MAA Iowa Section Newsletter
Fall 2005
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MAA Iowa Section NewsletterFall 2005 |
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This is the web edition of the Iowa Section Newsletter.
To receive a printed copy of the newsletter or to make suggestions/comments,
please contact the editor, Mark Mills,
millsm@central.edu.
Our section is very pleased that Keith Stroyan of the University of Iowa was recently announced as a recipient of the 2006 Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching. Each year at most three college or university teachers are honored with this national award and receive $1000 and a certificate of recognition from the MAA. Typically all are selected from the recipients of MAA section teaching awards but there is the provision that one of the winners may be selected from another source.
Keith and the other two recipients will be speaking about their experiences at the San Antonio meetings on Saturday, January 14, 2:30-4:00.
Congratulations Keith!
At the Governor's meeting this summer we were presented with data on attendance at the Joint Meetings divided by state. Iowa has done very well supporting the Joint meeting; 64 attendees were from Iowa last year. Iowa has been ranked 24th of all states in attendance for each of the last four years. I challenge everyone in the section to consider going to San Antonio this January as this year's meetings will be particularly special for the Iowa Section.
At least two of the prize winners to be honored at the Joint Prize Session, January 13 from 4:25-5:45, will be from the Iowa Section, a winner of the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Teaching Award (Keith Stroyan) and the winner of the Iowa Section Meritorious Service Award. So please consider attending the prize session to support our wonderful Iowa colleagues and don't forget Keith Stroyan's talk titled "Small Opportunities at a Big University" on January 14th from 2:30-4:00 p.m. Congratulations to Keith on this well deserved honor!
The most notable event at the summer Board of Governor's meeting was the board's approval of the revised by-laws for the Iowa Section. We had so much fun making changes last year, it has been suggested that we try it again at the spring meeting. It has been suggested to amend the by-laws so that a yearly meeting is required instead of a yearly spring meeting, providing the section greater flexibility in scheduling the annual meeting. The spring meeting, math competition, and Simpson undergraduate symposium all in April are too many activities in too short a period of time.
Project NExT continues to be a very successful program of the Association. Dr. Fabian Candelaria, a University of Iowa graduate, is the only new National NExT Fellow in Iowa this year. Cornell College was pleased to be able to sponsor Dr. Candelaria. The Iowa Section is one of a shrinking number of sections which does not have a Section NExT program.
The national staff has done a excellent job getting the finances of the Association in order. The 2004 Audit was successfully completed. For the first time, the auditors did not issue a management letter, meaning that they had no suggestions of financial management issues the Association needed to pay attention to. The auditors declared the MAA to be a low-risk organization.
For sections members who want to make sure they don't miss a Joint Meeting, start planning for Boston in 2012 (January 4-7) and San Diego in 2013 ( Jan. 9-12). The Board was told that currently only 6 cities meet the current requirements for hosting the Joint Meetings: San Antonio, New Orleans (pre-Katrina), San Diego, San Francisco, Baltimore, and Washington.
The Board was warned that in San Antonio that it should expect a major proposal on revamping the dues structure for the Association. We were told that the Executive Committee was interested in a dues structure which placed more emphasis on having the dues paid by a member to more accurately match the cost to the Association to support that member. Without a formal proposal in front of me, it is hard for me to adequately describe to you what this new proposal will look like. I have concerns with the emphasis that dues cover the cost to support a member as I do not understand how this cost to support a member will be computed. I asked about the marginal cost of adding new members and the impact this number should have on the dues structure. I was not satisfied by the response I received, but I am not certain that I understood all of the issues. Having a formal proposal in front of the Board should help focus the discussion. If you do have concerns or ideas concerning the dues structure of the Association, please let me know.
Respectfully submitted,
Jim Freeman
JFreeman@cornellcollege.edu
Please extend thanks to Mariah Birgen for doing a good job of helping to organize our last section's meeting. This practice will be put into place as she works on doing so again for this next meeting. Meanwhile, our first-ever Vice-Chair Elect, Elgin Johnston, is working on the local arrangements of hosting our section's April 7-8, 2006 meeting on the campus of Iowa State University. We are looking forward to having Jim Tattersall speaking to us on both Friday evening and Saturday morning.
