This letter is dedicated to the memory of James (Jay) Boland, who passed away on December 16, 2006. We have lost a comrade, colleague, and collaborator…..we miss you, buddy!

Within the department, we have created the Jay Boland Mathematics Library, and Jay's Place was dedicated on October 19, 2007 outside the center for Physical Activity - a bench so that Jay may still support us.

A whole lot has happened since I last wrote (you can view the old archived report here). We are riding on a crest of events, happenings, blessings, and achievements, while also weathering some sad events. Probably the state of our department is best summarized when I tell prospective students that we are the best undergraduate mathematics department in Tennessee. Modesty prevents me from claiming more. Here are some major developments:

• The NSF-UBM program funded Jeff Knisley and Steve Karsai (BIOL) in the amount of $100,000 for the inaugural project of the Institute for Quantitative Biology, a wonderful collaboration with the Biology Department; see the IQB webpage for more on the IQB. The project supported ten students for each of two summers (2004 and 2005) in an REU-style research experience in quantitative biology. Students in the program have gone on to top notch graduate programs, e.g. Mike Phillips is now at Cornell and Patty Carey is at the University of Tennessee. This grant has led to a bewildering number of joint projects that have brought much attention to our department. Many of these are described below.
• Debbie Knisley and Don Hong were each awarded prestigious NSF-IGMS Grants in the amount of $100K to spend the 2005-06 and 2004-05 years respectively at the ETSU Biochemistry Department and Vandy's Ingram Cancer Research Center.
• Abdul Jarrah left us in 2004 and Don Hong and Shaozhong Deng in 2005.
• Linda Lawson, Tod Jablonski and Janice Huang retired from the faculty ranks, as did Executive Aide Linda Fore. We wish them the very best.
• New faculty hires include Yali Liu (2005, Statistics), Michel Helfgott (2004, Math Education), Yared Nigussie (2006, Graph Theory), Robert Beeler (2007, Graph Theory and Outreach). Lisa Erwin joined us in 2005 as Executive Aide
• Anant Godbole's REU program was funded for the period 2006-08. The $180K grant includes an Ethics in Math component.
• The Eastman Chemical Company made a $1M commitment to ETSU's Center for Excellence in Math and Science Education to fund Mathematics Teacher Training Workshops over the next seven summers. George Poole and Bob Price taught the inaugural series of workshops to teachers from Washington and Sullivan Counties and Kingsport City; George taught MATH 5010 to 4th Grade teachers, while Bob's assignment was to teach MATH 5015 to a cohort of teachers from Grades 6-8.
• ETSU is one of nine TBR schools participating in the NSF-ATE funded $1.25M Tennessee Board of Regents Teacher Preparation Partnership. Math faculty involved with this effort are Edith Seier, Susan Hosler, Rick Norwood, George Poole, Daryl Stephens and Anant Godbole (grant co-PI). Other ETSU players are Aimee Govett and Tami Baker (COE), Michele Banner (COE Advisor), Hugh Miller (BIOL) and Chu-Ngi Ho (CHEM). At ETSU, this grant, intended to make all Math and Science classes for K-6 majors standards based and integrated, has been given a new twist: The ETSU TAF funds awarded us $54,000 to renovate part of the Math Lab to create the K-6 Learning Habitat, where K-6 Education majors will take MATH 1530, 1410, and 1420; CHEM 1030; BIOL 1022; and MEDA 3570 in specially designated sections of these classes.
• The NSF-STEP Program Talent Expansion in Quantitative Biology, funded in the amount of $1M ((co-)PIs: Godbole, Boland, J Knisley, together with Biology's Miller and Yampolsky and COE's Rhoton) is a feather in our cap. See the TEQB webpage. Together with the $1.7M Project Symbiosis ((co)-PIs J Knisley, Helfgott and Seier, together with Biology's Joplin and Karsai; advisors Godbole and Miller), it has catapulted our departments into the national spotlight. ETSU was, for example, the only regional school and only Tennessee school to get an HHMI grant. ETSU is viewed as the school undergoing the most comprehensive integration of Math and Biology in the nation, and HHMI decided to hold their inaugural workshop on the theme of this integration at ETSU in July 2007. Sixty students will eventually go through the STEP/Symbiosis program, majoring in either Math or Biology, taking the unique integrated first year math/biology curriculum Symbiosis, partaking of four research experiences, earning $8000 in research stipends, and being trained to join the workforce as individuals who have been immersed in interdisciplinary education from the ground up
• The first cohort of students in the "Abingdon program" graduated with MS degrees in Mathematical Sciences with a Precollegiate Mathematics concentration. Eighteen K-8 teachers from Southwest Virginia participated in this program, each wrote a Master's thesis and additionally participated in RET-style research in their Independent Study class.
• Planning for the PhD program, in a state of dormancy for a few years, has begun again. Watch this space for an announcement of significant progress towards the institution of a doctoral program in mathematics at ETSU!!
• The Mathematics Department will be playing a huge role in the operation of the Center of Excellence in Mathematics and Science Education, headed by Jack Rhoton.
• We await the outcome of our $3M submission to NSF, Science First, a huge ETSU wide project that will make all K-5 learning at North Side Elementary Science and Math driven.
• Teresa Haynes was on NIA during the 2006-07 year, and continued to build on her reputation as one of the best researchers in the world in graph domination.
• Debbie Knisley will be spending the 2007-08 academic year at the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications at the University of Minnesota - recipient of the largest single NSF DMS award ever - as a New Directions Professor. We look forward to Debbie's second career as a researcher in Chemical and Biological Graph Theory
• Michael Marks, Michel Helfgott, and DC Smith were awarded tenure in the department. Debbie Knisley and Michel were promoted to Full Professor and Associate Professor respectively.
• Teaching loads of Developmental Math faculty have been reduced to 12 hours a semester. Former DSPM faculty are active researchers and teach regular math classes, while Jamie McGill and Robert Davidson serve as course coordinators for MATH 1710-20 and MATH 1840-50.
• Daryl Stephens completed his PhD in Mathematics Education at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
• Ours is one of the few departments of mathematics in the nation (actually I do not know of any other) where undergraduate research is a required component of the BS degree, for all students. This is an experiment that has been quite successful, with many students producing publishable research and with two papers being submitted for publication.
• A new track in Quantitative Modeling, soon to be renamed Quantitative Biology, was introduced as part of the 120-hour curricular conversion.
• Daryl Stephens is Director of the ETSU Math Science Scholars, a group of undergraduates who help students with their difficulties in developmental Mathematics courses.
• Our Spring Awards Banquet has been well attended in recent years. Banquet speakers have been Robin Blankenship, Appalachian State University (2004), Kevin James, Clemson University, (2005), Ivars Peterson, Science News (2006) and Sloan Despeaux, Western Carolina University (2007). Faculty/graduate award recipients were as follows

