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Spring 2010
Newsletter in PDF Format for Printing
2009 - 2010 Section
Officers and Committee Members.
2011 Distinguished
Teaching Award Call for Nominations
Metropolitan State College of Denver
South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
University of Northern Colorado
Mathematics
Awareness Month Theme: Mathematics and Sports April 2010
Seeking Nominations
for Section Vice Chair
Colorado State
University to Host 2010 Meeting.
Abstracts from
Selected Invited Addresses
Additional Meeting
Information
Preliminary 2010
Meeting Schedule
MAA Rocky Mountain Section Suggestions
for Speakers
Section Activity Grants Available
Student Recognition Grants Available
Burton W. Jones Award Nomination Form
MAA Rocky Mountain
Section Voluntary Dues Contribution Form
MAA Rocky Mountain Section Mission Statement
Chair
Mike Brilleslyper mike.brilleslyper@usafa.edu
USAFA
719-333-9514
Chair Elect Daluss Siewert daluss.siewert@bhsu.edu
Vice-Chair Sarah Pauley spauley@wwcc.wy.edu
Past Chair Vacant 2009-2010
Secretary/ Hortensia
Soto-Johnson hortensia.soto@unco.edu
Treasurer
Governor Kyle Riley kyle.riley@sdsmt.edu
Program Alexander Hulpke hulpke@math.colostate.edu
Chair Colorado State University 970-491-4288
___________________________________________________________________________________________
Section Nominating Committee
Michael
Jacobson, UCD michael.jacobson@ucdenver.edu
Amelia
Taylor, Colorado College amelia.taylor@coloradocollege.edu
Jeremy
Muskat,
Awards
Selection Committee
Daluss Siewert (Chair), BHSU daluss.siewert@bhsu.edu
Sarah
Pauley, WWCC spauley@wwcc.wy.edu
Richard
Grassl, UNCO richard.grassl@unco.edu
Beth Schaubroeck beth.schaubroeck@usafa.edu
Section
Book Sales Coordinator and Section Liaison Coordinator
Janet Heine Barnett,
CSU -
Section
Student Activity Coordinator
Carl Lienert,
Higher Education Representative on CCTM
Governing Board
Public
Information Officer & Section Liaison Coordinator
Hortensia Soto-Johnson, UNC hortensia.soto@unco.edu
Website Editor
Newsletter Editor
P. O. Box 173362, Campus
Each
year, the section recognizes one outstanding teacher of collegiate mathematics
with an award named in honor of Burton W. Jones, a lifelong advocate of excellence
in teaching at all levels. In addition to an honorarium, a certificate and an
invitation to deliver the opening lecture at the next Section Meeting, the
recipient becomes the section’s nominee for the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Awards for
Putnam coordinators
at the participating schools please send Dick Gibbs at gibbs_d@fortlewis.edu the top three scores and their team score. No
names are requested at this time. When we know the top three scores and the top
team score we will contact the schools for the names.
It was easy to spot
the RMS folks at the Joint Meetings in San Francisco. We were the ones not
huffing and puffing up all those hills (there are advantages to living above
5000 ft.). Despite our superior conditioning, the cable car was still a
necessity after gorging ourselves at dinner in Chinatown. Yes, San Francisco
was a terrific host city. The meeting itself was also outstanding. With near record attendance and an incredible
variety of events on the program, it is clear that our profession is in good shape.
It is always great to
see old friends at the national meetings. I even ran into a few people I had
not seen in twenty years. It was only after getting caught up that I realized
how long ago grad school was. If the national meetings are a little like family
reunions, then the sections are a little like your immediate family. I met with
several members of the RMS family (a.k.a. the executive committee) and was
again impressed by the level of commitment of the people that serve the
section.
As the executive
committee ate breakfast at famous Sears Fine Food (ah the Swedish pancakes), we
discussed the details of the upcoming spring section meeting. This year we will
be at CSU in Ft. Collins, which promises to be a very fun location. Professor Alexander Hulpke
has taken over most of the responsibility for organizing the meeting. He is
proving to be a tireless worker and the program promises to be outstanding.
Once again, we are fortunate to have terrific and renowned keynote speakers.
The meeting program is highlighted by talks from MAA President David Bressoud
(Macalister College), and Polya Lecturer, Judy Walker (University of Nebraska). A
new and exciting element is the kick-off of our very own section NeXT. Amelia
Taylor (Colorado College) has done a tremendous amount of work in bringing
this into existence. Please encourage your junior faculty members to consider
applying to be part of our inaugural class of section NeXT fellows. This year
we are continuing the practice of accepting abstracts and registrations online.
Please see the meeting information in this newsletter and register early!
While not eating or
sightseeing in San Francisco, I also attended the Section Officer’s meeting.
Some of the items from that meeting are discussed in the Governor’s report, but
another exciting project is that the National MAA is planning to start hosting
section websites. There will be direct
links from the MAA homepage and more continuity among the various websites. A
great deal of creative freedom will still be afforded the sections, while at
the same time bringing stability to the entire process.
