Governor's Report
Section Chair's Report
Member News
Unless otherwise stated, contact maa@olemiss.edu to submit papers or obtain any other information regarding the meeting.
The Downtown Inn Hotel is about a mile away from the campus and right off the historic square of Oxford. A block of rooms have been reserved at the rate of $55. To help the organizers with planning, attendees are encouraged to reserve their rooms at the conference hotel before January 31. Further, in order to obtain the conference rate, members should make reservations before the hotel starts releasing rooms on February 22.
Some other hotels close by:
The Oliver Britt House and the Puddin Place are smaller and more
expensive. For more information or if you have questions, contact
Gerard Buskes.
For more information, see http://www.mc.edu/campus/users/travis/maa/meeting/papers.html.
Deadline: March 10, 2001
To participate in the student paper competition, a hardcopy (6 pages or less) of the paper must be received before March 10, 2001, which includes the author's name, institutional affiliation and faculty advisor. If available, please provide an e-mail address. Late entries will not be considered. Send undergraduate papers to: Dr. W.A. Staton, Department of Mathematics, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677. Send graduate papers to Dr. Dale Bowman, Department of Mathematics, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677.
Prizes will be awarded in each category separately, with no more than
three prizes in each category. The number of prizes awarded shall be at
the discretion of the judges, and shall be determined depending on the
quality and number of the entries in each category. The amount of the prizes
shall be as follows: first prize, $75.00; second prize, $50.00; third prize,
$25.00. Each entry will be judged on the basis of both the written and
the oral presentation, with equal consideration
given to both.
For more information, see http://www.mc.edu/campus/users/travis/maa/meeting/papers.html.
Deadline: March 10, 2001
An application form for this competition is available online and will also be included in a separate mailing to Department Chairs in February. For more information or for assistance in judging the competition or participating in other ways (like submitting problems and grading solutions) in this important competition, please contact George Cochran at LSU.
For more information, see http://www.mc.edu/campus/users/travis/maa/meeting/studcomp.html.
Deadline: March 10, 2001
Topics:
The workshop leader will be Melinda Miller Holt. For more
information, contact Dr. Holt directly:
If anyone has specific wishes for additional topic that the Grant
Writing Workshop should cover, please e-mail Melinda Holt at mholt@twu.edu.
Deadline for particpation: March 10, 2001
Friday night at 7 there will be a banquet with barbecued ribs and barbecued chicken, Mississippi style in the University Memory House. All are invited to attend.
For much more information about the conference, please visit the website
http://www.mc.edu/campus/users/travis/maa/meeting/index.html.
Dalrymple Lecture Abstract
Several years ago, it occurred to me that, for reasons of abstract symmetry, Euclidean geometry must have a "dual" geometry in which there are "parallel points" but no parallel lines. I pondered this bizarre idea for a while, and gradually and gropingly worked out some of the most basic concepts and theorems in what I dubbed "Euclidual" (it rhymes with "residual") geometry. What, for instance, do the three slides of a "trislide" add up to? And what is the shape of a "circual"? (Incidentally, not least of the several challenges I had to face was that of figuring out what to call the new objects that populate the Euclidual plane. This led to some rather amusing terminology.)
After further pondering, I realized that by allowing both parallel points and parallel lines, or by allowing neither notion, or by exploring other variants, I could coax out of the woodwork a small family of nine closely related geometries, including not only the famous Noneuclidean geometries but also their duals -- the "Noneuclidual" (of course!) geometries.
I later learned, to my disappointment, that much of what I had uncovered had been found before, but to this day these lovely ideas are little known and little appreciated. In my talk I will describe my intuitive explorations, concentrating most of all on the disorienting world of Euclidual geometry, but also suggesting a little of the flavor of the others.
It has been an honor to represent the Louisiana-Mississippi Section as your Governor. In January, I attended my sixth national meeting of the MAA representing our Section. The Board of Governors meets on the day before the official start of these meetings. We meet for the entire day as we discuss and vote on the business of the MAA. These meetings were not drudgery for me as I got to meet and hear from outstanding contributors to the MAA and mathematics. I can report to you that these mathematicians at the national level work diligently to serve you as you seek to promote and teach college mathematics at your college or university. Your dues support activities and publications that are truly meaningful to our profession.
