After three years as Acting Associate Director of Academic Computing, John Wenzel is on an administrative leave this semester in preparation to return to full-time teaching in the Math Department. * The Department encourages people around the world to celebrate Mathematics Awareness Month by wearing plaid on International Plaid Day, April 28, to show their support of mathematics.
Gerard Venema continues this year as Director for Topology and Foundations at the National Science Foundation in Washington. Jim Bradley is on leave for two semesters in Washington, working at the State Department. * MAA president Tom Banchoff gave a talk on the exploration of four dimensions using the Internet as one of the presentations in the January Series Lectures. We are looking forward to a visit from MAA Associate Secretary Jim Tattersall, in conjunction with Women's History Month.
Jack Crowell is on leave for the Winter, 2000 semester. He is visiting Kenya, teaching mathematics at Moi University and distributing computers to local high schools. Over the last five years Jack has distributed approximately 1500 computers to schools in Kenya. * MichMATYC is sponsoring two conferences this year. The first is the MichMATYC Summer Workshop on June 27-29 at Grand Rapids CC. The theme of the conference will be related to the resources, tools, and issues in on-line teaching. The second is the MichMATYC Fall Conference, October 13-14 at Delta College.
Donald A. Buckeye, the winner of the Section's Distinguished Teacher Award in 1998, retired at the end of the fall semester after 32 years of service. * Peter Hilton is scheduled for a March presentation on "Breaking the German code in WWII".
John Hansen and Glen Lobo have resigned, and Judith Tressler, Paul Schell, and Mickey Dargitz have retired. * Joseph Tripp (PhD in mathematics education from Syracuse U) has joined the faculty.
Evan Schemm has joined the faculty in computer science, beginning Spring Semester, 2000.
RoboFest 2000 will be held as a feature of the annual LTU Open House the weekend of April 15-16. Events include a Robo Race, a Robo-Firefighter Race, and Robo Tag. There will be a middle/high school division and a college division of competition. RoboFest was initiated by Chan-Jin Chung. Open House will also feature the 31st Annual LTU High School Mathematics Competition.
Marvin L. Tomber, a department member from 1955 to 1993, died in January at the age of 74. See In Memoriam for an obituary article on former department chair and Michigan Section chair Richard E. Phillips, who died suddenly in November.
Alan Park gave a series of invited lectures on the Groebner basis and its applications at a five-day algebra workshop held at Seoul National U in Korea.
Gretchen Mooningham received a grant from the Association for Women in Mathematics (funded by Coppin State C, National Security Agency, and Office of Naval Research) and the SVSU Foundation to develop, organize, and host Sonia Kovalevsky High School Mathematics Day, which was held October 29 with 224 ninth and tenth grade girls and 21 teachers in attendance. * The Mathematics department will be hosting its annual Math Olympics competition for Michigan middle school and high school students on May 9. Both team and individual prizes are awarded.
Professor Carolyn Tews announced her retirement prior to the Fall 1999 semester, following a 22-year career at Schoolcraft College. Adjunct Associate Professor Chitra Swarup was appointed as full-time temporary replacement for her. Tews and Rodman Doll have been granted emeritus status. * Schoolcraft College, Henry Ford Community College, and Eastern Michigan University launched an NSF-funded, 3-year project called the Emerging Scholars Program for Teachers (EST) in Fall 1999. The project is aimed at upgrading courses in Mathematics for Elementary School Teachers, Methods of Teaching Mathematics in the Elementary School, and the algebra prerequisites for these courses. Rheta Rubenstein taught two sections of Beginning Algebra customized for future teachers via emphasis on problem solving, communication, reasoning, applications, and connections among multiple representations based on NCTM and AMATYC Standards. The instructional format uses the philosophies of multiple intelligences, socially constructed knowledge, and the Uri Treisman model of weekly workshops outside of class, in which students work challenging problems in study groups mentored by more advanced peers.
Lana Taylor is acting division chair for the winter semester.
Clarence Wilson and Saer Al-Almer joined the faculty as instructors this term. * On Saturday, April 8 UDM is hosting the Michigan Science & Engineering Fair. For further details call Carol Dendler at the Science Fair office at 800-MICH-SEF or visit http://www.sefmd.org. The International Science and Engineering Fair, http://www.ISEF2000.org, will be held in Detroit May 11-13. * We have a terminal masters degree program. It would be useful to us to discuss with others what type courses should be allowed in such a program, what constitutes graduate versus undergraduate courses in such a program, how many course and/or a paper should be required, what about cross-listed courses, etc. We would like to know what other schools are doing these days.
The Master of Science Degree in Applied and Computational Mathematics will be offered beginning in the Fall of 2000. For additional information contact Frank Massey at fmassey@umd.umich.edu. * The Third Forum on Numerics and Modeling for Partial Differential Equations, sponsored by SIAM Great Lakes Section, will be hosted on April 1. For more information visit the conference Website, http://www.kettering.edu/~ktebeest/numpdes.html. * Hyman Bass is scheduled for a February presentation on "Difference Calculus, the Binomial Theorem, and Sums of Powers".
Brenda Foster has completed her probationary period and joined the continuing contract faculty. For the winter term Janet MacDonald is on leave, Bob Hatcher and Denise Lee have temporary full-time appointments, and Jim Egan is serving as Interim Dean of Mathematics and Natural Sciences.
The Owens Lecturer this year was Persi Diaconis (Stanford U). The current colloquium schedule is on the Web, accessible from the department's home page, http://www.math.wayne.edu. * Bill Cohn is stepping down as chair of the department after five years. His successor will be selected from within the department. The department is also in the process of filling an open tenure-track position.
A. Bruce Clarke died in November at the age of 72. From 1951 to 1967 he taught at UM-Ann Arbor, and from 1967 until his retirement in 1991 he was at WMU, holding the positions of department chair, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and provost. See In Memoriam for further details. * The Ninth Quadrennial International Conference on Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Algorithms and Applications will be held at WMU June 4-9. For more information, please see http://www.wmich.edu/graftheo/gtcc2000.html. * The Sixth Great Lakes Statistics Symposium will be held October 25-27 in the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Kalamazoo. For more information, please see http://www.stat.wmich.edu/GLS_conf/home.htm.
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