Finally, this spring
will be my last section meeting as chairman. It has been a fun and rewarding
three years serving the section and the MAA. We are a unique and diverse group
of educators and mathematicians and I have been continually impressed and
humbled by the hard work and dedication of our members. Though many of our
members do great research and are very creative, what stands out most is the
deep passion and commitment to providing our students with a great education.
At every level and at every institution represented in the RMS, the concern for
the students shines through. I believe this view reaches throughout the MAA and
this is why it is so important to be a member and to support our professional
organization.
As I close this last
newsletter article (ok, quit jumping for joy), I would like to thank the other
members of the executive committee. They are consummate professionals that have
made my job easy. I would like to pay a special than you to our Governor, Kyle Riley (South Dakota School of
Mines). Kyle is a great guy to work with and he does a wonderful job
representing our section at the National level. I need to say a very special
thank you to Hortensia Soto (University of Northern
Colorado), our section secretary and treasurer. Tensia
is one of my oldest friend in the profession (I know, how is that possible when
she looks so young). Tensia keeps all of us in line
and makes sure that everything gets done. And even though she is telling you
what do, you can’t help but like her. I also need to point out the great work
by Linda Sundbye
(Metro State), who makes sure this newsletter gets out twice per year. I am
never happy to see her reminder email, but it wouldn’t get done without her.
In April, I will hand
the reigns to Daluss Siewert
(Black Hills State University) who will take over as section chairman. Daluss is dedicated and very talented. I have no doubt that
he will do great things for the RMS.
I appreciate the
support I have received over the years. Thank you for giving me the opportunity
to serve.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael
A. Brilleslyper, USAFA
Chair,
Rocky Mountain Section
The Joint Mathematics
Meetings is always a great conference and San Francisco did not disappoint.
They expect attendance to top out near 6,000, which is close to the record
attendance in DC last year. The variety of sessions and invited talks is really
a testimony to the creativity and hard work that resides in the mathematical
community. In addition, San Francisco has a wonderful convention site and the
heart of downtown is a very interesting place to visit.
The Board of
Governors meeting at JMM was filled with information, but I will attempt to hit
the highlights. As you may know, the MAA launched their electronic membership
option and over 1,600 members opted for the electronic membership. This enables
a member to have access to all three professional journals and this is not only
access for the current year, but also provides access to the previous three
years. Of course, if you like your current membership with a paper copy of
journals then you are welcome to keep your membership the way it is. The
electronic membership will be the required structure of all student memberships
once we start the next membership cycle for students. This will give students
more access to journals and that access starts much more quickly than what
could be done in the old mail delivery system. In addition, this electronic
membership should prove much more attractive to the international audience of
mathematicians and we hope it will help us grow our membership.
Strategic planning
continues to be a large part of the Governors meeting and this last meeting we
had reports on publications. The MAA continues to evaluate the variety of
publications that it offers and many of the new publications are being
delivered through the website http://www.maa.org. Book publishing is
another area that has been another source of pride for the Association and we
have found our textbook offerings are becoming popular. Most of the textbooks
developed by the MAA are directed at the upper level classes in mathematics and
hopefully you can get a chance to check out the MAA catalog online. Perhaps a
new book or one of the new textbooks will be an interest to you.
The MAA has also been
working hard on revising the bylaws in order to update the organization and
position the association to better serve the membership. I am not sure when the
proposed revisions in the bylaws will go to the membership for approval, but it
is something that we spent a great deal of time on in the Board meeting at JMM
and we are planning to spend more time at Mathfest.
Speaking of meetings, I would like to remind you about the upcoming meetings:
Mathfest 2010, August 5-7,
Pittsburg, PA
Joint Mathematics
Meetings 2011, January 5-8, New Orleans, LA
Rocky Mountain
Section Meeting, April 16-17, 2010, Ft. Collins, CO
Lastly, I would
really like to thank Mike Brilleslyper for all his
hard work serving as section chair. Mike has really gone the extra mile to
serve the section and he has been a pleasure to work with. Mike will be finishing his term at the end of
the spring meeting and I look forward to working with Daluss
Siewert in the next year. I really do appreciate all
the great work that our section benefits from with the cast of officers and
other individuals that have been keeping the section business moving along. Our
section is very lucky to have such great membership and if you haven’t bothered
to join the MAA in the past then I hope the new electronic membership provides an opportunity for you
to join the party. I look forward to seeing everyone in Ft. Collins and I hope
you enjoy 2010.
Kyle
Riley, SDSMT
Governor,
Rocky Mountain Section
It
is with great sadness that we note the passing of our esteemed colleague Lew Romagnano
in January 2010.
Our department is a proud parent of a new masters program. The Master of Science in Robotics and
Intelligent Autonomous Systems (RIAS) will be launched this fall. This is a two
year interdisciplinary program that will take graduates from a variety of
disciplines and will seek to foster collaboration skills on team research projects.