We are happy to let you know that our work on the Bylaws was approved by the Board of Governor's this past August at MathFest. After our vote at the Business Meeting to accept the changes, there were still a few minor editorial changes that were incorporated (suggested by and approved by the national office). The final version can be found on our web site at www.central.edu/maa/Bylaws/Bylaws.asp. The Executive Committee expects to bring forth at least one additional substantive Bylaws change that was recommended at our last Business Meeting (but too late to be approved). This deals with Article IV, Section 1 that prescribes our annual meeting to be in the spring.
Finally, I would like to encourage you to check out the ongoing work of developing operational plans for each member of the Executive Committee. These can be found at www.central.edu/maa/People/ExecutivePage.asp. For each person, the operation plan gives a time-line-based list of tasks that need to be accomplished for each person. There are several reasons for this project. It allows everyone to see what tasks each person does and who is responsible for what, it provides a sense of the duties of an office for those considering a particular office, and it gives a roadmap for those who find themselves in the position of taking on the responsibilities of being a member of the Executive Committee. Thanks to all those who are working on completing this; future office-holders will be thankful.
Sincerely,
Al Hibbard
hibbarda@central.edu
Each year, the section solicits applications for the Iowa Section Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. The section winner is then a candidate for the MAA Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching. The deadline for applications for the 2006 award is February 1, 2006. However, a preliminary application is due by October 31, 2005. For more information and an application, visit the award web page.
(Editor's note: There are a lot of good teachers in our section. Let's try to have a couple of nominees this year!)
Again this year, the MAA will be giving an award specifically targeted to beginning college or university teachers. The Henry L. Alder Award is to honor beginning college or university faculty whose teaching has been extra ordinarily successful and whose effectiveness in teaching undergraduate mathematics is shown to have influence beyond their own classrooms. An awardee must have taught full time in a mathematical science in the United States or Canada for at least two, but not more than seven, years since receiving the Ph.D. Each year at most three college or university teachers are to be honored with this national award and are to receive $1,000 and a certificate of recognition from the MAA. Award recipients will be expected to make a presentation at one of the national meetings of the MAA. Nominations for the award may be made by any member of the MAA or by any section of the MAA. The deadline for applications for the 2006 award is December 15, 2005. For more information and an application, visit the MAA's Alder Award web page.
(Editor's note: There are a lot of good young faculty in our section. Let's try to have at least one nominee from our section!)
The 12th annual Iowa Collegiate Mathematics competition will be held on Saturday, March 4, 2006. The location has not been determined yet, in fact we are looking for host institutions! If you would like to host the competition, especially if you have some good ideas about the “entertainment” part, please contact Ruth Berger. We are considering possibly having two host sites, to reduce driving time of teams. In case of very bad weather the competition will also be available online, to be taken at the regularly scheduled time, but at your home institution.
The new format of the competition will include an hour of “math-fun” in which students can interact with others. The ideas proposed for this are: present prepared math skits, math Karaoke (make up new lyrics to well known tunes), Math Jeopardy, Pictionary, Sharades, College Bowl, Scavenger hunt, …… . If you are able to help organize this, or have any ideas about actual implementation of any of these, please contact Ruth. Your help is needed!
The tentative contest format will be as follows:
Saturday, March 4, 2006
10am teams arrive,
10:15-11:15 Math-fun
11:20-12:20 Lunch
12:30-3:30 Competition
There is a $5 fee per team, and your department will also be expected to pay for your students' lunch.
Ruth Berger
Luther College
bergerr@luther.edu
January 12-15, 2006 - National MAA Meetings in San Antonio. Visit MAA Online at www.maa.org for more information.
March 4, 2006 - Iowa Collegiate Mathematics Contest (locations TBD)
April 1, 2006 - Midwest Undergraduate Mathematics Symposium, Simpson College, Indianola. For more information, visit http://www.simpson.edu/math/beyond/mums2005.html.
April 7-8, 2006 - Annual Meeting of the Iowa Section, Iowa State
University, Ames.
This page was last revised on October 17, 2005.