NES MAA

Greetings! I hope that everyone is having a good semester so far. It’s hard to believe that the summer will soon be upon us.

Before beginning, I would like to say how thankful I am that Frank Ford has made a sound recovery from his medical issues. In fact, he is compiling this newsletter! Many thanks to the many of you who wished Frank well throughout his recovery.

It was great seeing so many of you at the Fall Meeting at Bentley University this past November. It was a fantastic meeting with many wonderful invited speakers, student papers, and contributed papers. I would like to take the time to thank the Local Arrangements Committee: Rick Cleary (chair), Lucy Kimball, and Nathan Carter; and the Program Committee: Ann Trenk (chair), Steve Abbott, Ismar Volic, and Meredith Watts.

Many thanks to the people who diligently served on these committees.

At the Fall meeting, we held the election for new officers. Congratulations to Ann Kizanis (Western New England College) for winning another term as Secretary-Treasurer, Phil Mahler (Middlesex Community College) for being elected Two-Year College Representative, and Rob Poodiack (Norwich University) begin elected Vice Chair. Rob will take over for me as chair when my term expires at the end of the Fall 2009 meeting. I would also like to thank Lois Martin (Massasoit Community College) for doing a wonderful job as Two-Year College Representative. Her term expired at the end of the Fall Meeting.

I would also like to thank Rob Poodiack for organizing the third annual Northeastern Section Collegiate Mathematics Competition at this past November’s Fall Meeting. The competition was a huge success with undergraduates from schools all over the Section competing.

I was excited to see many new faculty and first-time participants at this past Fall Meeting! As a way of reaching out to new members, we conducted a drawing. The ten first-time participants whose names were drawn will receive free registration and meals for the upcoming Spring meeting at Fairfield University. We hope to see as many new faculty as possible at our upcoming meetings. Additionally, I would like to thank Karen Stanish for organizing the Section NExT workshop. She will be organizing another workshop for the upcoming Spring meeting. These workshops are a great way for newer and untenured faculty to get involved in our section.

In other news, congratulations to Solomon Friedberg of Boston College for winning the 2009 NES/MAA Award for Distinguished College/University Teaching. Solomon will be receiving his award at the Spring Meeting and will be invited to give a talk at the Fall Meeting.

We are eagerly anticipating the upcoming Spring Meeting which will be held at Fairfield University on May 29-30. Matt Coleman (Fairfield University) is the chairing the Local Arrangements Committee and Karen Stanish (Keene State College) is chairing the Program Committee. It is shaping up to be an exciting meeting with many wonderful speakers lined up.

In past newsletters, I discussed the possibility of implementing on-line registration and payment for our section meetings. We are currently working with the national MAA regarding this. While on-line registration will not be available for the upcoming Spring meeting, we are confident that on-line registration and payment will be available within the next year.

There are many other events that are being planned for the near future. They include:

• Two dinner meetings: one at College at the Holy Cross on March 24, the other at Framingham State College on April 6. Visit the Dinner Meetings web page for details.

• MathFest will be held in Portland, Oregon on August 6-8, 2009. See the MAA website for more details.

• The Fall section meeting will be held at Western New England College on November 20-21. More details will follow.

The Executive Committee has also been busy planning the location of future section meetings. The Spring 2010 meeting will be held at Salve Regina University and the Fall 2010 meeting will be held at Providence College. More details will follow as time gets closer.

Finally, if anyone has any ideas for what you like to see the Section offer, I would be happy to hear them. I hope to see many of you at Fairfield University on May 29-30!

The full Newsletter in PDF Format