Albion College
[reported by Robert Messer]John Wenzel has decided to take early retirement this year at the end of the spring semester. • Tom Maleck of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MSU spoke on “Computer Modeling of Traffic Flow”. • International Plaid Day is set for April 25 this year, the last Friday of Mathematics Awareness Month. Join people around the world that day by wearing plaid to show your support of mathematics. I am also accepting nominations for Plaid Person of the Year. So far I have Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who was one of the people of the year selected by Time Magazine and who wore a plaid outfit when she testified before the US Senate. [Ram@albion.edu]Alma College
[reported by Mel Nyman]John Putz is on sabbatical leave in Florence, Italy for Winter and Spring 2003. • Mel Nyman was on sabbatical leave at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand from February 2002 to June 2002. • Recent speakers include: Carol Stephenson Bullock of the National Security Agency, Mark Gockenbach of MTU, and several of our students talking about their research projects. [nyman@alma.edu]Alpena Community College
[reported by Dan Rothe]Enrollment is up and many of the classes are filled to overflowing, especially at the lower levels. Steve Lewis (Math/Engineering Instructor) was elected as chair of our Math/Science Department, moving the leadership back to the math part of the department. We are pleased to welcome new adjunct faculty member Brian Tippman. Brian is assistant principal at Alpena High School and is teaching a late afternoon section of Intermediate Algebra for us. • Our department has begun a program of pre-testing in some of our lower classes. We have two goals, determining correct placement and measuring growth over the semester. As a part of our institutional assessment plan, we will give the tests we have written both at the beginning and at the end of the semester to see whether the students are achieving the intended objectives in each course. • The department again looks forward to hosting the Regional Science Olympiad Tournament on March 8. We will also run a Physics Olympics for local high school students later in the semester. [rothed@alpena.cc.mi.us]Calvin College
[reported by Daryl Brink]Jim Bradley is on leave this semester visiting Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. • Jim Turner hosted visiting homotopy theorists Mark Johnson, Penn State, and David Blanc, University of Haifa for the week February 3–8. • Student Tom Clark gave an invited talk in the AMS-MAA-SIAM Special Session on Research in Mathematics by Undergraduates at the Baltimore meetings. His talk was entitled “Classifying Polygonal Chains of Six Segments”. [brkd@calvin.edu]Eastern Michigan University
[reported by Tim Carroll]Barbara Leapard, E. Richards and Joanne Caniglia have been awarded a Michigan Department of Education grant. Ovidiu Calin has been awarded an EMU new faculty research grant. [TCarroll@emich.edu]Gogebic Community College
[reported by Larry Hopkins]Larry Hopkins is retiring after 32 years teaching mathematics and computer science. [Larry.Hopkins@faculty.gogebic.cc.mi.us]Grand Valley State University
[reported by Paul Fishback]Jan Shroyer has retired from the department. • The Department of Mathematics will again host a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates site in the summer of 2003. Eight students will be recruited to work with four faculty on research problems in wavelets, distance geometry, orthogonal polynomials, and the Hausdorff metric geometry. Students interested in participating in this summer’s REU are invited to visit the program Web site at http://sandpiper.math.gvsu.edu/reu. • GVSU will host the 6th Annual Michigan Undergraduate Mathematics Conference in the Fall of 2003. Matt Boelkins (boelkinm@gvsu.edu) will serve as conference coordinator. • David Austin and Will Dickinson have created a new Java tool for investigating spherical geometry, which is available online (as an applet) at http://merganser.math.gvsu.edu/sphere. It is modeled on and has the same functionality as The Geometer’s Sketchpad™. They currently use this applet in the two-course geometry sequence as a tool for allowing students to explore and form conjectures about spherical geometry. They encourage colleagues at other institutions to explore the program, and they welcome any feedback. They can be reached at austind@gvsu.edu or dickinsw@gvsu.edu. [fishbacp@gvsu.edu]Lansing Community College
