Message from the Chair:

From MathFest 2008 on the Shores of Lake Monona to Fall Section Meeting 2008 at Scripps College

It was my privilege this past summer to help represent the Southern California-Nevada Section at MathFest 2008 in Madison, in the capacity of newly elected Section Chair. I feel honored to have been elected to this position, and will do my best to promote the interests of the section and enhance communication between our section and other sections, as well as the national office.

MathFest 2008

Those of you fortunate enough to attend MathFest know how lovely the venue was, with the convention center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright providing floor-to-ceiling views out over Lake Monona, and its vibrant rooftop flower gardens, but the mathematics taking place inside was equally beautiful in its own way. Of special delight to me was the Earle R. Hedrick Lecture Series, given by Erik Demaine of MIT on three consecutive mornings. His delightful, passionate and amazing talks captured the hearts and minds of all as he drew his (very large!) audience thoroughly in with his demonstrations of puzzles, magic, art, origami, linkages, and hinged dissections, and just enough technical mathematics to convey the difficulty and surprising depth of the theory required. Additionally, after viewing George Csicsery’s documentary “Hard Problems” about the 2006 International Olympiad in Slovenia, I would highly recommend it for departments to share with their students, particularly in any type of Math Club. There were many, many diverse and interesting events for all, far too many to give any kind of reasonable summary, so I would simply urge everyone to consider taking a few days out of your August next year to enjoy the more laid-back pace of a summertime MathFest in Portland, Oregon, August 6-8, 2009.

Section Officers' Meeting

It was personally reassuring to attend the Section Officers Meeting in Madison and discover that other sections share many of the problems that we do and have had successes that we can learn from, and that we have been successful in our section in ways that can serve well as a model for other sections. It was an excellent way to communicate with and hear from all 29 different sections, and almost half of the two hour meeting was devoted to smaller focus groups to discuss what the MAA national organization can or should do to assist the sections, and conversely how the sections could assist the Washington office. Rather than attempting to summarize five pages of handwritten notes, I will simply highlight two items: (1) the announcement that by no later than next summer, the national office should be able to provide web hosting services in some form for individual sections to streamline information distribution and the archiving of section data, and (2) the generally shared concern that there is a need to get more local faculty involved in section meetings, and how sections might go about doing that.

Thanks to Section Officers

As I embark on my service as Section Chair for 2008-09, I would like to offer my sincerest thanks to the outgoing Section Chair Mario Martelli, outgoing Program Chair Florence Newberger, and outgoing Web Page Editor David Hunter, as well as my appreciation to those officers continuing on in their duties: Governor Ken Millett, Secretary-Treasurer Shawnee McMurran, Meetings Coordinator Ernie Solheid, Newsletter Editor Janet Beery, Student Chapters Chair Cindy Wyels, Section NExT Liaison Ioana Mihaila, and Las Vegas Liaison Satish Bhatnagar.

Welcome to New Officers

It is also my pleasure as Section Chair to welcome both our new section officers, and those officers who have advanced to the next level of their positions: Section Vice-Chair Art Benjamin, Program Chair Perla Myers, 1st Program Vice-Chair Michael Orrison, 2nd Program Vice-Chair Min-Lin Lo, and Web Page Editor Florence Newberger. The work of the section would be impossible were it not for the dedicated efforts of all these officers, and the section sincerely appreciates all that you do for it.

Message from the Governor:

2008 Mathfest Highlights and Governor’s Report

The Southern California-Nevada Section was very well represented at the MathFest in Madison, Wisconsin, where we experienced one of the best meetings I have ever attended. Of course, for me, it was a very special occasion as I received my Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin. There was an evening of free music on the Capitol Square and also a very interesting and well-attended farmer’s market there that weekend. Another of the highlights has to be the good Wisconsin beer, the free music, and the friendly atmosphere on the lakeside terrace at UW’s Student Union. Even Project NExT got into the Wisconsin spirit with their evening ice cream (produced by the Ag School students right there on the UW campus).