To find out more about his program then please see
http://rias.sdsmt.edu/rias/RIAS. We have also new
member of the faculty: Randy
Hoover has a doctorate from CSU and will be teaching many of our Computer
Science courses.
We are
pleased to report that Nat Miller received the college Excellence in
Scholarship Award and Hortensia
Soto-Johnson received the college Excellence in Service Award from the
College of Natural and Health Sciences at UNC. Anton Dzhamay has recently participated in a number of
international programs, including the Discrete Integrable
Systems Program at the Isaac Newton Mathematical Institute, Cambridge, UK, and
the Workshop on Nonlinear and Modern Mathematical Physics in Beijing,
China. Richard Grassl has been invited to
become a member of the Advisory Board for the Math Teachers’ Circle by the
American Institute of Mathematics. AIM organizes annual training sessions on
how to start and sustain a Math Teachers' Circle and provides logistical
support and materials for Circle leaders. The program is the largest American
Institute of Mathematics outreach effort and currently involves 16 Member
Circles located throughout the country as well 14 more in the planning stages.
The 18th
Annual UNC Math Contest for students in grades 7-12 had approximately 2000
participants. The first round was delivered on-line in November 2009 and provided
students throughout the state the opportunity to participate. The top 200
students were invited to campus for the final round on January 30,
2010. The top 25 winners will be honored, along with their parents, at a
banquet in early April that is hosted by the director of the Math Contest, Richard
Grassl.
Tensia Soto-Johnson, Cathleen Craviotto, and Ricardo Diaz are
organizing the third annual Las Chicas de Matematicas, a Summer Math Camp for young women. The
free one-week residential camp will introduce mathematically talented high
school girls to mathematical topics through problem-solving and collaborative
learning. The camp will be on the UNC campus from June 6 to June 11,
2010. For more information, contact
Is news
from your school missing?
Send
your news to your department liaison now with a request to forward it to the
Students
are invited to participate in the MAA Sectional meeting at Colorado State
University, April 16 and 17, 2010. There will be student sessions in which you
can give a talk, as well as a student poster session. If you would like to give
a talk, please submit your proposal as described in the general announcement
for the meeting. You may also present a poster, even if you’re also giving a
talk. Bring a poster relating to your independent study, senior seminar,
modeling contest, etc. Anything with mathematical content will be appropriate.
Prizes will be awarded in categories to be determined. Ask a faculty member at
your institution about the meeting and/or contact me at
Carl Lienert
Section
Student Activity Coordinator
Registration is now
open for the MAA’s 2010 series of Professional Enhancement Program (PREP)
workshops. There are both online workshop and onsite workshops. For more
information, visit: http://www.maa.org/prep/
Math Awareness Month
is only a few months away. Initiated in 1986 to increase public understanding
of, and appreciation for, mathematics, this annual event highlights the relevance
of mathematics to a particular area of scientific endeavor.
This year, the MAA,
American Mathematical Society (AMS), Society for Industrial and Applied
Mathematics (SIAM), and American Statistical Association (ASA) have jointly
proclaimed that the theme of Mathematics Awareness Month - April 2010 - shall
be "Mathematics and Sports."
Sports offers a
multitude of instances involving data, strategies and chance, each of which is
perfectly suited to mathematical analysis. Beyond the obvious uses of
mathematics for things such as rating baseball players and football
quarterbacks, mathematics is used to design the dimple patterns on golf balls
and the composition of racing tires; it is used for scheduling tournaments and
for ranking teams; and it is used to determine tactics and to predict the
ultimate limits in sports records.
In the 1960s the ABC
television network began a popular weekly series called "The Wide World of
Sports" that spanned the globe to show the tremendous variety of sports.
For 2010, the Joint Policy Board of Mathematics has chosen the theme
"Mathematics and Sports" to highlight the intersection of the sports
world with the wide world of mathematics—a universal language that is used to
investigate problems ranging from the athletic to the cosmic.
The 2010 Mathematics
Awareness web site has articles on baseball, basketball, football, golf,
soccer, track and field, tennis, and car racing as well as videos and links to
other resources.
The
seventh annual Pikes Peak Regional Undergraduate Mathematics Conference
(PPRUMC) is scheduled to take place on February 27, 2010 on the Colorado State
University - Pueblo campus.
PPRUMC is a one-day mathematics conference held each spring at
one of several host institutions in the Pikes Peak region. The focus of
the conference is to give undergraduate mathematics students the opportunity to
present in a professional setting. This is also an occasion for students to
become acquainted with other students, to become aware of opportunities for
undergraduates in mathematics, to investigate the possibility of graduate
school, and to learn more about career options in mathematics.
Faculty - now is the time to start working with students on projects for presentation
next February!!! Presentation topics could include the results of
classroom projects, independent studies, REU's or other research projects; both
research and expository topics are welcome.
Student
talks will be scheduled in 15-minutes blocks throughout the day. The
conference will also feature a morning keynote address by a noted
mathematician, and an afternoon panel discussion on career or graduate school
options. The conference day lasts roughly from 9:00 - 4:30. Lunch
will be provided for all participants and travel stipends will be available for
students traveling longer distances.