The MAA is bringing a new website that I think will be a service to all college teachers of mathematics. The Mathematical Sciences Digital Library (MathDL) is an important new resource for mathematics faculty. This website includes these features:
I look forward to visiting with you at the Spring Section meeting at Ole Miss. Please email me at chadick@nsula.edu or call 318.357.5033 if I can be of assistance to you.
Stan Chadick
The executive committee met under the hospitality of John Travis in Clinton Mississippi in November. The most important point of legislation to which I would like to draw the attention of all of you is the resurrection of the bylaws. Roger Waggoner has done an outstanding job of finding the original words of the bylaws, dusting them off and retyping them. A copy of these bylaws is now available on our section website.
Last but not least, I wish to urge you to enthuse as many students as you can to get to our section meeting. Our section has a truly spectacular line up for them and for you and the University of Mississippi is looking forward to be your host. See you all there!
Gerard Buskes, maa@olemiss.edu
or mmbuskes@hilbert.math.olemiss.edu
All papers must include author name, institutional affiliation and complete contact information, including e-mail address, on the title page of the paper. Student papers must also include corresponding information for the faculty advisor. While we have not yet fixed any overall style constraints, authors are encouraged to avoid any unusual style elements.
Electronic submission of the paper is required. File formats must be either Unix or PC. All papers will be published in PDF format (readable using the Adobe Acrobat plug-in), and it is therefore preferable that papers be submitted in that format. However, LaTeX, PostScript (preferred), DVI, Word or WordPerfect files may also be submitted. Authors should be aware that graphics files are not usually embedded in LaTeX, DVI, Word or WordPerfect files, so care should be exercised if papers include any tables, graphs or other figures.
Submission deadline for papers presented at a given year's meeting is
the following May 1.
Jim Caveny is retiring at the end of spring 2001. Jim came to USM in 1971 as department chair and served in that capacity until 1981. He also served the College of Science and Technology as assistant dean (1981-1983) and then as acting dean (1983-1984). Jim has a deserved reputation as an excellent teacher as well as a capable administrator.
Ron A. Putthoff is retiring at the end of spring 2001. Ron began his teaching career at USM in 1983 as a visiting instructor and is now arguably USM's most popular instructor. He has routinely each semester taught three 'monster' sections of introductory mathematics to an average of 400 students.
New Faculty:
There was also one assistant professor hire. Sheri J. Boyd earned her Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. Her primary research interest is semigroups. She comes to us from Agnes Scott College where she was on a visiting position.
Barry Piazza has been appointed Graduate Coordinator.
Lida G. McDowell has received a summer grant for the improvement of instruction. Her proposal is to develop a workshop and resource guide for prospective teachers of 'Explorations.' This course teaches college algebra using a student-centered approach rather than the customary instructor-lecture approach. It includes group projects, written assignments, and oral presentations. Algebra topics are learned via data driven problems. Problems are solved in a variety of ways which include using the graphing calculator, coputers, and plotting graphs. In other words, the usual analytical approach is not the only approach. Explorations even fosters discovery learning with calculator-based laboratory experiments.
Dexuan Xie has received an Aubrey K. and Ella Ginn Lucas Endowment for Faculty Excellence Award. He will use his summer support to develop an algorithm that visualizes a huge chemical database as a two dimensional array. The idea is that two 'close' points in this array will correspond to similar compounds.
Susan R. Ross received a $60,000 grant from the Eisenhower Title II program. She will serve as lead PI with Mary B. Peters and Janice G. Fletcher serving as co-project directors. They will use the grant to conduct a 4-week summer institute working with 6-12 grade teachers on pre-algebra and algebra I concepts.
Temple H. Fay will host The Weekend Algebra Conference during the weekend of April 20-22. Beginning at 1:00 pm on Friday, half hour talks with short breaks between are delivered, lasting until 6:30 pm. A banquet Friday night is sponsored by USM. Saturday talks begin 8:00 am and run until about 1:30 pm. The department hosts a picnic immediatedly after the last talk. The Sunday session begins at 8:00 am and ends at 12:30 pm.