But then, we were assembled to enjoy the comradely company of our mathematical colleagues and to learn new things that enrich our scholarly lives and strengthen and refresh our teaching. The opening evening’s mathematical music by Larry Lesser provided a great start. He even invited our former governor, Art Benjamin, to sing one of his songs. And Art agreed! It was an impressive and memorable performance. The meeting featured a series of three lectures by Erik Demaine, a computer science professor from MIT who received his Ph.D. in 2001 at the age of 20 and, we learned, has published more than 200 papers with as many coauthors. In addition, he projects a real sense of the fun of mathematical research and has an ability to make many extremely complex things seem quite reasonable. His lectures included magic, art, combinatorics, computer science, manufacturing, biology, origami, transformers, robots and one could go on and on. We were even treated to a movie that he and his father made to illustrate one of the problems on which they were working. Among the many other treats were John Conway’s lecture and an opportunity to talk with Tom Banchoff about his Flatland adventures. Mixed with jazz on the convention center terrace and a morning 5K run and so much more, it was hard to know what to do.

Governor's Report

As your governor, I was also there to attend the BOG (Board of Governors) Meeting to help conduct MAA business. Many reports of committees and officers told us that the MAA is in good health and is working to improve both what it provides its members and to look toward what we must do to assure the good health of mathematics in the long run. The report of the strategic planning group on governance was discussed along with measures that should be undertaken to move ahead on insuring a wider discussion, possible adoption, and final implementation of its recommendations. We considered, as well, strategic planning reports on membership, on meetings, on periodicals and communications, and on the sections. There was an initial report from the STEM planning group as well. Among the many topics discussed, there are two that stand out in my mind. First, there is the need to strengthen the relationship between the work in our sections and that at the national and international level to advance our advocacy for the health of mathematics. Second, there were questions as to how to strengthen access, for members and non-members, to the resources that the MAA has developed and makes available on its web site. We heard much discussion of the difficulty in searching the MAA’s web site for help on matters for which one has an urgent need for high quality information and assistance. In addition, some felt that we should make these resources much more visible to those searching across the Internet in general. This would be an important strategy toward better communicating our community’s perspective on important issues.

More 2008 MathFest Highlights

Donald Saari, of UC Irvine, may have been one of the busiest MathFest participants, delivering an Invited Address on “The Chaotic Evolution of Newton’s Universe”, leading a Minicourse on “Mathematics and the Geometry of Voting”, and speaking on “A Qualitative Approach to Evolutionary Game Theory” in the Short Course on Game-Theoretic Modeling. Guershon Harel, of UC San Diego, gave the opening Invited Address on “Intellectual Need and Its Role in Mathematical Instruction”. The Invited Paper Session on Research with Undergraduates, organized by Mario Martelli of Claremont McKenna College, included two speakers from our section. Asuman Aksoy, of Claremont McKenna College, discussed “Compactness in Metric Trees,” the research project she conducted as part of the Claremont Colleges Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. The Claremont REU is organized by Jim Hoste (Pitzer College) and Mario Martelli (Claremont McKenna College). Michael Orrison, of Harvey Mudd College, described “The Applied Representation Theory Group at Harvey Mudd College.”

Other speakers included Annalisa Crannell, Franklin and Marshall College, “From Chaos to Colleagues;” Colin Adams, Williams College, “Knot Theory Research with Undergraduates;” Carlos Castillo-Chavez, Arizona State University, “Building Communities through REU Programs;” Jacqueline Jensen, Sam Houston State University, “How to Juggle Seven Undergraduate Projects without Dropping Any;” Aihua Li, Montclair State University, “Tracing n-dimensional Space Points;” and Marc Chamberland, Grinnell College, “Ramanujan’s Dream.”

Shawnee McMurran, of Cal State San Bernardino, co-organized an Invited Paper Session on History of Mathematics and a Contributed Paper Session on Projects and Demonstrations that Enhance a Differential Equations Course. Magnhild Lien, of Cal State Northridge, organized a panel discussion on Teachers for a New Era’s Impact on Mathematics Education in which two of her colleagues, Joel Zeitlin and Jerrold Gold, participated. There were at least a dozen talks by Southern California–Nevada Section members in Invited and Contributed Paper sessions.

In the Book Exhibit, John de Pillis of UC Riverside drew caricatures and signed copies of his book, 777 Mathematical Conversation Starters. Art Benjamin of Harvey Mudd College demonstrated techniques from and signed copies of his book, Secrets of Mental Math.

