Reports from the Section Meeting:
 

• Student Papers
• Student Competition
• Treasurer's Report
• Proceedings Committee Report
• Location and Nominations Committee Report
• Resolutions Committee Report
• Distinguished Teaching Committee Report

Member News

Student Papers

There were 20 papers submitted for the Student Paper Competition. Of these twenty papers 17 were submitted by undergraduate students and 3 were submitted by graduate students. Here are results: Undergraduate Papers:
1. (tie) Ross Chiquet- NSU-On the Difference Equation . x_n+1=ax_n+b (mod 1)
1. (tie) Shawn Cooke- MSU-Designing Roller Coasters
3. Clay Hester-MSU- Analytical Cartography
Honorable Mention:
Dylan Copeland-SELU-Algorithms in Discrete Minimization
Michael Bard-SELU-Locus of Center of Mass of a Region Bounded by two Surfaces in Three Space
Graduate Papers:
1. Kerri Pippin- USM- Solving the Damped Harmonic Oscillator with Discontinuous Forcing
2. Lorraine A. Hughes-MSU- An Application of Fixed-Point-Theory to Optimal Consumer Satisfaction an Infinite Time Horizon Model
3. Sharon Bacon-McNeese State- Investigating the effect of the Smallest Eigenvalue on the Inverse of a Positive Definite Symmetric Correlation Matrix
All of the judges were impressed by the quality of all of the presentations.

Student Competition

The 2000 Student Team Competition was once again a rousing success! The competition was held February 25, 2000, in Lafayette, Louisiana during the Annual Meeting of the Louisiana/Mississippi Section of the Mathematical Association of America. I would like to thank the faculty sponsors and student participants for continuing to support the competition. There were 36 teams participating, representing 24 schools. A special thanks goes to the committee members, without whom there would be no competition: George Cochran, Ted Dobson, Robert Doucette, Mark Lynch, Michael Pearson, Gary Walls and Randall Wills. The exam is available in postscript and dvi formats at http://www.millsaps.edu/~wickdd/maa.html. This years results:
First Place: Tulane University Team B
Second Place: Louisiana State University Team A
Third Place (Tie): McNeese State University Team A Tulane University Team A

Treasurer's Report

Submitted By Leigh Ann Myers, Secretary/Treasurer, Department of Mathematics, Northwestern State University, Natchitoches, LA  71497

Balance on March 11, 1999			$2,860.23
Receipts:
MAA Subvention	600.00
1999 Meeting Income	642.50
1999 Book Sale Receipts	130.50
1999 Book Sale Section Income	24.88
1996 Meeting Leftover Funds	1396.64
2000 Institutional Memberships	500.00
Interest (March 1999 – Jan. 2000)	109.31
Total Receipts:		$3,403.83
Expenditures:
1999 Meeting Final Expenses	397.00
1999 Book Sale Payment (to MAA)	130.50
Student Awards	300.00
2000 Meeting Expense Account	600.00
Newsletter Printing and Postage	258.40
Total Expenditures:		$1,685.90
Balance February 23, 2000			$4,578.16

Location and Nomination Committee Report

• MS Vice-Chair: Clifton Wingard Delta State
• LA Vice-Chair: Frank Serio Northwestern State
• Newsletter Editor: John Travis

Also, the location for the 2002 Meeting will be at Northwestern State University of LA.

As per standard procedure, Gerard Buskes, the current MS Vice-Chair, ascends to Section Chair. His school, Ole Miss, having been chosen to host the 2001 meeting last year. There were no nominations from the floor, and all the nominations were approved by acclaimation.
 

Resolutions Committe Report

Be it resolved that the 77th annual LA-MS Section meeting held February 25-26, 2000 in Lafayette, LA at the University of Louisiana was a great success.

Be it resolved that we express appreciation to President Ray Authement and Dean Duane Blumberg, University of Louisiana, Lafayette, for their hospitality and to Section Chair, President Roger Waggoner, for this excellent meeting.

Be it resolved that we express appreciation to the Department of Mathematics at the University of Louisiana, Lafayette as well as their support staff for their excellent job of hosting the annual meeting.

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

Be it resolved that we extend appreciation to the students for their presentations and for their participation in the team competition.

Be is resolved that we appreciate the excellent reputation of the student competition demonstrated by its ability to attract teams outside our section.

Be it resolved that we express appreciation to the workshop participants and to the publishing company representatives for their exhibits.

Be it resolved that we extend appreciation to all of the LA-MS MAA committees for their participation, to the members of the Registration Committee and to the panelists.

Proceedings Committee

Submitted by Committee Chair Michael Pearson

The proceedings committee met and developed the following format for publication of papers:

Papers presented at the annual meeting are eligible to be submitted for consideration of publication in the Proceedings. The editorial board will consider papers in the broad categories of Research, Pedagogy and Student papers. Papers submitted will be refereed for both content and style. The area editor will make a recommendation for or against publication for each paper submitted in that area. Final approval for publication rests with the full editorial board.

We prefer that the papers be submitted in PDF format (readable using the Adobe Acrobat plug-in), but you can also submit the paper in Word, WordPerfect, or postscript. TeX users may submit a DVI file.
 

Submission deadline for papers submitted at the Spring 2000 meeting is April 1.
 
Editorial Board

Editor-in-Chief                                    Michael Pearson, Mississippi State University (pearson@math.msstate.edu)
Technical Editor                                  John Travis, Mississippi College (travis@mc.edu)
Managing Editor for Research             James Reid, University of Mississippi (mmreid@olemiss.edu)
Managing Editor for Pedagogy             Bradd Clark, University of Louisiana-Lafayette (bec1033@louisiana.edu)
Managing Editor for Student Papers     Ken Li, Southeastern Louisiana University (kli@selu.edu)

Distingshished Teaching Award Committee

Submitted by Committee Chair Carlo Spaht

Dr. Jeffrey L. Stuart of the University of Southern Mississippi was chosen as winner of the 2000 Louisiana-Mississippi Section MAA Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. As winner of the section's award, he will automatically be a candidate for the 2001 national Haimo Distinguished Teaching Award.

Dr. Stuart received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin in 1986 and joined the faculty at the University of Southern Mississippi in 1987. There he has distinguished himself as an outstanding teacher of mathematics, receiving excellent student evaluations, publishing several education related articles and delivering several education type conference talks, some of them to our own section. He has incorporated the latest technology into the classroom and helped other professors do the same. He has also been active in doing service for our profession, focusing on students and education.

Section Mailing List

Interested faculty are encouraged to utilize the section mailing list for sharing pertinent information with fellow members of the section.  Information on section meetings and other section activities will be routinely broadcast via the list.  If you would like to join the list or if you have something to share with the list, send an email to travis@mc.edu.

Member News:

The grant will cover the students' housing and meals for the week of June 4 through June 9, 2000. Call Bonnie Oppenheimer at (662) 329-7239 for details. Dorothy Kerzel and Jane Wenstrom from MUW, LeRoy Wenstrom from MSMS, and Carole Wright from Weir Attendance Center will also be participating as instructors at the Math Camp.