David Field of the General Motors Research and Development Center spoke on "Manufacturing, Robotics, and Computational Geometry" at a colloquium arranged through the SIAM Visiting Lecturer Program. · The Department has received a grant from the Herbert and Elsa Ponting Foundation to establish a Quantitative Skills Center. This program will assist students by coordinating the math placement process, offering guidance with study skills, diagnosing and reinforcing specific weaknesses in students' mathematical background, and conducting review sessions for MCAT, LSAT, GRE, and actuarial exams. · The faculty recently approved a major in Computer Science to be offered by the Math Department. This major is an enhancement of the Computational Mathematics Major which it replaces. · May 1, 1998 is International Plaid Day. In conjunction with Mathematics Awareness Week, the Math Department at Albion College encourages people around the world to wear plaid to show their support of mathematics.
Aklilu Zeleke (PhD from Temple University in 1997) has joined the faculty. He specializes in erased loop random walks and has interest in applied mathematics.
Bob Bartle retired effective the end of the Fall semester, and Jim Northey will retire effective the end of the Winter semester. Dick Marshall received posthumously the EMU Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for his dedicated service to the students of the university. · Joanne Caniglia received a Michigan Campus Compact Grant for "When I Grow Up, I Want To Be: An Academic Service Learning Experience for Preservice Secondary Mathematics Teachers."
(This institution in Flint was formerly called GMI Institute.) Judy Wolbert has been appointed Instructor of Mathematics. Brian McCartin has been elected to a two year term as Secretary of the Great Lakes Section of SIAM. The Forum on Numerical Methods for Partial Differential Equations convened in McKinnon Theatre on March 14.
Professor Howard Jones is on sabbatical leave for this semester, working on the project of using the computer programs Converge and Derive in the teaching of Calculus.
Under Department chair Jim Nanny, Calculus 1 and Calculus 2 at Lawrence Tech have a new look. Students in these classes attend weekly workshops, where they work in groups on calculus-related projects beyond the lecture material. Feedback from the students has been favorable, with most finding the workshops to be helpful. Glen Bauer coordinates Calculus 1, while Bill Arlinghaus guides Calculus 2.
Mathematics Instructor Howard Seeburger has retired after 24 years. Howard was recently nominated for the 1997 Consortium for Community College Development Faculty Recognition Awards. Howard was a very dedicated and caring instructor and will be greatly missed.
Professors John G. Vanbeynen and Clarence B. Stortz have retired recently. John had been a member of our mathematics education group since 1967; Clarence had served in our mathematics group since 1968. · Sujay Datta joined us in the fall as an Assistant Professor. Sujay came from the Department of Statistics at UM-Ann Arbor, where he worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. He received his PhD in statistics from the University of Connecticut. · A new Applied Mathematics major, with stronger emphasis on applied and computational mathematics, has been added, effective Fall 1998.
The Department at the Auburn Hills campus has just completed its first semester in which it required graphing calculators for all courses from Intermediate Algebra up. · Nancy Williams and Kathleen Chiasson have been receiving release time for the past year to develop materials which will take a new approach to teaching and learning in the Prep for Algebra course. They successfully completed their first semester with the materials. For the final project in the course each student designed a classroom complete with furniture, carpeting, etc. The projects are fabulous.
Associate Professor Jon Froemke died suddenly on February 25. He had been with the Department for 30 years. · The Department has instituted a series of seminars on Industrial Mathematics and Statistics, designed to increase the interaction between academia and industry, to provide industry access to the resources of our Department, and to allow us to respond to the needs of industry. This seminar series is planned to stimulate research activities with an industrial focus and to transfer relevant knowledge and technology to industry. · Professor Baruch Cahlon received the 1997 Israeli Research Award of the Minister of Internal Security on work (joint with Sam Rakover of Haifa University) on face recognition.
Professor Robert Devaney (Boston University) gave a series of lectures on the SVSU campus, March 17-21, as part of the Dow Visiting Scholar Program. · SVSU will be hosting the Math Olympics High School Mathematics Competition on May 4. Both individual and team prizes are awarded to participants in this annual campus event.
Siena Heights College
[reported by Toni Carroll]Toni Carroll is on sabbatical for the winter semester, working on a book in the history of mathematics. Rick Trujillo has become a Project NExT fellow. Siena Heights will be called Siena Heights University as of July, 1998.
Recent additions to the Department are Nancy Dwyer (mathematics education, PhD from the University of Toledo, most recently from Thames College, Georgia), Farrokh Saba (graph theory and combinatorics, PhD from the University of South Africa, most recently from WMU), and Thomas Brierly (operations research, PhD from WSU, most recently from the U. S. Army Tank and Automotive Command in Warren). · The schedule of colloquium talks can be found on the Department's Web page (http://www.udmercy.edu/htmls/academics/math-cs/math-cs.htm). · In addition to its long-time involvement in the Mathematics Division of the Center for Advanced Technology at Focus Hope, the Department is now involved in a mathematics and engineering degree program with Ford Motor Co.
Assistant Professor Lizhen Ji has just been awarded a Sloan Fellowship. Associate Professor Trevor Wooley will be this year's recipient of the Henry Russell Award. This is the highest honor bestowed by the University upon faculty of rank below Full Professor.
Brenda Foster joined the Department in the fall. Roger Palay rejoined the Department this winter after serving as director of computer services.
The schedule for our colloquium series is accessible from the Department's home page (http://www.math.wayne.edu). Each abstract is accompanied by a rating of G, R, or X, to indicate how accessible the talk will be; we hope that most of our speakers select G. Raoul Bott (Harvard University) delivered the Owens Lecture in November. · Professor Yuri Rodin died on November 17 after a long illness. He had been in the Department since 1988.
James Riley will be retiring after 38 years of service in the Department at the end of this academic year. Arthur White has received a sabbatical leave for next year. He will spend the academic year at the University of Oxford. · On February 23 the new Theta of Michigan chapter of Phi Beta Kappa was installed at Western Michigan University. One of the six Foundation members initiated into the society on this special occasion was Arthur White from our Department. John Petro, chair of our Department, was named the first President of the chapter. He chaired the most recent application committee and has been involved with the local efforts to obtain a Phi Beta Kappa chapter for over 28 years. · The 5th Great Lakes Conference on Statistics will be held in the Radisson Plaza Hotel in Kalamazoo on October 21-23. For information, please consult the Web page http://www.stat.wmich.edu/GLS-conf/home.htm. · We also want to welcome everyone to the annual spring Section meeting on our campus on May1-2.
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