  	2004	2005	2006	2007
  Teaching	Bob Price	Jamie McGill	Michael Marks	Jeff Knisley
  Service	Lyndell Kerley	Tod Jablonski	Edith Seier	Daryl Stephens
  Research	Anant Godbole	Don Hong/Bob Gardner	Debra Knisley	Michel Helfgott
  Graduate Student	-	Alberto Mokak	Steve Lane	Jason Lachniet

  Anant Godbole won the college level research award in 2006, while Bob Price won the College Teaching award in 2005.
• The Southeast Regional American Mathematical Society meeting was held at ETSU in October 2005. Thanks to Robert Gardner and Don Hong for their wonderful organization. Don Hong (Wavelets), Robert Gardner (Approximation Theory), Rick Norwood & Michel Helfgott (Education), and Debbie Knisley (Math Biology) organized special sessions at the meeting.
• Daryl Stephens is current Upper East Tennessee Council of Teachers of Mathematics President; UETCTM is an NCTM affiliate, Daryl is also Chair of the Math Special Professional Interest Network in NADE.
• Bob Price, our MATH 1530 coordinator, was instrumental in having WH Freeman Publishers design a custom version of Moore's Basic Practice of Statistics for our students. In 2007, Bob turned over coordinatorship to Tod Jablonski.
• A new Governor's School in Scientific Models and Data Analysis will start in Summer 2008. The brightest students from across Tennessee will spend 5 weeks on our campus taking MATH 1530 and BIOL 1110-11. In fact Jeff Knisley and Biology's Karl Joplin will offer Symbiosis 1 to the 30 selected students in a seamless fashion in which real and current data, and contemporary biological models will motivate the teaching and learning of key statistical and biological concepts.
• We support the university wide Quality Enhancement Plan through the administration of Practice quizzes in Math 1530, we are a TBR wide pioneer in general education assessment through assessment of Math 1530 final exam performance, and Edith Seier and Debbie Knisley are our faculty leaders as we participate in the Academic Quality Initiative. Jamie McGill, Jeff Knisley, and George Poole are faculty members responsible for our departmental PIE plan.
• Jeff Knisley was the MAA Southeast Section Lecturer in 2004 and continues to be the state representative to the Section.
• Bob Gardner has taken over the teaching of Honors Calculus and will be the director of our Honors in Discipline Program.
• Lyndell Kerley has announced that he will retire in May 2008. Scheduling of classes will be organized by Sherri Hardin.
• The 6th International Conference on Lattice Path Combinatorics and its Applications was held at ETSU July 12-14 2007. See the conference webpage.
• Ivars Peterson will be serving as the Wayne G. Basler Chair of Excellence for the Integration of the Arts, Rhetoric, and Science during Spring 2008. Ivars served as a writer of math columns for Science News for almost 25 years and is currently with the Mathematical Association of America. He will be teaching a undergraduate/graduate level class "Communicating Mathematics" which is colisted between the Math Department and the Communications Department.