| Accent on Mathematics |
It's hard to believe! This is the second issue of our Newsletter. Our goal is to send you an issue each Spring, maybe early, maybe late. We'll surprise you! The Fall semester was a tough one for everyone in mathematics and elsewhere on ETSU's campus, for both faculty and students. Dr. Larry Neal and Standish Gardner passed away one day apart. Dr. Neal, a dear friend to many, lost a courageous, and fiercely fought battle with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma on October 16, 1995. Standish was the wife of Dr. Bob Gardner of the mathematics faculty. Her death was related to cardiac problems. She will be especially missed by both her husband Bob and her small son Quincey, who is four years old. During her funeral many of her friends and relatives remembered her with fondness and love. A special Celebration of Life program was held at the D. P. Culp University Center to recognize Dr. Neal's many academic achievements in the NASA Space Program, medicine, mathematics and computer science, just to name a few. Not only did several persons speak of Dr. Neal's academic achievements, but several highlighted his many kind and generous gestures to humanity. Larry's morale-enhancing presence shall surely be missed for years to come.
I am about to complete a decade of service as chair at ETSU. Those 10 years have "flown by," probably because I have enjoyed my work and the many wonderful people at ETSU. All of the faculty in the department,long-timers and newcomers, have provided quality leadership and sacrificial support in making significant changes in the way we "conduct business" in the Mathematics Department. Many of the responsibilities that former chairs may have assumed are now delegated to various faculty members. Lyndell Kerley is the Undergraduate Coordinator and serves as an assistant to me as I carry out my responsibilities. Linda Lawson is the new Graduate Coordinator. Bill Dotson is the coordinator of the Mathematics Laboratory in Warf-Pickel. The coordinator and advisor for the Teacher Education Program is Janice Huang. Tod Jablonski is the coordinator of our freshman probability and statistics sequence. Jeff Knisley and Al Tirman serve as coordinators of the calculus sequence. Several faculty, such as Teresa Haynes, Bob Gardner, Jay Boland, Linda Lawson and Debra Knisley, are very visible scholars. Through such leadership, we are becoming a stronger, and much more recognizable mathematics department throughout the state and across the country.
Finally, I was delighted that many of you sent me notes or e-mail messages about the first issue of our newsletter at:
The undergraduate program now consists of three tracks: Mathematical Sciences (with some emphasis in Discrete Mathematics), Teacher Education (which leads to certification and licensure in secondary teaching), and Statistics. Moreover, the new General Education program requires that students take a certain number of courses which are writing, speaking, and technology intensive. Some of you may have taken the two seminar courses, 1090 and 3090. These two courses are now writing, and writing/speaking intensive, respectively. Jeff Knisley has been designing these two courses.
Another major change will take place next academic year (96-97). Dr. Tae-il Suh retired in May after 31 years of service. Rather than fill his vacated position with another faculty member, the department recommended and has been approved to acquire five new graduate teaching assistantships. Moreover, all GTA stipends will be raised as follows: $7,200 for new GTAs, $8,200 for second-year GTAs who teach, and $10,250 for Math Lab Assistants. This action should boost productivity and improve background profiles of students admitted to the graduate program.
Activities related to our three most recent M.S. graduates are as follows:
Mrs. Rex Depew (Sara Margaret) established an endowed scholarship in memory of her husband, who graduated from ETSU in 1940, having majored in mathematics. It will be designated the Depew Scholarship. On his way to obtaining his Ph.D. in mathematics at Vanderbilt University in 1963, Dr. Depew served with the Air Force, taught at Everett High School, taught at North Alabama State University, and joined the IBM Corporation. While at IBM, Dr. Depew provided mathematics support and analysis for NASA Space Systems. Rex and Sara Margaret retired in 1985 to Maryville, Tenn. Rex died in 1992 and Sara Margaret continues to reside in Maryville.
One week before his death, Dr. Larry Neal established a scholarship fund to honor his very dear friend, Joe Faber, and to assist worthy mathematics majors long after he and Joe would not be able. It will be designated the Faber-Neal Scholarship. Joe Faber has been enjoying his retirement since 1992 and regularly stops by the office to check on his friends. The current amount in the fund is approximately $42,800, but it continues to grow monthly. The goal of the fund is to cover annual tuition costs for as many sophomore mathematics majors as the fund will allow.
The Edward Stanley Scholarship is designed to help promising mathematics majors. The Wilson-Hartsell Scholarship serves to help aspiring mathematics teachers. The first fund was endowed in 1986 from a generous gift from a former student, Ed Stanley, who completed an illustrious career teaching mathematics at Clemson University. The 1995 recipient was Rebecca Louise Pardue of Mountain City, Tenn. The second fund was initiated in 1987 and named in honor of two former department chairs with long-term commitments to ETSU: Mr. Charles Wilson(retired, '86) and Dr. Lester Hartsell (retired, '87). The 1995 recipient was Amy Cuccia of Smyrna, Tenn. The fall 1996 recipients are as follows: Heather McNealy, Jellico, Tenn. - Edward Stanley Scholarship; Shana Hawkins,Greeneville, Tenn. - Wilson-Hartsell Scholarship; Keith Britt, Morristown, Tenn. - Rex Depew Scholarship.
