News from the Campuses

Adrian College [reported by Elizabeth Lamprecht]

Ken Henningfeld has joined the Mathematics Department and is currently teaching both Developmental Mathematics and Intermediate Algebra. • Beth Lamprecht was promoted to the rank of Prof. • The department will be participating in the Thirteenth Annual Michigan Autumn Take Home Challenge. • Lisa Randall, Professor of Physics at Harvard University, will be speaking at the college’s convocation in March. She is the author of Warped Passages. [elamprecht@adrian.edu]

Albion College [reported by Robert Messer]

We welcome Cayley Pendergrass, who joined Albion as a tenure-track Assist. Prof. this Fall. She is originally from Maryland, earned her undergraduate degree in mathematics from Swarthmore C, and recently completed her doctoral degree in mathematics from UC San Diego. Her research is in the areas of just infinite associative algebras and how these properties correlate to characteristics of related rings. • Darren Mason has been promoted to Assoc. Prof. • George Hart, Professor of Computer Science at SUNY Stony Brook, visited the newly remodeled science complex to discuss the design of a sculpture with a mathematical theme. He suggests a sequence of pieces suspended from the ceiling of the atrium to represent a 4-dimensional object. Examples of Hart’s work are available at www.georgehart.com. [Ram@albion.edu]

Alma College [reported by Mel Nyman]

Robert Molina is on leave for the 2006–2007 academic year.  He will be working with our former colleague Aklilu Zeleke at the Lyman Briggs College of MSU • Amy Kuiper-Moore has joined the department as a sabbatical replacement for the 2006–2007 academic year.  Amy is a 2000 Alma graduate and recently completed a Ph.D. in applied mathematics at MSU.  We are pleased to have her as a colleague for the year. • Tim Sipka continues to run the MATH Challenge.  This Fall semester mathematics competition provides an opportunity for a significant number of undergraduates to test their problem-solving skills.  With the assistance of Robert Molina, Tim also operates a problem-of-the-month type Math Challenge for high school students around the state of Michigan. [nyman@alma.edu]

Andrews University [reported by Don Rhoads]

Shandelle Henson has been promoted to Prof. • Yun Myung Oh has joined the mathematics faculty as Assoc. Prof., replacing Ronald D. Johnson, who has moved to Southern Adventist U, in Tennessee. She received her Ph.D. from MSU and has recently taught at MSU and IU NW. Her research interests are Riemannian geometry and submanifold theory. • NSF has renewed a grant to Andrews, Walla Walla C (Washington), and the U of Arizona, funding a study to mathematically predict the behavior of glaucous-winged gulls at Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge in Washington state. The renewal is for $300,000 over three years, assuring the continuation of research that has been going on for the past 16 years. Co-PIs are Andrews professors Shandelle Henson and James Hayward (Biology), together with Joe Galusha of WWC and Jim Cushing from U of Arizona. More details can be found at www.andrews.edu/news/2006/9/nsf_grant.html. [dhr@andrews.edu]

Calvin College [reported by Daryl Brink]

Chris Moseley has been appointed to the department as Assoc. Prof. He was previously at West Point. • Mike Stob has returned to the department after a sabbatical at Notre Dame. • Bob Daverman is joining the department for the Fall semester as an Affliated Visiting Scholar. [brkd@calvin.edu]

Central Michigan University [reported by Sid Graham]

Arnie Hammel retired at the end of the Spring 2006 semester. Arnie was a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics for 41 years, longer than any other Department faculty member in CMU history. • Visiting faculty this year are Tibor Marcinek (mathematics education), Boris Bekker (algebraic geometry), and Oksana Podkopaeva (mathematical physics). • Yury Ionin and Carl Lee were co-winners of the President’s Research Award this summer. • Pete Vermeire won the College Teaching Award. [sidney.w.graham@gmail.com]

Eastern Michigan University [reported by Tim Carroll]

John Ginther celebrated 40 years at EMU in the Spring. • Robert V. Hogg, Professor Emeritus of Statistics from the U of Iowa, visited in November, 2005. • Joanne Caniglia recently helped EMU get a $1.5 million grant from the NSF to begin a program designed to increase the number of math and science students. [tcarroll@emich.edu]

Grand Valley State University [reported by Reva Kasman]

