Adrian College
[reported by Cindy Bosio]Eugene VandenBoss will retire in May, 2004. [cbosio@adrian.edu]Albion College
[reported by Robert Messer]Martha O’Kennon plans to take early retirement at the end of the spring semester. She has been a faculty member at Albion C for nineteen years. Paul Anderson will be on sabbatical leave during the 2004–05 academic year. [ram@albion.edu]Alma College
[reported by Mel Nyman]We have received two grants from NSF to participate in the collaborative development of new computer science curricular materials. One project will focus on developing a system for the creation and delivery of algorithm animations, while the other centers on using the Lego Mindstorms robotic kit in the undergraduate CS curriculum. Supervised at Alma C by Myles McNally, the projects will provide summer research experiences for students over the next three years. For more details visit the departmental page at http://cronus.mcs.alma.edu. • Tim Sipka has started a High School MATH Challenge. This is a “problem-of-the-month” competition for high school mathematics students sponsored by the Mathematics & Computer Science Department. Students submit solutions either by mail or e-mail. The team of Tim and Robert Molina evaluate the solutions submitted and publish the best one, and an Alma C T-shirt is awarded to the top problems solver each month. The High School MATH Challenge page is at http://cronus.mcs.alma.edu/hsmathchallenge/. • Maple Animation, a new book by John Putz, describes the methods he uses to create animations with the computer algebra system, Maple®. The book presents a variety of the techniques that John has developed in creating the animated demonstrations he uses to illustrate mathematical ideas. More details can be found at the departmental page. [nyman@alma.edu]Grand Valley State University
[reported by Paul Fishback]The Department will again host an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates site in the summer of 2004. Eight students will be selected to work with four faculty members on research problems in wavelets, dynamical systems, spherical geometry, and the Hausdorff metric geometry. Information about the program can be found at the GVSU REU site http://www.gvsu.edu/math/reu.html. • Christopher Bay, a GVSU REU 2003 participant, presented a poster titled “When Lines Go Bad: The Geometry of the Hausdorff Metric” at the MAA undergraduate poster session at the Annual Joint Meetings of the AMS/MAA in Phoenix this January. Chris’ poster was recognized as one of the session’s best posters (33 posters recognized out of 108 participants). • On Saturday, October 25, 2003, more than 140 students and faculty from 19 universities across the state and surrounding region gathered at GVSU’s DeVos Center for the 6th Annual Michigan Undergraduate Mathematics Conference. • Phil Pratt has retired. • Steven Blair will join the department as an Assist. Prof. in August 2004. His area of specialty is mathematics education. • The department also anticipates more than one new mathematics position will be filled during Winter 2004 as well. • “Math In Action” was held on February 26 at the Eberhard Center on the GVSU Grand Rapids Campus. Will Dickinson and Marge Friar served as conference coordinators. The theme was “Data Analysis throughout the Mathematics Curriculum”. Deborah Ball (UM-AA) was the keynote speaker. • “Conversation Among Colleagues: Collaborating to Improve Mathematical Education of Our Students” was a daylong conference held on Saturday, March 20 at GVSU’s DeVos Center. The keynote address, “Knowing and Learning Mathematics for Teaching”, was given by Hyman Bass of the University of Michigan. [fishbacp@gvsu.edu]Hope College
[reported by Todd Swanson]Janet Andersen received the Hope C Provost’s Award for Excellence in Teaching this year. • Darin Stephenson is on sabbatical this semester. • Tim Pennings has been promoted to Prof. • Students Daniela Banu, Stefan Coltisor, and Heidi Libner finished in first place in last Fall’s Michigan Autumn Take-Home Challenge. • The article, “Do Dogs Know Calculus”, written by Tim Pennings, was featured in The College Mathematics Journal last May. Since that time, articles about Tim’s dog Elvis have appeared in many publications, from newspapers like the Chicago Tribune, to radio interviews by the BBC, to children’s magazines like Current Science and MUSE, to dog journals like AKC Family Dog. [swansont@hope.edu]Kettering University
[reported by Kevin G. TeBeest]Philip Richard, Jr., Assoc. Prof. of Mathematics, and Kevin G. TeBeest, Assoc. Prof. of Applied Mathematics, each received the 2003 Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award. The Kettering U Alumni Association bestows the award upon faculty based on their intellectual integrity, their inspirational qualities, and their effectiveness in teaching. [ktebeest@kettering.edu]Lake Superior State University
[reported by Brian Snyder]LSSU will be hosting the 2004 Upper Peninsula Regional Meeting of the Michigan Section of the MAA. The meeting will be Friday and Saturday, October 8–9 on the LSSU campus. We are looking for speakers from all of Michigan to participate, with a special invitation extended to people currently in the UP and northern lower Michigan. The latest information, including contact information and list of speakers, will be available at http://math.lssu.edu. [bsnyder@lssu.edu]Lawrence Technological University