Details
on conference scheduling and registration will be available in the Rocky
Mountain Section Spring Newsletter and through future emails. The
steering committee also seeks faculty volunteers at Rocky Mountain Section
schools to assist us in locally disseminating conference information to
students, and in encouraging other faculty to undertake supervision of
undergraduate research projects and independent study courses with students who
are interested in presenting at the conference.
To
volunteer as a local contact, or for more information about the conference,
please contact either:
Janet Barnett
janet.barnett@colostate-pueblo.edu,
Darren Funk-Neubauer
darren.funkneubauer@colostate-pueblo, or
Jonathan Poritz
jonathan.poritz@colostate-pueblo.edu
For more
info, visit:
http://csm.colostate-pueblo.edu/Mathematics/2010MathConference
Funding for this
conference is provided by NSF grant DMS-0846477 through the MAA
Regional Undergraduate Mathematics Conferences program, www.maa.org/RUMC
The SIAM Student
Chapters of the University of Colorado campuses are organizing the 6th Front
Range Applied Mathematics Student Conference on Saturday, March 6th, 2010 at
the University of Colorado at Denver campus (downtown Denver on the Auraria campus).
The
conference is open to BOTH undergraduate and graduate students and
will focus on student research projects and presentations in Applied
Mathematics. Faculty are also welcome to attend.
Abstract
deadline is Friday Feb. 26th, and registration fee is $10 (to help cover breakfast
and lunch costs). The keynote speaker is Dr. Geoffrey Spedding of the University of Southern
California. He will be speaking on The
Aerodynamics of Everything.
This
will be a great opportunity for learning about current student research in the
Further information about this
conference can be found at:
http://amath.colorado.edu/index.php?page=conference
Lynn Benethum, UC-Denver
As Our Spring Meeting
Nears - We Are Still Seeking Nominations for Vice Chairperson.
The MAA Section Nominating Committee
is seeking nominations for the position of vice-chairperson. This is a 2-year
term beginning Spring 2010. The nominee must be someone from a junior or community
college. The vice-chair person acts as a key contact for the section with
two-year and community colleges; serves on the Distinguished Teaching Award committee;
and assists the program committee with events for faculty from two-year and
community colleges.
All nominations can
be sent to any of the members from the section nominating committee. They are Michael Jacobson (chair)
michael.jacobson@ucdenver.edu,
Amelia
Taylor
amelia.taylor@coloradocollege.edu,
and Jeremy
Muskat muskat@western.edu.
The Department of Mathematics at Colorado State University is pleased to
be hosting the 2010 sectional meeting on April 16-17, 2010 on its campus in
Fort Collins. The program offers a wide variety of events, catering to the
whole spectrum of the profession.
Detailed information about the meeting, including travel information,
registration forms and guidelines for talk submissions can be found on the
conference web pages at:
http://www.math.colostate.edu/~hulpke/MAA
The deadline for registration and submitting titles and abstracts for
talks is April 1, 2010.
Hotel rooms are available at a special conference rate until March 19, 2010.
A pre-conference workshop will be held Friday morning from 9:30 –
11:30am on Proposal
Writing for Grant Applications to the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education will be conducted by Stephanie Fitchett,
NSF and University of Northern Colorado. Faculty members and graduate students
in their final year are encouraged to participate. The registration fee is $5
per person.
The meeting itself will start at 1:00pm on Friday, April 16, with a talk
by the 2009 Burton W. Jones Distinguished Teaching Award Recipient, Richard Grassl
of the University of Northern Colorado. His talk, The ah Ha moment, addresses the question of problem
solving in a teaching context.
On Friday afternoon the current
president of the MAA, David Bressoud of Macalaster
College, will present a talk entitled Calculus as a High School
Course, which
will address a question of interest to all participants.
The dinner speaker on Friday evening
will be the 2010 Polya Lecturer, Judy Walker of the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Her talk, Codes
on graphs: Shannon's challenge and beyond, will discuss the current state of the art as well as open
problems in coding theory and will be generally accessible.
David
Bressoud will also address the meeting on Saturday morning. His talk,
Proofs and Confirmations: The Story of the Alternating Sign
Matrix Conjecture, is
intended for a general audience.
A poster session for undergraduate
students will be organized by Carl Lienert, Fort Lewis College.
Rounding out the scientific program
will be talks contributed by intelligent, involved and inspirational people
like you! Information on special sessions and submission guidelines can be
found on the web pages.
MAA books will again be on display at
the meeting, with the opportunity to purchase books at a discount below
membership prices! Not only does this save you money, but also the section
receives a 10% “rebate” on all orders placed at the meeting. We also hope to
have textbook publishers and other vendors available on-site.
Judy
Walker is
Professor and Graduate Chair at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her main
research interests are in algebraic coding theory, and her current work focuses
primarily on codes on graphs. She has also studied connections between coding
theory and both algebraic geometry and number theory. She is co-founder of the
Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics and an editor for
the Journal of Pure and Applied Algebra, Advances in Mathematics
of Communications and
the Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Math
Journal.