The 10th Annual University of South Alabama/Unviersity of Southern Mississippi Mini-Conference Mini-Conference on Undergraduate Research in the Mathematical Sciences will be held on the USM campus on Friday, April 6. The host is Temple H. Fay <thfay@mozart.st.usm.edu>.
Submitted by Wally Pye
Mississippi College
Dr. Teresa Floyd, Associate Professor, recently received
a $60,000 grant through the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Development
Act to conduct a Summer Institute in Mathematics entitled "Middle School
Mathematics Initiative." She will serve as principal instructor
and director of the project. Dr. Melinda Gann, Assistant Professor,
will serve as a part-time instructor for the endeavor. The
MSMI will work with twenty middle school teachers of mathematics in June
2001 for four weeks to enhance their knowledge of content, methodology,
& technology usage in middle school mathematics classrooms.
Administrative changes
Recognitions/Research
Tom Boullion is retiring at the end of Spring 2001
Submitted by Roger Waggoner
Southeastern Louisiana University
Dr. Brian O'Callaghan was awarded tenure and promoted to
the rank of Associate Professor
Dr. Tilak DeAlwis was promoted to the rank of of Full Professor
Dr. Elizabeth Gray was granted a sabbatical leave in the Fall Semester of 2000.
For more information on the Mathematics Department at SLU visit or web page at http://www.selu.edu/Academics/Depts/Math/.
Submitted by Randy Wills
Mississippi State University
New faculty members:
Michael Pearson is now associate head of the department.
A recent grant from NSF will allow the department to install a 40-seat computer lab. We will use the lab primarily to enhance instruction in linear algebra, differential equations and beginning statistics courses. This continues our efforts in multivariate calculus. The grant was written by Len Miller, Michael Neumann, Jane Harvill and Michael Pearson.
Bruce Ebanks, Regina Halpin, Jane Harvill, Betty Scarborough, and Corlis Johnson were recipients of a grant through the Mississippi Board of Trustees of State Institutes of Higher Learning from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Development Program. The grant will establish the Institute of Algebra and Quantitative Literacy in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Mississippi State University. The primary function of the Institute will be to provide mathematics teachers in grades six through eight with training in curriculum and technology for teaching algebra and statistics.
Submitted by Michael Pearson
LSU at Eunice
Dr. Chris Devillier (Ph.D. from ULL) has been appointed as full-time Assistant Professor of Mathematics.
Dr. Diane Fisher (PhD, ULL) has been appointed as Assistant Professor, replacing Mr. Bill Dean.
Ms. Gloria Hernandez (MS, LSU) has been appointed as Instructor, replacing Dr. Scott McClendon.
Submitted by A.J. Roques
University of Mississippi
The Department of Mathematics received a $70,000 Eisenhower grant for a Summer Institute for Middle School teachers.
The Department of Mathematics received a $306,000 GANN graduate fellowship grant from the Department of Education.
Submitted by James Reid
Northwestern State University
James Stamey joined the mathematics faculty this year after completing his Ph.D. in Statistics at Baylor University. James received his undergraduate degree in mathematics at Northwestern State University, and now he has returned to his hometown with his wife and baby boy.
Frank Serio Jr. served as coordinator of the Mathematics Department for one year, and this past year the title was changed to Department Head of Mathematics.
Submitted by Stan Chadick
Mississippi University for Women
MUW hosted a Math Camp last June that was funded by a grant from MAA and the Tensor Foundation. Twenty rising freshmen girls worked with algebra ideas for one week, and everyone had a great time. We had so much fun, in fact, that we are going to try it again! There will be some changes, though... This camp will be a Geometry Camp. Any student (boy or girl, any grade) who has completed Algebra I and will be going into Geometry the next school year may apply. The camp will hold 32 students. The tuition for the week-long residential camp (June 3-8) will be $350. There are possible scholarships available: We have asked the CocaCola Foundation for funding, and if we get it, all students will be on full scholarships. Call Dr. Bonnie Oppenheimer (662-329-7239) at MUW for details.
Submitted by Shaochen Yang