[reported by JingLing Wang]Lansing Community College will host the MichMATYC 2003 meeting, October 10–11, 2003. The conference will start with dinner at a local restaurant around 6 p.m. on Friday evening, October 10. The main part of the conference is Saturday, October 11, approximately 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the LCC campus. The theme of the conference is “The Universe of Teaching: Creating Mathematical Stars”. For more information, please check the conference Web site (http://www.lcc.edu/mathskills/michmatyc2003/index.htm). [JWang@lcc.edu]Lawrence Technological University
[reported by M. Merscher]The department is happy to welcome Chris Cartwright, our new faculty member. We are hosting a visiting professor, Wenhua Deng, from Wenzhou University in China, who will be with us through the spring semester. The LTU Open House on April 26–27 will include the 34th Annual LTU Mathematics Competition for High School Students, headed up by Mike Merscher, and Robofest 2003, led by Chan-Jin Chung. [merscher@ltu.edu]Siena Heights University
[reported by Toni Carroll]The math department welcomes new faculty member Pam Warton, an algebraist who comes here from Bowling Green U. • Together with Pi Mu Epsilon and the Women and Mathematics Project we have math career speakers Katie Wentworth and Jason Whitaker. Ruth Favro from LTU is speaking on Geometry and Art. • We are planning to welcome hundreds of high school math and science teachers for the T3 Regional Conference: Visualizing Connections in Math, Science and Technology May 9–10, 2003; further information is at http://www.sienahts.edu/~mat/conference.html. [toni@sienahts.edu]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, recently retired from DaimlerChrysler, has joined our department as Assistant Professor. • 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-Ann Arbor
[reported by H. Montgomery]New faculty at UM-AA this year include: Jinho Baik, Probability (Courant, 1999); Stephen DeBacker, Representation and Lie theory (U of Chicago, 1997); Jason Bell, Algebra (UC-Berkeley, 2002); Gautam Bharali, Analysis (U. of Wisconsin, 2002); David Bortz, Applied Math (U. of North Carolina, 2002); Elizabeth Burslem, Analysis (Northwestern U, 2001); Andrew Christlieb, Applied Math (U. of Wisconsin, 2002); Tommaso de Fernex, Algebraic Geometry (U. of Illinois, 2002); Bogdan Ion, Combinatorics (Princeton U, 2002); Elmas Irmak, Alg. Topology (MSU, 2002); Greg Lyng, Applied Math (Indiana, 2002); Nikola Petrov, Applied Math (U. Texas, 2002); Nathan Reading, Combinatorics (U. of Minn., 2002); James Rossmanith, Applied Math (U of Washington, 2002); Elizabeth Stanhope, Comparison Geometry (Dartmouth U, 2002); Howard Thompson, Algebraic Geometry (UC-Berkeley, 2002). [hlm@umich.edu]University of Michigan-Dearborn
[reported by F. J. Papp]On Saturday, February 15 the UM-Dearborn hosted the fifth annual Michigan Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (MUMC). See the report. • Amal Amleh resigned her position at the end of academic year 2001–2002. She accepted a position at Birzeit University in Westbank, Palestine. • The department recently hosted its annual “Career Event”. Several alumni returned to campus to give presentations on their current careers and how their undergraduate major in mathematics contributed to their present success. • Rheta Rubenstein, et. al., have recently published a number of interesting papers: “Functioning Meaningfully” (Math Horizons), “Understanding and Supporting Children’s Mathematical Language Development” (Teaching Children Mathematics), “Building Explicit and Recursive Forms of Patterns with the Function Game” (Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School); “History, Not Mystery: Using the Origins of Mathematics Words to Support Student Learning” (NCTM Eastern Regional Conference). [fjpapp@umd.umich.edu]University of Michigan-Flint
[reported by Steven C. Althoen]Consulting actuary Ken Alberts gave a presentation on career opportunities in the actuarial profession. • Hugh Montgomery from UM-Ann Arbor gave a talk on “Irregularities of Distributions”. • In addition to two on-campus Family Math Fun Nights supervised by Joan Hellmann, the elementary education majors (from both UM-Flint and Mott CC) presented 14 Family Math Fun Nights in various area elementary schools as part of their required mathematics course. [salthoen@umflint.edu]
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