David
Bressoud is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Mathematics at Macalester
College and President of the Mathematical Association of America. He served in
the Peace Corps, teaching math and science at the Clare Hall School in Antigua,
West Indies before studying with Emil Grosswald at
Temple University and then teaching at Penn State for 17 years. He chaired the
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Macalester from 1995 until
2001. He has held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Minnesota, Université Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg, France), and the
State College Area High School.
David has received the MAA
Distinguished Teaching Award (Allegheny Mountain Section), the MAA Beckenbach Book Award for Proofs and
Confirmations, and
has been a Pólya Lecturer for the MAA. He is a
recipient of Macalester's Jefferson Award. He has published over fifty research
articles in number theory, combinatorics, and special
functions. His other books include Factorization and Primality Testing, Second Year Calculus from Celestial
Mechanics to Special Relativity,
A Radical Approach to Real Analysis (now in 2nd edition), A
Radical Approach to Lebesgue's Theory of Integration, and, with Stan Wagon, A
Course in Computational Number Theory.
David has chaired the MAA special
interest group, Teaching Advanced High School Mathematics as well as the AP
Calculus Development Committee and has served as Director of the
FIPSE-sponsored program Quantitative Methods for Public Policy.
Richard
Grassl received his BA in mathematics from Santa Clara University
and his graduate degrees from The University of Oregon and The University of
New Mexico. After teaching at the U.of San Diego, UNM
and as the Truman Koehler Prof. of Mathematics at Muhlenberg College in
Pennsylvania he was appointed Chair of Mathematics at The University of
Northern Colorado. After 14 years as chair, and several semesters as assistant
dean of the newly formed College of Natural and Health Sciences he has returned
to full time teaching and research at UNC.
His 42 years in higher education has
resulted in numerous publications in both mathematics (combinatorics)
and mathematics education, participation in a major NSF teacher enhancement
grant, undergraduate research projects, and mentorship of talented secondary
students through his involvement in statewide mathematics contests, first at
UNM and now at UNC. Through the development of problem solving seminars he
helped coach the UNM Putnam team to a ranking of #20. He started and has
directed for the past 18 years the UNC Statewide Mathematics Contest for
students in grades 7-12. Participation has grown from 150 initially to over
2200 recently.
Following the reception of teaching
awards at UNM, Dr. Grassl earned college awards in
three areas at UNC: Teaching, Research and Leadership.
Codes
on graphs: Shannon's challenge and beyond
Judy Walker, University of Nebraska,
Lincoln
2009/10 MAA Polya
Lecturer
Whenever
information is transmitted across a channel, errors are bound to occur. It is
the goal of coding theory to find efficient ways of adding redundancy to the
information so that errors can be detected and even corrected. Coding theory
began in 1948 with Shannon's groundbreaking result that efficient, reliable
transmission of information is possible. This result was existential rather
than constructive, however, and the challenge over the past half century has
been to actually find the codes that Shannon proved must exist. In the past
10-15 years, it has been shown that certain graph-based codes come close to
achieving Shannon capacity. Even with these recent advances, however, it is not
clear whether Shannon's challenge has truly been answered. We will discuss the
current situation as well as what the next big problems are for the field of
coding theory.
The
ah Ha moment
Richard Grassl,
University of Northern Colorado
2009 Burton W. Jones Distinguished
Teaching Award Recipient
Well designed problem solving episodes often elicit such
moments from a broad range of audiences ranging from secondary students , to
mathematics majors, and to in-service teachers; for example, the nice 10th
grade problem: How many positive integers are there whose digits are in
strictly increasing order ( like 2478)? has an unexpected ah ha moment.
Sometimes the presence of multiple disparate solutions ultimately yields the
defining ah ha moment as often occurs with the following type of question:
Verify that CONDITION HERE. Several such episodes will be highlighted as they
have manifested themselves in my involvement over the years with problem
solving courses for elementary and for secondary teachers (both pre-service and
in-service), with undergraduate research projects, and with the UNC Statewide
Mathematics Contest. A brief presentation of the history, philosophy and
results of the past 18 years of this contest will further illuminate how the
trio Teaching – Research – Mentoring are intimately related.
Calculus
as a High School Course
David Bressoud,
Macalaster College
President of the Mathematical
Association of America
Over
the past quarter century, 2- and 4-year college enrollment in first semester
calculus has remained constant while high school enrollment in calculus has
grown tenfold, from 50,000 to 500,000, and continues to grow at 6% per year. We
have reached the cross-over point where each year more students study first
semester calculus in US high schools than in all 2- and 4-year colleges and
universities in the United States. There is considerable overlap between these
populations. Most high school students do not earn college credit for the
calculus they study. This talk will present some of the data that we have about
this phenomenon and its effects and will raise issues of how colleges and
universities should respond.