When you consider making contributions to the university, please consider these various funds.
If you are an ETSU graduate with a major or minor in mathematics, please share with us your current type of work. More importantly, because we would like to improve our undergraduate and graduate programs, please share with us some things you liked about your experiences at ETSU, and some things you would like to see changed. Please indicate your degree and the year you graduated from ETSU. See the form provided on page six of this newsletter or communicate electronically with George Poole, Chairman, Department of Mathematics, pooleg@etsuarts.etsu-tn.edu
Lora Shuler Hopkins was recognized by the university during spring semester at Honors Day as being the graduating senior in mathematics with the highest grade point average (GPA).
Our "Outstanding Senior" mathematics major for 1996 is Christopher Wallace with Brian Heaton receiving honorable mention.
A new library is being planned for ETSU and promises to be the "landmark" most remembered by students rather than the"Minidome". The late Dr. Neal chaired a library committee to oversee the tasks of reducing the new library's impact on the surrounding environment while maximizing its beauty and functionality. The four-story complex will be located adjacent to Rogers-Stout Hall and the Culp Center (after residence halls Taylor and Browning are razed). Construction began in July 1996. The anticipated completion date is August 1998.
Dr. Tae-il Suh retired in May 1996 after 31 years of service to the University. He developed the mathematics holdings of the library, directed many masters theses, and served as graduate coordinator from 1986-1993. He was awarded Faculty Emeritus status.
Dr. Don Hong, Ph.D., Texas A & M University, joined the mathematics faculty in the fall of 1996.
Dr.
Dr.
Janice Huang has received two grants. She received a THEC
Dwight D. Eisenhower grant for $28,000 to continue the Saturday
Seminars lecture series and Prime Pairs project. The second
grant is from the Tennessee Collaborative for Educational
Excellence in the amount of $1,800.
Dr.
Jay Boland had a paper entitled "On Super I-connected
Graphs," co-authored by Dr. Richard Ringesen of Old Dominion
University, appear in the journal Networks.
Drs.
Haynes,
Boland and
Lawson had a paper entitled
"Domination from a Distance" appear in the journal
Congressus Numerantium.
Dr.
Linda Lawson has also had her paper entitled "Time Series
Sampling and Data Assimilation in a Simple Marine Ecosystem
Model" accepted for publication in Deep Sea Research. The paper
was coauthored by Dr. Eileen Hofmann, Center for Coastal Physical
Oceanography, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Va., and Yvette
Spitz, Oregon State University.
Dr.
George Poole and the late Dr. Neal attended the International
Linear Algebra Society Conference held in Atlanta, Aug. 15 -19,
1995. They presented a paper entitled "Rook's Pivoting over
Complete Pivoting: A Theoretical and Empirical Case Study."
Dr.
George Poole received an ETSU research development grant of
$5,800 to implement the Rook's pivoting strategy in a parallel
computing environment.
Dr.
Paul Savarese moderated a session on Teaching and
Statistics at the spring '96 regional meeting of the MAA in
Huntsville, Ala. He was a participant in an NSF/Chautauqua
Short-Course for College Teachers "Cognition and Teaching,Part
II" at Duke University in May. Paul was chosen to attend
ISOSTAT (Isolated Statisticians) Conference of American
Statistical Association at the University of South Carolina in
April. Funding was provided by Exxon Foundation.
Dr.
Lyndell Kerley had a paper, "Animating the Vibrating String,"
appear in the spring issue of "Mathematics and Computer
Education."
Drs.
Teresa Haynes and
Debra Knisley attended the Ninth Annual
Cumberland Conference on Graph Theory and Computing
held in conjunction with the Shanks Lecture Series at Vanderbilt
University in May, 1995. Dr. Haynes presented their paper,
"Generalized Degrees and Totally Regular Graphs." This paper has
been submitted for publication in the journal Utilitas
Mathematica.
Research literature and 27 years of teaching have convinced
me that students can learn mathematics. Moreover, the cost of
failure is often higher than the cost of success. Finding and
providing the appropriate motivation for success in the classroom
is perhaps the most important and challenging portion of the
instructor's responsibilities.
Teaching mathematics is much more than "telling," and
learning is much, much more than "listening." Over the last
ten years the paradigm of teaching has changed. Have faculty
responded?