Jody Sorensen and Karen Heidenreich resigned, and Don VanderJagt retired. We hired one new tenure track Assist. Prof., Feryal Alayont, and one Affiliate Faculty member, Marcia Frobish. In addition, we welcomed four new visitors: Morgen Bills, Firas Hindeleh, Tae-Wan Park, and Semail Ulgen Yildirim. • GVSU will be hosting an REU program in mathematics again in 2007. Applications will be available in January at www.gvsu.edu/mathreu. The 2007 program will feature faculty mentors Will Dickinson, Filiz Dogru, Jon Hodge, and either Ed Aboufadel or Steve Schlicker. The program will run June 10–August 4, 2007. • During the 2006–2007 academic year, GVSU will host a series of talks on the Art of Mathematics. Each of the talks in this series will present mathematics from an intuitive perspective and demonstrate the kind of thinking that leads to the discovery of new mathematics. As we will be using images to describe mathematics in a visual way, the talks will be accessible and interesting to a wide audience, including those whose mathematical background may be limited. Talks include “Playing Penrose’s Tile Game” by David Austin (GVSU) on September 21, “The Chaos Game and Fractal Images” by Bob Devaney (Boston U) on October 19, “Fibonacci’s Garden” by Matt Boelkins (GVSU) on February 8, and “Mathematics in Stone and Bronze” by artists Clair and Helaman Ferguson on April 12. All lectures are free and will be held at 7 pm in Loutit Lecture Hall 102 at GVSU’s Allendale Campus. [kasmanr@gvsu.edu]

Kalamazoo College [reported by David Murphy]

This year, we welcome Ryan Higginbottom to our department. Ryan completed his Ph.D. at the U of Virginia and is joining us for one year as the sabbatical replacement for John Fink and Eric Nordmoe. • John Fink is Visiting Fellow in the Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University, giving a course on mathematics for first-year undergraduates. Winter and spring he will be Visiting Professor at UM-Ann Arbor, developing curriculum and assessment materials to use in his summer mathematics program for underrepresented minority middle school students. • Eric Nordmoe is spending his sabbatical at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. • In other news, John Fink organized his second “Keeping the Doors Open”, a math camp for Black and Hispanic middle school students in Kalamazoo. Using a four-year grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, John coordinates a Summer-Fall math enrichment program designed to encourage participants’ successful study of science and math in high school and beyond. Follow-up to the two-week summer session occurs in the Fall, when Kalamazoo C students pay weekly visits to each of the students in their schools. • David Murphy co-organized a Project NExT session, “Mathematics and Mingling: Starting and maintaining an active student Math Club”, at the Knoxville MathFest 2006. [dmurphy@kzoo.edu]

Lawrence Technological University [reported by Michael Merscher]

Maryam Roshanaei has joined the full time faculty. • The World Robofest 2006 Championship was held at LTU in April, with C. J. Chung in charge. This year’s festival involved 826 participants on 230 teams from around the world. • The 37th Annual LTU High School Mathematics competition, led by Mike Merscher, was won by B of Northville High School. • David Field of General Motors and SIAM gave a wonderful talk to the faculty at a recent colloquium. [merscher@ltu.edu]

Michigan Technological University [reported by Lynn Murphy]

Upcoming 2006 retirements in the department include: Alphonse Baartmans, August; Beverly Baartmans, August; Michael Gilpin, June. • Thomas Drummer was promoted to Prof. Mark Gockenbach, was promoted to Prof. • Individuals on sabbatical leave for the 2006–2007 academic year include: Gilbert Lewis (full year), Huann-Sheng Chen (Spring). • Visiting Faculty for the 2006–2007 academic year include: Diane Mitchell, Instructor (Fall), Debra Zei, Instructor (Fall), Tao Feng, Post-Doctoral Fellow (Fall and Spring), Zhaogong Zhang, Post-Doctoral Fellow (Fall and Spring). [murph@mtu.edu]

Northern Michigan University [reported by Roxin Zhang]

Don Zalewski and Jane Jamsen (Mathematics Education) are retired from the department as of August 2006. • Sujay Datta (Statistics) is on a two-year professional development leave of absence beginning with the Fall 2006 semester. • Boris Mordukhovich (WSU) was a guest speaker in October 2006 presenting “Variational Analysis and Generalized Differentiation: New Trends and Developments”. • Roxin Zhang was selected as a recipient of the NMU TLC (Teaching, Learning and Communications) Staff Award for 2006 for his contribution to the Automating Orientation project. He was responsible for creating and implementing systems that allow freshmen to take a math placement test on-line and obtain their placement results immediately. • Don Faust participated in the Study Abroad Program in Vienna, Austria during the Winter 2006 semester mentoring 18 student participants and teaching the course “The Nature of Human Knowledge”. [rzhang@nmu.edu]

Oakland University [reported by Jerry Grossman]

Dorin Drignei joined the faculty this Fall as Assist. Prof. He obtained his Ph.D. in Statistics from Iowa State U. Janet Sharp has been hired as Assoc. Prof. in the School of Education and Human Services, with an unofficial joint appointment in our department; she will be involved with our elementary and secondary education program in mathematics. Statistician Gary McDonald, who had been a visiting professor in our department for the past few years after retiring from General Motors, was appointed as a full-time Adjunct Prof. Serge Kruk was promoted to Assoc. Prof. with tenure. Anna Spagnuolo is on sabbatical leave this Fall. • Anna Spagnuolo and Peter Shi have each received research funding this year from the NSF. The Department will host the 13th International Conference on Applications of Computer Algebra in July; the organizer is Assist. Prof. Tanush Shaska. Gary McDonald served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of MATHCOUNTS, a national middle school mathematics competition. He was the moderator of the final “Countdown Round” last spring. He and the students who won the contest met with President Bush in May. [grossman@oakland.edu]

Saginaw Valley State University [reported by Tony Crachiola]

Hamza Ahmad received tenure and was promoted to Prof. Nancy Colwell received tenure and was promoted to Assoc. Prof. Amy Hlavacek and Jan Hlavacek were promoted to Assist. Prof. • Curtis Grosse and Garry Johns received a grant entitled “Math for Minorities” from the Michigan Space Grant Consortium to help area high school students increase their proficiency in mathematics. • Andrew Tierman received his Ph.D. from WSU. • The annual SVSU high school Math Olympics Competition is tentatively scheduled for March 23. Visit www.svsu.edu/mathematics for details. [acrachio@svsu.edu]

Schoolcraft College [reported by Randy Schwartz]

Larry G. Williams retired in August 2006 after a 37-year teaching career at Schoolcraft. • We hired two new full-time mathematics instructors in August. Andrea L. Lazarski was previously a teacher at the Dearborn Center for Math, Science, and Technology. Bradley D. Stetson previously taught part-time at Schoolcraft and at other schools. [rschwart@schoolcraft.edu]

University of Detroit Mercy [reported by John O’Neill]

In December Katy Snyder will receive her Ph.D. in Mathematical Education from WSU. This term our E&S College, with support from Ford and GM, is producing a number of programs to interest students, grade 4 through 12, in mathematics and science. About 3000 students are expected to participate. Those interested may contact Dan Maggio (maggiodd@udmercy.edu, 313-993-1435). [oneilljd@udmercy.edu]

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor [reported by Hugh Montgomery]

Kudos: U.S. News & World Report recently ranked the department 7th nationally. The MAA gave the 2005 Gung-Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics to Hyman Bass. This is the most prestigious award given by the MAA. The American Mathematical Society awarded the 2006 Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement to Professor Emeritus Fred Gehring. The NSF has given a CAREER award to Anna Gilbert. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected Robert Lazarsfeld to membership. Mircea Mustata has received a Packhard Fellowship. Graduating senior Charles Crissman won a Churchill Fellowship for study at Cambridge University. • New faculty include: Petter Branden (combinatorics), Robert Buckingham (PDE), Renzo Cavalieri (algebraic geometry), Masahiko Egami (financial math), Neil Epstein (commutative algebra), Selim Esedoglu (nonconvex optimization), Daniel Forger (math biology), Grigor Grigorov (number theory), Aaron King (population dynamics), Richard Kollar (differential equations), Peijun Li (applied math), Michael Ludkovski (stochastic control), Yongbin Ruan (symplectic geometry), Tamar Ziegler (dynamical systems). • Retirements include: Prof. Peter G. Hinman, Lecturer Patricia D. Shure. • Deaths: Professors Emeriti Donald G. Higman (Feb. 2006), James G. Wendel (Jan. 2006), Ethel M. Rathbun, longtime assistant to the chair (Nov. 2005), former professors Raoul Bott (Dec. 2005), Hans Samelson (Sept. 2005), Robert M. Thrall (April, 2006). • The Michigan Reception at the joint AMS/MAA meetings in New Orleans will be Saturday, 6 January, 5:30–7:00 p.m.

