The annual meeting of the Michigan Section–MAA and
MichMATYC will be held on May 10–11, 2002 at Lawrence
Technological University, Southfield, Michigan.
The meeting will include a well-balanced variety of plenary addresses, talks, and other activities led by mathematicians, mathematics educators, and students. The opening plenary address on Friday morning will be given by Patricia Lamm (MSU) on inverse problems related to CT scans, image reconstructions from satellites and other sources, geophysical exploration, and an overview of recent developments in “local regularization” solution methods. The Friday luncheon speaker will be Glenda Lappan (MSU). She will report on some major recommendations on the mathematical preparation of teachers made by the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences in the fall of 2001. Later in the afternoon, Roger Verhey (UM–Dearborn) will be the moderator of a panel discussion to further ex plore these recommendations. The Friday afternoon plenary address will be given by Brian Conrad (UM–Ann Arbor). His topic is prime values of polynomials, ranging from proven results in the linear case, to a conjectured asymptotic measuring the frequency of prime values in the multivariable case. The Friday night banquet speaker is Keith Devlin (Stanford U). His topic is “Our Public Image.” He will explore whether our image has changed for the better with the recent novels, movies, and plays about mathematicians. Keith will also be the Saturday morning plenary speaker with a talk based on his book The Math Gene: How Mathematical Thinking Evolved and Why Numbers Are Like Gossip. The Saturday luncheon speaker is Bernard L. Madison (U of Arkansas and formerly Visiting Mathematician at MAA). His topic is “Quantitative Literacy: Everybody’s Orphan.” After the luncheon, he will lead a forum on “Assessing Learning in Undergraduate Mathematics.” This forum, sponsored by MAA, will be conducted by Bernie and other MAA representatives at many section meetings across the country over the next year. In the presentation at our section, he will be assisted by Janet Andersen (Hope C), Chair of CTUM, and some other members of the Michigan Section.
In addition, we have a variety of talks on topics of interest from several areas of mathematics, a number of talks relating pedagogical results in particular courses, and a report on a multi-part, multi-year project of enhancement of a mathematical core. Details about the schedule (with abstracts), registration, and accommodations are contained in the Program for the Annual Meeting, which is included with this Newsletter and is also available at www.michmaa.org.
There will be book exhibits from MAA and other publishers (many of whom are sponsoring coffee breaks).
The program committee consists of chair, John Mooningham (SVSU), along with Jim Ham (Delta College), Bill Arlinghaus (LTU), and Kristen Moore (UM–AA). Michael Merscher chairs the local arrangements committee; other members are Ruth Favro, Pamela Lowry, and Thomas Lackey (all from LTU).
John Mooningham, Four-year College Vice Chair