Proofs
and Confirmations: The Story of the Alternating Sign Matrix Conjecture
David Bressoud,
Macalaster College
President of the Mathematical
Association of America
What
is the role of proof in mathematics? Most of the time, the search for proof is
less about establishing truth than it is about exploring unknown territory. In
finding a route from what is known to the result one believes is out there, the
mathematician often encounters unexpected insights into seemingly unrelated
problems. I will illustrate this point with an example of recent research into
a generalization of the permutation matrix known as the "alternating sign
matrix." This is a story that began with Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis
Carroll), matured at the Institute for Defense Analysis, drew in researchers
from combinatorics, analysis, and algebra, and
ultimately was solved with insights from statistical mechanics. This talk is
intended for a general audience and should be accessible to anyone interested
in a window into the true nature of research in mathematics.
A pre-conference workshop will be held Friday, April 16 from 9:30am –
11:30am on Proposal
Writing for Grant Applications to the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education and will be conducted by Stephanie Fitchett,
NSF and University of Northern Colorado. Faculty members and graduate students
in their final year are encouraged to participate. The registration fee is $5
per person.
On Saturday, April 17, 9:00am – 4:00pm,
there will be a workshop primarily aimed at the high school classroom: Inspiring
Your Precalculus and Calculus Classroom: A TI-Nspire Workshop hosted by Wade Ellis
Jr., West Valley College, Saratoga, CA. Registration is separate from the
meeting but also available on the web pages.
Students are invited
to participate in the MAA Sectional meeting on April 16 and 17, 2010, to be
held at the Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO. There are student
sessions in which students will give talks and there will be a poster session
as well. Abstract submissions for the poster session are still underway and
should be sent to lienert_c@fortlewis.edu. Bring a poster related to your
independent study, senior seminar, modeling contest, etc. Anything with
mathematical content is appropriate. Prizes will be awarded in categories to be
determined. To register, see:
http://www.math.colostate.edu/~hulpke/MAA/
The
deadline for submission of abstracts for the 2010 Spring Section Meeting is April 1, 2010. Proposals received from
students and MAA members after this date will be scheduled on a first-come,
first-scheduled, space-available basis. Proposals from non-members sponsored by
MAA members must be received by the deadline.
Although talks on all topics
mathematical are welcome, special sessions are being organized around the
following themes:
Combinatorics
Organized
by Bryan Shader, University of Wyoming
Contributed
Papers
Organized by Kyle Riley, South Dakota
School of Mines & Technology
Graduate
Student Research
Organized by Hortensia
Soto Johnson, University of Northern Colorado, and Jeremy Muskat,
Western State College
Mathematics
Education Research
Organized
by Robert Powers, University of Northern Colorado
Undergraduate
Research
Organized
by Jonathan Poritz, Colorado State University, Pueblo
Poincaré’s Other Conjecture:
The History of Mathematics and What It Can Teach Us
Organized by Janet Barnett (Colorado
State University - Pueblo) and George Heine (Bureau of Land Management)
At the Fourth International Congress of
Mathematicians in Rome in 1908, Poincaré opened his
talk “The Future of Mathematics” by declaring: “If we wish to foresee the
future of mathematics, our proper course is to study the history and present
condition of the science.”
This session invites speakers to
respond to Poincaré’s call by sharing interesting
tales from the history of our science, as well as historical accounts of how
specific mathematical topics came into their present condition. Talks which
suggest ways in which the history of mathematics can be used to enrich the
teaching of mathematics for today’s students and future mathematicians are
especially encouraged.
Pure
and Applied Mathematics Research
Organized
by Daniel Bates, Colorado State University
The default talk length will be 15-20
minutes, with every effort made (within the constraints of the schedule) to
accommodate requests for longer talks and other scheduling preferences. Please submit special requests early.
Electronic submissions are preferred. For
non-electronic submissions, please use the Speaker Response Form on the web
pages.
Department
chairs and MAA liaisons are invited to a luncheon
and an open discussion on Friday, April 16, 11:45 – 12:45pm in room 230, Lory student center. The cost is $10 per person. Please
indicate on your registration form if you are interested in attending the
luncheon. Reservations must be received by April 1, 2010 to be guaranteed. A
limited number may be available on-site.
The Friday Evening Banquet and Awards Ceremony will be at 7:00pm in the
Fort Collins Hilton, preceded by a cash bar at 6:30pm. Please note that banquet
reservations must be received by April 1, 2010 to guarantee availability. A
limited number of banquet tickets may be available on-site.
Travel Information, including maps and hotel information
will be available on the conference web pages:
http://www.math.colostate.edu/~hulpke/MAA/Housing.html
Please note that hotel rooms will be available at a special
rate until March 19, 2010.