Bruce Yoshiwara Honored as 2008 Section Distinguished Teaching Award Winner

Bruce Yoshiwara's address at the Fall 2008 Section Meeting

Dr. Bruce Yoshiwara, Professor of Mathematics at Pierce College, has been selected as the winner of the MAA’s Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching for 2008 in the Southern California-Nevada Section. Professor Yoshiwara received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Mathematics from UCLA. He has been teaching mathematics at Pierce for the past 18 years, including a year in England on a Fulbright Scholarship. The Selection Committee was impressed by his successful use of technology as both a content delivery tool and a pedagogical tool, which when combined with the “beautifully clear lecture notes and examples he provides” surely contributed to his being the frequent recipient of the “Golden Apple Award” given out each year by students to their favorite professors. Professor Yoshiwara motivates and inspires his students to pursue their education even farther than they may have originally planned, caring enough to expose them to such diverse areas as life sciences, history, and foreign language as woven into the fabric of mathematics, and skillfully using his knowledge and perspective on the history of mathematics to capture the minds of his students. His students value his classes not just for their educational benefit, but for the overall experience which includes Yoshiwara’s playful sense of humor, selection of (sometimes hilarious) classroom objects for visual aids to enhance the learning environment, and a striking energy level which communicates to his students that there is nothing else in the world he would rather be doing than teaching community college mathematics students. Examples abound of his inspiration of students to continue on in advanced work in mathematics.

Outside the classroom, Yoshiwara is a leader in curriculum development, and a knowledgeable and respected mathematician in the mathematics education community. He has co-authored a number of highly regarded algebra and pre-algebra textbooks with his wife (and principal author) Kathy Yoshiwara, is an associate editor for the Journal of Online Mathematics and its Applications, and is actively involved in a number of different programs of the American Mathematical Association of Two Year Colleges (AMATYC). He works with UCLA's Mathematics Content Program for Teachers, consults for Project NExT and Project ACCCESS (Advancing Community College Careers: Education, Scholarship, Service), is the L.A. Pierce Mathematics Department liaison for both the MAA and CMC3 (California Mathematics Council Community Colleges), and is on the board for the CMC3-Southern branch. Please join the Selection Committee in congratulating Professor Yoshiwara at the upcoming Fall Meeting Oct. 11 at Scripps College, when he gives the invited luncheon address, “The Weapon of Choice”, on his experiences with technology in the classroom.

The five members of the Selection Committee were Michael Frantz (Chair) of the University of La Verne, Mario Martelli of Claremont McKenna College, Jackie Dewar of Loyola Marymount University, Robert Brown of UCLA, and Satish Bhatnagar of UNLV.

Call for Nominations for 2009 Section Teaching Award

Preliminary nominations for the 17th annual MAA Southern California-Nevada Section Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics are now being accepted. The initial nomination consists of a one-page form (available here in pdf, first page only) and a 1-2 page description of the candidate’s qualities and teaching successes (not the more extensive full nomination described on the second page of the form). From the initial nominees, the selection committee will choose two to three semi-finalists. Each nominator will then be asked to complete a full nomination for the semi-finalist. Upon receipt of the full nomination, semi-finalists will automatically become finalists. Each finalist will receive an official letter of commendation from the Chair of the Section, which will be copied to the candidate’s department chair and dean. The selection committee will choose the winner from the pool of finalists. Finalists who are not selected will automatically have their full applications considered the following year for the Section award. The winner of the award will be recognized at the Spring Meeting of the MAA Southern California-Nevada Section March 21, 2009, at California Lutheran University. The awardee will also be the official Section nominee for the MAA Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics.

Successful nominees are individuals who are widely recognized for their extraordinarily successful teaching effectiveness and for teaching that has had influence beyond their own institutions.

To be eligible, nominees must

• be current MAA members,
• teach mathematical science courses at least half-time during the academic year, and
• have at least seven years experience teaching at the college or university level.

If you have an eligible and qualified colleague in your department, we urge you to nominate her/him so that s/he may be considered for the award.

Initial application deadline is Monday, November 3, 2008. Questions? Contact Shawn McMurran at smcmurra@csusb.edu.