Volume 21, No. 1

An application form for this competition will be included in the registration information which will be mailed to department chairs in January. If more information is needed, or if a faculty member is interested in assisting in judging the competition (including submitting problems and grading), please contact Darren Wick at Millsaps College.

For more information, see http://www.mc.edu/~travis/maa/competition.html.
Deadline:  February 15, 1999
 

A written paper of 6 pages or less must be received and include the author's name, institutional affiliation and faculty advisor. If available, an e-mail address should also be provided. Late entries will not be considered. Contact committee chair Gary Walls at USM for more details.

Prizes will be awarded in each category separately, with no more than 3 prizes in each. The number of prizes awarded shall be at the discretion of the judges, and shall be determined depending on the number and quality of the entries in each category. The amount of the prizes shall be as follows: first prize, $75.00, second, $50.00, and third, $25.00.
Each entry will be judged on the basis of both the written and oral presentation, with equal consideration given to both.
For more information, see http://www.mc.edu/~travis/maa/papers.html.
Deadline:  February 15, 1999
 
 

• Tentative Program
• Hotel Info
• Registration Form
• Last minute details

Charles Alexander gave his outgoing governor's report.

Report from the Mathematical Concerns Committee

By chair Katherine Lopez:
1. Recommends that a committee be formed to study the formation of a regional accreditation committee in order to strenthen the case departments make to their administration for program support.
2. Project NEXT: This section should support this program. Application deadline for this year was March 27. Contact: Judith Covington.
3. In regards to the quality of students' mathematical preperation in high school: We should increase our communication with local high schools and support faculty and students.
4. How can we increase upper division enrollment? In what ways can the section support/encourage math clubs? Promote minors in math?
5. Joe Thrash will serve as chair of this committee next year.

Report from the Treasurer

By Secretary/Treasurer Rose Strahan:

Balance on February 27, 1997			$1976.32
Receipts:
MAA Supplemental Check	600.00
1997 Annual Meeting	3105.10
Interest	18.59
Total Receipts:		5700.01
Expenditures:
Prizes - 1997 Student Teams	225.00
Awards - Student Papers	300.00
Postage for Newsletter	120.00
Bank Charges (8mos. @ $6)	48.00
Total Expenditures:		693.00
Balance on February 25, 1998			$5007.01

Report from the Location and Nomination Committee

Location for the 2000 meeting: Lafayette, LA (USL--Univ of Southwestern LA)

Board Members for 1999:

• Bessie Tucker, Jackson State, Chair
• Michael Pearson, MS State, MS-Vice Chair
• Roger Waggoner, USL, LA-Vice Chair
• LeeAnn Myers, NWLa, Secretary/Treasurer
• John Travis, MS College, Newsletter Editor
After appropriate motions and seconds and votes, the above were all duly accepted/elected. A motion was made that the term for Secretary be changed to two years for one term only so that in the future positions for Newsletter editor and Secretary would not come open at the same time. The above motion was modified to recommend that the current term for newsletter editor be changed to 2 years and thereafter terms continue to be for three years

The committee was not asked for nominations for section Governor, but the names that Mohammed Malhrous indicated that he submitted were Roger Waggoner, Stan Chadick, Phil Quartararo, and Joe Thrash.

Report from the Resolutions Committee

Margaret LaSalle gave the Resolutions Committee report:
Be it resolved that the LA-MS Section meeting Feb. 26-28, 1998, New Orleans, LA held at the Embassy Suites Hotel was a great success.

Be it resolved that we express our appreciation to Chancellor Gregory O'Brien, UNO and to Professor Charles Rees, UNO for their welcoming greetings and technical information and to Section Chair Professor Mohamed Mahrous for this excellent meeting.

Be it resolved that we appreciate the excellent presentations by our invited speakers and to the faculty contributed papers.

Be it resolved that we extend appreciation to the student presentations and to the student team competition, undergraduate and graduate.

Be it resolved that we express appreciation to computer workshops, Netscape and WWW math sites, to the statistics workshop, to project NExT and to the book exhibits.

Be it resolved that we extend appreciation to all of the LA-MS MAA Committees for their excellent participation, to the Registration Committee, and to the Panelists.

Be it resolved that we express appreciation to Professor P.K. Rees for his attendance at MAA Meetings since 1924.

Be it resolved that we express our appreciation to the Embassy Suites Hotel for their excellent accommodations.


It was agreed that the Concerns and the Resolutions reports would be sent directly to LeeAnn.

Report from the Necrology Committee

Comment (from Phil Quarterero): Jim Leitzel, the founder of Project NEXT, died last week of February or first week of March. There is to be a fund in his honor, which Phil recommended that the section contribute to. Those present voted to commit $100.00 of section funds to this.

My first duty as Governor of the LA-MS Section of the MAA was attending and participating in the MAA summer meeting in Toronto. Toronto is a wonderful city and the trip was fun and exciting. The Governors from the various sections met on Tuesday before most presentations began on Wednesday. This is an all-day meeting with topics including honoring outstanding work by members of the MAA, budget discussions, and decisions on locations of future meetings.

A considerable amount of time was spent at the Toronto meeting deciding if, in fact, we would have a summer meeting in the year 2000, and, if so, what location would be chosen. It seems that the International Conference on Mathematics Education is to be held at the same time in Japan. Even though the number of our members participating in ICME is small, the message sent of a competing meeting of the MAA troubled many Governors. The decision was to have the meeting in conjunction with the AMS meeting in California. Actual location will be determined later.

Charles Alexander, former Governor of the LA-MS section is being honored by the MAA with the Certificate of Meritorious Service. The award is given for service to the MAA at the national level or service to the Section. Congratulations to Charles for a well-deserved honor.

