Albion College
[reported by Robert Messer]Martha O'Kennon has been granted a sabbatical leave next year to develop a computer program for translating from English to Odawa. This will be used in teaching the grammar of the Odawa language. The Friday of Mathematics Awareness Awareness Week is International Plaid Day. The Department encourages members of the Michigan Section to join people from around the world in wearing plaid on April 30 to show their support of mathematics.Central Michigan University
[reported by Ahmed Assaf]Professor Carl Lee was elected for one term as the president of the American Statistical Association mid-Michigan Chapter, Professor Sue Lenker was elected Treasurer, and Professor Felix Famoye was elected as a representative to the ASA Council of Chapters.Eastern Michigan University
[reported by Tim Carroll]Joan Cohen Jones has received a Provost's New Faculty Research Award. Gian Mario Besana has an ORD dedicated time award for the winter semester to develop an NSF proposal.Ferris State University
[reported by John C. Hansen]Mickey Dargitz, Paul Schell, and Judy Tressler are retiring.Hope College
[reported by Donatella Delfino]Two new faculty members joined the department this Fall. Claudia Polini comes from a 3-year postdoc at MSU; her research interests are in commutative algebra. Karl Lorensen, a group theorist, was put in charge of the "problem of the week" (http://www.math.hope.edu/problem/problem.html). Speakers this year have included Paul Zwier (Calvin C) discussing "Mathematics on a distant planet and the sum of a slowly convergent series", Gian Mario Besana (EMU) speaking on "Snakes, their eggs, and other encounters in the real projective plane: an introduction to Hilbert's XVI-th problem", and Claudia Miller (UM) talking about "Blowing up curves". Under an NSF "Research Experiences for Undergraduates" grant, each summer for the next four years six students will work on mathematics research problems under the direction of department faculty.Kettering University
[reported by Brian J. McCartin]Professor Ilya Kudish gave a talk entitled "Back in the USSR", wherein he recounted his experiences growing up in the Soviet mathematical establishment. Students Corey Stefanczak and Derek Fisackerly were awarded the Hudson Memorial Mathematics Scholarship. Brian McCartin and Kevin TeBeest are on the organizing committee for the 2nd Forum on Numerics and Modeling for Partial Differential Equations, NUMPDES2 (more information is available from the Web site http://www.kettering.edu/~ktebeest/numpdes.html).Lawrence Technological University
[reported by M. Merscher]An LTU team consisting of students Bill Mance, Scott Ligon, and Ken Kopp recently took first place in the Michigan Autumn Take Home Math Challenge. The team was coached by Professor Ruth Favro. Zaven Margosian has returned after medical leave.Macomb Community College
[reported by Art Daniel]Deborah Swiderski has joined the full-time faculty at the Center Campus. She has taught mathematics as an adjunct faculty member at MCC and Oakland CC for the last ten years.North Central Michigan College
[reported by Gary Kersting]NCMC is hosting the MichMATYC conference this fall in Petoskey. There is a program for dinner on Friday, October 15, but the actual conference will be Saturday, October 16. A call for speakers and presiders will be issued soon, and the conference notification will be sent out in late August or early September. This time of year is lovely, with the changing of the fall colors. More details are available from Gary Kersting (gkers@sunny.ncmc.cc.mi.us).Oakland University
[reported by Jerry Grossman]On April 10 the department will be hosting MIGHTY XXXI, the next in a series of informal graph theory conferences that have been floating around Michigan and neighboring states for over 20 years. See http://www.math.oakland.edu/mighty.html for details. For the fourth year, the department will conduct a Summer Mathematics Institute for outstanding high school students. Participants earn eight college credits in advanced mathematics. The first set of students completed the General Examination for the new PhD program in Applied Mathematical Sciences this January. This winter the department continues its Industrial Mathematics and Statistics seminars, a joint venture with local industries. Datta Kulkarni is on leave for the winter at the General Motors Global Research and Development Organization.Saginaw Valley State University
[reported by Tom Zerger]The department will be hosting its annual "Math Olympics" competition for Michigan middle school and high school students on May 10. Both team and individual prizes are awarded.Schoolcraft College
[reported by Randy K. Schwartz]The first mathematics-dedicated computer lab at Schoolcraft was installed last summer. Professors Lois Bearden, Linda Balfour, and Sandra Kerr have been using the new lab to pilot computer-based sections of Beginning and Intermediate Algebra, utilizing Interactive Mathematics©, a package of multimedia educational netware marketed by Academic Systems. The software allows for self-paced work, with student workstations networked to an instructor, and the ability to generate individualized homework interactively. Professor Kerr has also been teaching special sections of Intermediate Algebra as Schoolcraft's first Internet class, using the Top Class© educational networking software. The special sections are part of the Schoolcraft/Madonna University OMNIBUS curriculum, an accelerated bachelor/master degree program for business students. Professors Rheta Rubenstein and Janet Arszno have launched a series of on-campus seminars for Schoolcraft students considering careers in education. The first seminar, a program on "Thinking about Teaching" held on October 13, involved several guest speakers from local high schools and colleges and was attended by over one hundred students in math and other disciplines.Siena Heights University
[reported by Toni Carroll]Tim Husband and Lana Taylor presented technology workshops for the Detroit Public Schools.University of Detroit Mercy
[reported by John O'Neill]There are two new faculty members this year: Jeffery Boats comes from Carnegie Mellon U; he hopes to complete his doctorate this year. Kevin Daimi received his PhD in Computer Science from the Cranfield Institute of Technology in England and is in charge of UDM's new CS degree program at Ford. Kathy Zhong is on sabbatical this year at UM. Nancy Dwyer is working on Project NExT, sponsored by the MAA. John Dwyer chairs the Michigan Chapter of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (http://www.hvcn.org/info/cpsr).University of Michigan-Dearborn
[reported by F. J. Papp]On January 25 the department sponsored a panel discussion entitled Preparation for Jobs and Careers in Today's Job Market. The event was organized by Professor John Gillespie. The panelists consisted of two staff members from Career Services and the college Co-op Coordinator, seven alumni, and Professor Joan Remski (an alumna and faculty member in the Mathematics Department). Lecturer Timothy McKenna (Director Office of Remedial College Algebra and Geometry) is developing a long distance learning version of the Liberal Arts Mathematics course. The course is being offered to the UM and UAW-Ford University students at work-sites located in Louisville, Kentucky, and Flat Rock and Sterling Heights, Michigan. The mode of delivery is "Picture-Tel", which features a voice-activated monitoring system for synchronous learning. The live lectures are done primarily with power-point notes. This is the first UM-Dearborn mathematics course to be delivered to the UAW-Ford University students.Washtenaw Community College
[reported by James C. Egan]Ralph Bottorff, one of the founding faculty members at WCC, died on January 1.Wayne State University
[reported by Daniel Frohardt]Patty Bonsteel has received an award for excellence in teaching from the College of Science. Speakers and visitors for Winter include Bob Devaney (Boston U), Richard Rochberg (Washington U), Jon Hall (MSU), Stephan Stolz (Notre Dame), and Michael Aschbacher (Caltech). The Owens Lecturer this year was R. T. Rockafellar (U of Washington).Western Michigan University
[reported by Yousef Alavi]The department has begun planning for the Ninth Quadrennial International Conference on Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Algorithms and Applications, dedicated to the memory of Paul Erdös, June 4-9, 2000. For further information, contact Professor Yousef Alavi (Alavi@wmich.edu, 616-387-4591).
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