The instructional and learning environments have been
complemented with improved texts, visual technology, computers,
hand-held graphical calculators, and tutorial software, just to
name a few. Because some students learn more from one
pedagogical strategy among many, faculty should often experiment
with different strategies. One strategy encourages more student
involvement through group and collaborative learning techniques.
Another strategy enhances learning by replacing easy one-step
mechanics problems with problems whose solution requires multiple
steps, along with some narrative or explanation. At this point
in time, I am more convinced that students should be rewarded
(artificial incentive) for attending class (make it a significant
part of the grade, say 20%). In order to help students be
successful in learning mathematics, I believe the motto of
mathematics teachers should be, "Whatever it takes." (G. Poole)
It's a theorem!
The so-called "Fermat's Last Theorem" has finally been
proved, as Andrew Wiles polished off the last few little gaps
in his monumental proof. This is a little bit like the sculptor
of Mount Rushmore polishing off a wart on George Washington's
nose. A proof with gaps is no proof at all. But now, the
300-year-old problem is officially solved, and we know for
certain that there are no cases of positive whole numbers a,
b, c, and n, where n is greater than 2 and a^n + b^n = c^n.
"What good does it do us to know this?" you may ask. Well,
what good is a touchdown or a home run? When a human being
accomplishes something enormously difficult, it is appropriate to
stand up and cheer.
Marilyn vos Savant, the person with the highest recorded
I.Q., has thrown some cold water on the proof, objecting that it
uses non-Euclidean geometry. But all she has really done is to
show that a high I.Q. is no guarantee that one is right,
especially when writing outside one's area of expertise.
Non-Euclidean geometry has been on a sound basis for almost 200
years.
Another new discovery in pure mathematics is in the area of
minimal surfaces. The question is easy to state: what is the
smallest surface area which, under given conditions, can enclose
a given volume? For the simplest case, with no other conditions,
the answer is a sphere. But suppose you require that the volume
be divided into two separate parts. In 1995, mathematicians
proved that in this case the smallest surface area
is two domes of equal size, each more than half of a sphere but
not a whole sphere, joined together along their circular edge,
and separated by a disk in the middle.
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In the world of applied mathematics, the mathematical study
of proteins has led to a demonstration of how viruses are born.
In cell biology, it is often the case that the chemical
properties of a protein are less important than its geometric
properties. A combination of proteins acts as a geometric
template on which other molecules can form. Using
geometry,mathematicians have demonstrated how a virus can grow
using proteins as a template.
And while mathematicians work actively to find safe ways to
transfer money on the Internet, other mathematicians,sometimes
the same mathematicians, work to find ways to break the
supposedly unbreakable codes. Their goal is to warn banks and
other financial institutions of ways in which they are vulnerable
to computer theft.
Fractals continue to be important in computer graphics. The
best-selling multimedia encyclopedia, Encarta, published by
Microsoft, uses a technique called fractal image compression to
store 7,000 color photographs on one CD-ROM.
These are a few of the many new discoveries in mathematics
made in the past year. If you have any questions or comments, I
always enjoy discussing mathematics, and can be reached on the
Internet at
norwoodr@etsuarts.etsu-tn.edu.
Kappa Mu Epsilon (KME) Mathematics Honor Society recently
initiated the following 13 new members during the spring.
Donny Belcher, Tessa Bishop, Gina Boercker, Jeremy Crawford,
William Daidone, Larry Dykes, Kelly Edminston, Kristin Holzschuh,
Tom Intardonato, Katrina Knipple, Eric Lingerfelt, Ron Salsbury,
Chad Sams.
The 1995-1996 officers were
INSTRUCTIONAL ACTIVITIES
NEW DISCOVERIES IN MATHEMATICS
by Rick Norwood
KAPPA MU EPSILON, MATHEMATICS HONOR SOCIETY
The new Mathematics Laboratory is still going strong after two years of operation. As the Lab's director, Dr. William Dotson oversees a smooth operation in a friendly, congenial learning environment. A NEW ADDITION to the Math Lab is the installation of a telephone line to entertain mathematics questions from students who are unable to attend the Lab or have only a short list of inquiries.
To publish this Newsletter, we stepped out on "faith" and virtually depleted our Mathematics Foundation Account. Please consider sending a contribution to the Mathematics Foundation Account so we might send a Fall 1996 issue out to each of you. We also need additional dollars to cover expenses not normally covered by state revenues. In the past these monies have been used to frame pictures for the central office, provide expenses for out-of-town speakers, purchase special research equipment,and provide faculty release time to complete special departmental projects.
Currently our plans are to distribute a newsletter each Fall. Please send information on your status to Dr. George Poole, Department of Mathematics, East Tennessee State University, Box 70663, Johnson City, TN 37614-0663.
We encourage you to supply us with the following information:
We encourage you to contribute to the ETSU Department of Mathematics as follows: