Message from Ockle Johnson, Governor of the Northeastern
Section
In January the Joint
Mathematics Meetings were held in
Joe Gallian, the MAA
President, related some fundraising successes. $300,000 was raised to match a
$300,000 challenge donation from Virginia Halmos, who has now offered another
$200,000 matching grant. An NSF grant for $500,000 was obtained to support
students attending the Joint Mathematics Meetings and Mathfest. The Treasurer,
John Kenelly, reported that our finances are in good order and our investments
have done relatively well. There has been some preliminary investigation of
“green’ mutual funds. The budget committee offered a less rosy report, as the
budget for 2007 was not met due to multiple factors. We voted not to increase
membership dues for 2009. Membership continues to be a concern, with renewals
down. Dave Mazur and I are on the Membership Committee and will be considering
many suggestions from the Working Group on Membership, the Budget Committee and
Bob Anastasio, Director of Marketing and Membership.
We received reports from the
Cycle II Working Groups on Governance and Students. Recommendations from the
Governance Working Group included a realignment of Committees and Councils,
strengthening the Council structure and some proposed bylaws changes such as
adding Council chairs to the Board of Governors and reducing the number of
editors of journals on the Board. We voted to extend committee terms to three
years and one month with an overlap at the Joint Meetings, to create sunset
dates for all task forces, to ensure all committees have charges that are
displayed on the web, and to establish a Committee on Assessment.
Recommendations from the Student Working Group included offering complementary
memberships for graduate students, linking Student Chapter membership to bulk
subscriptions to Horizons, more resources and outreach for Student Chapters,
and increased activities for graduate students at section and national
meetings. The Working Groups on Membership is working on its report. Work
continues on the Cycle III topics: Meetings, Sections and STEM.
Book sales continue to do
well including the recent Euler Series. The documentary on the Math Olympiad,
Hard Problems, premiered at the Meetings.
The website is attracting more hits. If you haven’t checked it out
recently you should do so. Highlights include interesting “found math”
pictures, math in the news, and the columns of Ivars Peterson, Keith Devlin and
Ed Sandifer. There’s still time to sign up for many of the PREP workshops.
One final note: if you have
young faculty member who is an excellent teacher consider nominating her or him
for the Alder Award. The MAA would like to see more nominations.
I hope to see many of you at
the upcoming Northeastern Section meeting at Saint Michael’s College in