Friday, April 16
9:30
- 11:30 Workshop: Proposal writing for grant applications to
the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education (Lory 228)
Stephanie Fitchett, NSF and University of Northern Colorado
8:00
- 12:00 Section NeXT workshop (Lory 217)
11:45
– 12:45 Luncheon for Department Chairs and MAA Liaisons (Lory 230)
12:
00 – 4:30 Registration (Lory 227)
12:
00 – 4:30 Registration, Publisher Exhibits, and MAA Book Sales (University
Club)
1:00
– 1:10 Opening Remarks and Welcome (North Ballroom)
1:10
– 1:55 Burton W. Jones Distinguished Teaching Award Invited Lecture (North
Ballroom)
Richard
Grassl, University of Northern Colorado
2:00
– 4:25 Parallel Sessions – Contributed Papers & Special Sessions
(Multiple
Rooms in Lory)
5:00
– 6:00 Education Address (North Ballroom)
Calculus as a High School Course
David Bressoud, Macalaster College
6:30
– 7:00 Cash Bar (Fort Collins Hilton, Prospect Road)
7:00
– 9:00 Banquet and Awards Ceremony (Fort Collins Hilton, Prospect Road)
Banquet Address given by 2010 Polya Lecturer
Codes on graphs: Shannon's challenge and
beyond
Judy
Walker, University of Nebraska, Lincoln
Saturday, April 17
8:00
– 8:50 MAA Rocky Mountain Section Business Meeting (North Ballroom)
Please
forward agenda items to Hortensia Soto-Johnson at hortensia.soto@unco.edu
by April 1.
8:
00 – 12:00 Registration (Lory 227)
9:00
– 9:45 Saturday Keynote Address (North Ballroom)
Proofs and Confirmations: The Story of the
Alternating Sign Matrix Conjecture
David Bressoud, Macalaster College
10:00
– 1:00 Publisher exhibits and MAA Book Sales (University Club)
10:00
– 1:00 Parallel Sessions – Contributed Papers, Special Sessions
(Multiple
Rooms in Lory)
9:00
– 4:00 Workshop: Inspiring Your Precalculus and Calculus Classroom: A TI-Nspire Workshop (NESB B322). Separate registration
required.
12:00
- 2:00 Section NeXT workshop (Lory 217)
Watch for regular meeting updates at http://www.math.colostate.edu/~hulpke/MAA
The
Section offers the following suggestions which might be of assistance, especially
to first-timers, during preparation of a talk for a Section Meeting.
Applications for Section Activities Grants are again being accepted to assist Section members with projects in support of the Section Mission. Proposals may request up to $500; matching funds are preferred, but not required.
The project director(s) must be a current member(s) of MAA, and the proposal must be clearly tied to one or more of the Rocky Mountain Section Mission Goals. A copy of these goals appears on the inside back cover of this newsletter. All applications must include the following:
(a) Description of project (no more than one page);
(b) Statement of how project supports Section Goals (no more than one page);
(c) Estimated budget, including description of matching funds available, if any;
(d) Vitae of project director(s).
Upon completion of the project, the director(s) of the funded projects are required to file a brief report (no more than one page), and to present a project report at the next meeting of the Section.
Two non-officer members of the Section will review
applications; the Executive Committee on the basis of the reviewers’ reports
will make final funding decisions. Although applications are accepted at any
time, please note that notification of funding decisions may take up to two
months following receipt of the application by the section secretary.
The establishment of
a Student Recognition Grant Program was approved by the section membership at
the 2003 Annual Business Meeting. In support of this program, the Section will
set aside $500 every calendar year. From these monies, the Section will make
grants for the purpose of recognizing superior achievement in mathematics on the
part of (1) students enrolled in post-secondary institutions within the
geographic region served by the Section and (2) high school students whose
school districts, or other appropriate political subdivisions, substantially
intersect the geographic region served by the Section.
Proposals
for such grants must
1. Originate
from a member of the Rocky Mountain Section of the Mathematical Association of
America on behalf of an agency, institution, or organization whose stated
purposes are consistent with recognizing or encouraging superior academic
achievement at the high school level;
2. Be
in the hands of the Chair of the Rocky Mountain Section no later than March 15
of the year in which the proposed recognition is to be made;
3. Include
the criteria under which superior achievement in mathematics is to be
recognized, together with the time and the manner of such recognition;
4. Report,
insofar as possible at the time of the proposal, other potential sources of
support together with proposals or requests made or intended; and
5. Be
limited to a maximum amount of $250.
The Executive Committee will review all proposals for grants under this policy and will make such grants as, in its sole judgment, it deems proper. In keeping with the section mission, funding priority will be given to grants that include recognition of undergraduate students. Funding decisions will be announced no later than the Annual Business Meeting of the Section. Monies not expended during any particular year shall revert to the Section’s general fund.
First
unveiled at the 2002 Spring Section Meeting in
In
order to promote awareness of the MAA and the Rocky Mountain Section, prices
have been set in order to recover production costs, just $35 for denim
and $30 for polo. Proceeds, if
any, will be used to support section activities.
If
you are interested in obtaining one of these special shirts, please contact Janet
Barnett, janet.barnett@colostate-pueblo.edu,
with information on desired quantities and sizes.
