics co-chair of the Michigan Science and Mathematics Alliance (MiSMA), which seeks to promote educational reform at all levels so that all students can meet high standards in mathematics, science, and technology. One of its objectives is the promotion of the alignment of local curricula, instruction, and assessment with state standards and the articulation of such curricula and standards with college science and mathematics.
Inge Garlick retired at the end of the 1998-1999 academic year after 21 years as Lecturer. Inge was a co-director of family math night, a successful, continuing program designed to introduce mathematical ideas to elementary school children and their parents (for information on this year's programs, contact Joan Hellmann at 810-762-3005). Tom Scofield has just joined the department (PhD from MSU, applied mathematics) after a year at Calvin C. He is a 1999-2000 Project NExT fellow. The department will hold its 33rd annual Math Field Day, a competition for high school students from throughout the state, on leap day. Thirty-two teams participated in 1999; the team from Detroit Country Day School won the championship. For more information, call Ken Schilling (810-762-3244).
Jim Egan is serving as Interim Dean of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, and Dennis Bila and Michael Quail are filling in for him, sharing department chair duties. Mohammed Abella has joined the full-time mathematics faculty. Denise Lee and Robert Hatcher have temporary full-time appointments.
Two new faculty members have joined the department: Assistant Professor Kevin Knudson (from Northwestern U, PhD from Duke U, homology of linear groups and algebraic K-theory) and Associate Professor Zhimin Zhang (from Texas Tech, PhD from Maryland U, applied math). Kay Magaard has received a WSU Career Development Chair and is spending the Fall term at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. Boris Mordukhovich has received a WSU Distinguished Faculty Fellowship. George Yin received a WSU Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award, and Peter Malcolmson, C. S. Houh, and Chris Nazelli have received teaching awards from the College of Science. Larry Brenton and David Handel are on sabbatical leave this term; Greg Bachelis, Bob Bruner, and Steve Williams will be on leave in the Winter; and Bert Schreiber is on leave for the academic year.
Terrell Hodge (PhD in representation theory and algebraic groups from U of Virginia, recently at Sweet Briar C) and Annegret Paul (PhD in representation theory of Lie groups from U of Maryland, recently at U of California, Berkeley) are new Assistant Professors. New Instructors are David Coffey (PhD from WMU in secondary mathematics education), Lynn Breyfogle, Sheila Eisenhauer, Jennifer Krawutschke, Stephen Ohs, Paula Smith, and Paul Yansak. Ok-Ki Kang (Sung Kyun Kwan U, Seoul) is a Visiting Professor of mathematics education. Niloufer Mackey, Michael Slack, and Laura Van Zoest have been promoted to Associate Professor. In addition, Michael has been granted tenure. Ruth Ann Meyer has retired after 23 years on the faculty. She will continue in the department as a research associate to direct an NSF grant. Joseph McKean was named a fellow of the American Statistical Association at its August 1999 meeting in Baltimore. The Ninth Quadrennial International Conference on Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Algorithms and Applications (http://www.wmich.edu/graftheo/gtcc2000.html) will be held June 4-9, 2000 at WMU. The directors are Yousef Alavi, Gary Chartand, John W. Petro, Allen J. Schwenk (all from WMU), Ronald L. Graham (AT&T Laboratories), and Don R. Lick (EMU). The Sixth Great Lakes Statistics Symposium will be held October 25-27, 2000 in Kalamazoo. The directors are Michael R. Stoline, Joseph W. McKean (both from WMU), and Thomas Vidmar (Pharmacia &Upjohn). Contemporary Mathematics in Context, an innovative program developed by the Core Plus Mathematics Project, directed by Christian Hirsch, was recently designated as one of five "exemplary" programs in the nation by the U. S. Department of Education.
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