[reported by Mike Merscher]Ruth Favro has been promoted to Prof. • Chan-Jin Chung has been promoted to Assoc. Prof. • Mike Merscher was named LTU’s Faculty Person of the Year for 2003. • We were pleased to welcome Jerry Grossman as a guest speaker recently, on the topic “Mathematical Games for Fun and Profit.” • The 35th Annual LTU High School Math Competition will be held on April 25. Robofest 2004 will occur on April 24. Both events are features of the Annual LTU Open House Weekend. [merscher@ltu.edu]Spring Arbor University
[reported by Garnet S. Hauger]Keith Devlin will be a keynote speaker at our all-campus FOCUS series on March 31. The theme of this year's FOCUS event is “Life by the Numbers”. Each department on campus is asked to prepare and conduct a one-hour workshop for students, faculty, and guests who wish to attend. Some of the topics are credit cards, the stock market, trends in education, how to read research, the end of modernity, the census, information explosion, problem solving, what it means to be a Tier 1 university, the golden mean, numbers that mattered in history, grading and objectivity. • Last summer the mathematics department in cooperation with the Jackson County Intermediate School District and the Jackson Public Schools (JPS) conducted a program for elementary teachers in JPS. The specific goal of the program was to increase mathematical knowledge of these teachers. The curriculum for the mathematics class these teachers took centered on the Michigan Curriculum Framework mathematics strands and benchmarks. NCTM standards materials were used for this class. The end of experience evaluation showed that teachers’ knowledge of mathematics had significantly increased (in a statistical sense). This experience was funded by Title II (Improving Teacher Quality Professional Development Grant Program). This coming summer a similar program for the same teachers is being conducted for science. [ghauger@arbor.edu]University of Detroit Mercy
[reported by John O’Neill]Instructor Lazaros Kikas has successfully defended his doctoral thesis in Applied Mathematics at Oakland U. • Once again we will co-sponsor a number of programs and camps this Spring and Summer which expose students (grades 4-12) to the sciences and to engineering. For more information contact Dan Maggio (maggiodd@udmercy.edu). [oneilljd@udmercy.edu]University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
[reported by Hugh Montgomery]New faculty: Jinho Baik (analysis, random permutations), Stephen DeBacker (p-adic representation theory), David Kausch (actuarial science), David Radnell (vertex operator algebras), Nathan Reading (combinatorics), Elizabeth Stanhope (differential geometry), Howard Thompson (algebraic geometry), Juliana Tymoczko (group theory), Bernardo Uribe (algebraic topology), Monica Vandieren (logic), Sijue Wu (pde, fluid dynamics, harmonic analysis), Hui Xue (number theory), Yongwei Yao (algebra), and Virginia Young (actuarial science). • Promotions: Trachette Jackson (to Assoc. Prof.), Smadar Karni (to Prof.), Bruce Kleiner (to Prof.), Peter Miller (to Assoc. Prof.), and Patrick Nelson (to Assist. Prof.). • External awards: Anthony Bloch has been elected a fellow of IEEE. Harm Derksen has won an early CAREER award in science and engineering. Charlie Doering has been elected Vice-Chair of the American Physical Society’s Group on Statistical and Nonlinear Physics. Trachette Jackson won an Alfred P. Sloan research fellowship, and a Woodrow Wilson career enhancement fellowship. Bob Megginson was selected by the National Association of Mathematicians to deliver the 2003 Bharucha-Reid Lecture. Kannan Soundararajan has been awarded the 2003 Salem Prize. • Upcoming event: Karen Uhlenbeck, distinguished applied mathematician and UM-AA alumna, will be awarded an honorary doctorate by UM-AA at the May commencement. [hlm@umich.edu]University of Michigan-Flint
[reported by Steven C. Althoen]Richard Alfaro is serving as Senior Faculty Advisor to the Chancellor this academic year. • Steve Althoen is spending part of his Winter sabbatical observing two mathematics education classes at UM-Dearborn. [salthoen@umflint.edu]Wayne State University
[reported by Daniel Frohardt]Rafail Khasminskii has been named Distinguished Professor by the WSU Board of Governors. • Boris Mordukhovich will receive the 2004 Distinguished Graduate Faculty Award from WSU. • The Owens Memorial Lecture this year will be on Monday, April 26. The speaker will be Sylvain Capell of the Courant Institute. [danf@math.wayne.edu]Western Michigan University
[reported by Barbara McKinney]Robert Laing retired from the department effective July 1, 2003. • Recent department speakers have included: Sema Salur (Northwestern U), Patricia Hersh (UM-AA), Jonathan Hodge and Micah Terhaar (GVSU), Michael Kinyon (IUSB), Monica Torres (Northwestern U), and Larry Fialkow (SUNY New Paltz). • The department is currently advertising three tenure-track positions. More information can be found at http://www.wmich.edu/math/positions. [barbara.mckinney@wmich. edu]
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