University of Michigan-Dearborn [reported by F.-J. Papp]

Margaret Rathouz joined our faculty as Assist. Prof. in mathematics education. She was previously on the faculty at California State U Monterey Bay. • Angela Krebs was promoted to Assoc. Prof. with tenure. John Clifford was promoted to Assoc. Prof. with tenure. • Lecturer Helen Santiz retired effective September 1 after serving for 30 years. • On leave for the Winter term: Frank Massey, Angela Krebs, and John Clifford. • David James is chairing a committee to have mathematical art on display around the department area. • Mai Bazzi, a preservice elementary teacher, won a Michigan Council of Teachers of Mathematics Miriam Schaefer Scholarship • The Seventh Edition of the well-known text Fourier Series and Boundary Value Problems by James Ward Brown and the late Ruel V. Churchill has recently been published. [fjpapp@umich.edu]

University of Michigan-Flint [reported by Steven C. Althoen]

Kirk Weller from U of North Texas at Denton, joined the Department in a tenure-track position as an Assoc. Prof. of Mathematics Education. [salthoen@umflint.edu]

Washtenaw Community College [reported by Jim Egan]

Long time faculty member, department chair, and union president Dennis Bila retired last year.  Never one to let himself stray too far from the classroom, he is back teaching calculus as a part-time faculty member. • The department welcomes its newest faculty member, Lisa Manoukian. [JEgan@wccnet.edu]

Wayne State University [reported by Daniel Frohardt]

Fatih Celiker (Ph.D., 2005, U of Minnesota; J. Bernardo Cockburn,Advisor) is a new Assist. Prof. this Fall. Fatih did postdoctoral work at Stanford and specializes in numerical analysis. • Visiting this year is Jyotsna Diwadkar (Ph.D., 2006, U of Pittsburgh; Thomas Hales, Advisor). Jyotsna’s field of specialty is algebra. • Po Hu has been awarded a Career Development Chair. George Yin has been elected to the WSU Academy of Scholars. • Five faculty members are on sabbatical leave: Bertram Schreiber, 2006–2007 academic year, David Handel, Fall 2006, Daniel Isaksen, Fall 2006, Leonid Makar-Limanov, Fall 2006, Guozhen Lu, Winter 2007 • Other faculty on leave for the year are Gregory Bachelis, Robert Berman (to work in the provost’s office), and Rafail Khasminskii. • David Jonah has retired after serving for 39 years in the department. • The department hosted an Asymptotic Analysis Conference in honor of Rafail Khasminskii’s 75th birthday in September. • Thomas Hales (U of Pittsburgh) gave the annual Owen Owens talk in March. • Gary Seitz (U of Oregon) has been the Visting Scholar for Fall, 2006. • The URL for the department’s colloquium schedule is www.math.wayne.edu/research/seminars/colloq.html • Several WSU students participated in the MUMC at Hope C in October. [danf@math.wayne.edu]

Western Michigan University [reported by Paul Eenigenburg]

The department is pleased to announce Gene Freudenburg as its new Chair. Gene comes to us from the U of Southern Indiana where he most recently served as Associate Dean. Our previous chair, Terrell Hodge, is on sabbatical leave at the U of Virginia. • Recent resignations include Lixen Shen and Michael Raines. Steve Mackey has joined the department as Visit. Assist. Prof. Also visiting is Sanath Boralugoda from Sri Lanka. • Nil Mackey and John Martino were promoted to Prof., and Jeff Strom was granted tenure and promoted to Assoc. Prof. • Recent Ph.D. graduates include Shari Stockero (mathematics education), now at MTU, Joe Fox (algebra), now at Salem State C in Massachusetts, and Henry Escuadro (graph theory), now at Juniata C in Pennsylvania. Charlene Beckmann of GVSU has been selected by the department to receive its Alumni Achievement Award for 2006. [paul.eenigenburg@wmich.edu]

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