If anyone has a concern to bring to the January meeting in San Antonio please contact me at chadick@alpha.nsula.edu or (318) 357-4308. It is a great honor for me to serve this Section as the Governor. If you have suggestions how I might better serve in this position, please contact me.
 

The Department of Mathematics at Jackson State University is looking forward to hosting the LA/MS Section of the MAA meeting, March 5-6, 1999.  The meeting will be held at the Ramada Southwest Hotel due to renovation of buildings at the University.  You may check into the hotel on Thursday, March 4, 1999, after 6:00pm.  Please plan to attend.

Connie Campbell, department head at Millsaps College in Jackson, has been granted tenure.

John Travis, of Mississippi College has been awarded tenure.

James Potts has retired after teaching 31 years at Delta State University.

Joseph Furtsch recently received his undergraduate degree and is now pursuing the MS and PhD at Tulane.  He currently is serving as a TA.

Teresa Floyd, of Mississippi College has been named Outstanding Mathematics Teacher by MCTM.  Dr. Floyd is also spending the spring semester as one of two resident faculty members for the MC London Program.

News from Southeastern Louisiana University:

New faculty:

• Dr. Kent Neuerberg, Ph.D.
• Assistant Professor
• University of Missouri, 1998
• Dr. Danny Acosta, Ph.D.
• Assistant Professor
• Tulane University, 1997
• Ms. Kitty Bostic, Instructor
• Ms. Helen Carona, Instructor
• Ms. Ann Kirkpatrick, Instructor
• Ms. Susan Saale, Instructor

Retired:

• Ms. Joyce Travis, Assistant Professor

News from Louisiana Tech University:

New Faculty:

• Bobby Campbell, Instructor
• Nolan Campbell, Instructor
• Steve Crow, Instructor
• Charles Patterson, Instructor
• Mahmoud Yousef, Instructor

Promotions:

• Jenna Carpenter
• Academic Director for Chemical Engineering and Industrial Engineering.
• George Butler
• Program Chair for the Mathematics Program

News from the University of Southwestern Louisiana:

Retired Faculty:

• Harvey Pousson (Assoc Prof)
• Margaret LaSalle (Asst Prof)

New Faculty:

• Christo Christov, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, was appointed as Assoc Prof in Fall 98.

Promotions:

• Lan Ke has been awarded tenure-approved status. He's an Asst Prof.

Research:

• Several members of the department are collaborating on projects with the National Wetlands Center

News from the University of Southern Mississippi

Faculty Changes:

• Robert C. Smith retired effective May 1998. Robert came to us in 1983 after teaching 20 years in the Phoenix, Arizona and Sumrall, Mississippi high schools. He taught the mathematics courses for the elementary education majors, the technical calculus sequence, and supervised student teachers. Such versatility is irreplaceable.
• Dexuan Xie will join our department in fall 1999. He received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Houston and has been on a postdoctorate at the Courant Institute. His interests include multigrid techniques and parallel algorithms. He will be a welcome addition to the scientific computing doctoral program.
• Mary B. Peters joined our faculty starting fall 1998 as an instructor. She comes to us from an 8 year teaching stint at West Marian High School in Columbia, Mississippi. She will provided needed help with the mathematics education program.
• Jeffrey L. Stuart is on sabbatical leave this year. He is at Georgia State University during fall 1998 working with the linear algebraists there. During spring 1999 he will be doing research with James Weaver at the University of West Florida.
• Temple H. Fay will be spending a sabbatical leave during spring 1999 at the Technikon Pretoria, South Africa. He will collaborate with South African colleagues in doing research in categorical algebra. He will also direct 5 master's theses for students in USM's South African master's program. On the way back to Hattiesburg, he will stop off in Italy to continue past collaboration with Italian researchers.

Promotions:

Jeffrey L. Stuart was promoted to full professor effective fall 1998.

Other News:

• Karen R. Thrash was the recipient of the LA/MS MAA 1998 Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching.
• Both Karen R. and Joe B. Thrash attended the International Conference on the Teaching of Mathematics held July 3-6 in the village of Pythogorion, Samos, Greece. Travel support was provided by an award from the Aubrey K. and Ella Ginn Lucas Endowment. Faculty were gathered from around the globe to examine new ways of teaching undergraduate mathematics.
• Jeffrey L. Stuart was selected to receive a USM Summer Faculty Research Grant for the past summer. His award covered summer salary and freed up time for him to pursue his linear algebra research.
• David E. Betounes and Mylan E. Redfern have just set up the new Computational Classroom Laboratory with monies awarded to them from NSF. The CCL has 20 Dell laptops, which are Pentium-II 300 MHZ machines. David and Mylan are developing two courses * Mathematical Computing I and II. Students will learn programming skills by using the software Maple to solve mathematical problems. The problems will be *meatier' than those encountered in the usual introductory computer programming courses because the prerequisites will include the calculus sequence. Besides gaining computer programming skills, there will be the hands on reinforcement of calculus concepts.
• The Weekend Algebra Conference was held at USM from April 17 to 19. There were 42 registrants and 22 speakers. Next year, the Weekend Algebra Conference will we held at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
• The 8th Annual USA/USM Mini-Conference on Undergraduate Research in the Mathematical Sciences will be held at USM on February 5, 1999. Undergraduates are invited to submit abstracts for presentations of approximately 20 minutes in duration. Interested faculty members are also invited to submit abstracts for presentations of approximately 30 minutes. Consult the departmental web page at http://pax.st.usm.edu/math/ to see the tentative program.

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