The logo for the Rocky Mountain Section of
the Mathematical Association of America was created in by Mark Petersen in
2001. A graduate student in the Applied Mathematics Department at the
“The mountain symbols were chosen because
analysis is the foundation for all of mathematics. The equation eip + 1 = 0 must rank among the
most beautiful formulas in mathematics. It connects the five most important
constants of mathematics with the three most important operations - addition,
multiplication, and exponentiation. These five constants symbolize the four
major branches of classical mathematics: arithmetic, represented by 0 and 1;
algebra, by i; geometry, by p;
and analysis, by e. (Quoted from Eli Maor’s e,
The Story of a Number). I chose to portray this equation as a train because
rail has historically been the life blood of the American West, and trains are
complementary to any mountain scene.”
ICTCM, Chicago, IL;
March 11-14, 2010
MAA
Rocky Mountain Section Meeting
Colorado State
University
Fort Collins, CO
April 16-17,
2010
NCTM annual
meeting; San Diego, CA; April 21-24, 2010
MAA MathFest;
Joint Mathematics
Meetings;
MAA Rocky Mountain
Section Meeting; Adams
State College;
April 2011
NCTM annual
meeting;
MAA MathFest;
Joint Mathematics
Meetings;
MAA Rocky Mountain
Section Meeting; Metropolitan State College of Denver; April 2012
NCTM annual
meeting; Philadelphia, PA; April 25-28, 2012
MAA MathFest;
Joint Mathematics
Meetings;
NCTM annual
meeting;
MAA MathFest; Hartford, CT; August 1-3, 2013
Joint Mathematics
Meetings;
NCTM annual
meeting;
MAA MathFest; Portland, OR; August 7-9, 2014
Joint Mathematics
Meetings; San Antonio, TX; January 10-13, 2015
NCTM annual
meeting;
MAA 100th
Anniversary
Joint Mathematics
Meetings; Seattle, WA; January 6-9, 2016
NCTM annual
meeting; San Francisco, CA; April 14-16, 2016
Joint Mathematics
Meetings; Atlanta, GA; January 4-7, 2017
The Rocky Mountain Section of
The
Mathematical Association of
for Distinguished College or University Teaching of
Mathematics
Name of Nominee
(First name first)
College or
University Affiliation
College or
University Address
City State Zip:
Is the nominee a
member of the MAA?
Number of years of
teaching experience in a mathematical science
Has the nominee
taught at least half time in a mathematical science
for the past three
years (not counting a sabbatical period)?
In the space below, please briefly describe the unusual personal and
professional qualities of the nominee that contribute to her or his
extraordinary teaching success.
Name of
Nominator)
(first name first)
Address of
Nominator
Email
Address
Telephone: Work Home
Fax
Nominator’s
Signature
Nomination form should reach Section Secretary by December 1.
Complete nomination materials should reach Section Secretary by January 15.
Please consult section webpage (http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~maa-rm/)
for complete guidelines.
Section Secretary - Hortensia Soto-Johnson, UNC Dept of Mathematical Sciences, Ross 2240 A,
Many thanks to those members who have made a voluntary dues contribution to the section along with their Spring Meeting Registration!
Although the section has found itself in good financial health in recent years, additional funds are always needed in order to pursue special initiatives suggested by the membership. The successful John Fauvel Memorial Conference and William Dunham Special Lecture, both supported in part by the Section Activity Grant program, provide excellent examples of what can be done with even a small amount of funding to support our section mission and goals.
A voluntary section dues contribution from you now can help build up funds in support of similar initiatives!
To submit your dues, simply return the coupon below with a check for any amount you wish - every little bit will help, and all contributors will receive a letter acknowledging the contribution for their financial records.
Name _____________________________________________________________
Address
_____________________________________________________________
_______________________________________
ZIP __________________
Please indicate in the
space provided how you would like your dues to be used:
____________ Undergraduate
Student Initiatives
_____________ Graduate
Student Initiatives
_____________
_____________ Section
Activity Grant Program
_____________ Wherever
needed most
_____________
Other: ____________________________________
_____________ TOTAL DUES PAID ($10 recommended)
Please make
check payable to: MAA Rocky Mountain Section and return to: Hortensia Soto-Johnson, MAA
Rocky Mountain Section Treasurer/Secretary: UNC Dept
of Mathematical Sciences, Ross 2240 A,
To promote excellence in mathematics
education,
especially at the collegiate level.
1.
To
foster scholarship, professional development, and professional cooperation
among the various constituencies of the mathematical community within the
region.
2. To foster the implementation and study of
recent research recommendations for the teaching, learning and assessment of
collegiate mathematics.
3. To support the implementation of effective
mathematics preparation programs of prospective teachers at all levels.
4. To enhance the interests, talents and achievements
of all individuals in mathematics, especially of members of underrepresented
groups.
5. To provide recognition of the importance of
mathematics, mathematical research and quality mathematics teaching, and
promote public understanding of the same.
6. To provide regional leadership in the
promotion of systemic change in mathematics education, and in the enhancement
of public understanding about the needs and importance of mathematical research
and education.