Table of Contents

From the Chair
Collegiate Mathematics Competition
From the Governor
Motel Information
Spring Meeting Schedule
Spring Meeting Program
Short Course Announcements
Mathematics Competition Form
Registration Form

Rockhurst College is looking forward to hosting the Missouri Section Meeting of the MAA on Friday and Saturday, April 9 and 10, 1999 in Kansas City, Missouri. We have a wide variety of talks and presentations on both Friday and Saturday, including a number of student presentations. All sessions will be held in the Richardson Science Center.

Professor Richard Delaware of the University of Missouri - Kansas City will present the invited address on Friday afternoon. His talk is entitled, "The year 1000: What Mathematics Was Being Done at the Last Turn of the Millennium?"

Starting what we hope will be a continuing tradition, the 1998 recipient of the MAA Missouri Section Distinguished Teacher Award, Professor Robert Kennedy of Central Missouri State University, will be the banquet speaker on Friday evening.

Professor Thomas Banchoff of Brown University and current President of MAA will deliver the MAA invited address at 10:00 on Saturday morning. His talk is entitled, "Interactive Geometry and Linear Algebra Using the Internet: A Contemporary Approach."

We look forward to your participation at the Section Meeting in April and we anticipate that it will be a rewarding experience. You will find a preregistration form in the center fold of this newsletter. Please visit www.mapquest.com/ to locate directions from your house to Kansas City.

The fourth Missouri MAA Collegiate Mathematics Competition will be held Thursday, April 8, 1999 and Friday, April 9, 1999 on the campus of Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Missouri. Any college or university in the state of Missouri can send up to two official teams of 1-3 undergraduates each to compete in the competition. Unofficial teams will be allowed to compete, depending on the number of available spaces, but will not be eligible for awards. They will also be charged the normal registration fee. A one-person team will only be allowed in the competition if this person is his or her college's only representative in the competition. A completed registration form for each team must be sent one week before the competition begins. Late registration will be accepted only if there is room for the team in the competition. No calculators or computers or reference material can be used during the competition. The contest will consist of challenging mathematical problems, comparable but not quite as difficult as the Putnam Exam. The Putnam Exam is a national exam sponsored by the MAA and given to outstanding college mathematics students. Previous Putnam Exams can be found in past October issues of the American Mathematical Monthly.

The first session will begin on Thursday, April 8 at 7:30 pm and last until 10 pm and will consist of 5 problems for each team to solve. The second session will begin on Friday, April 9 at 8:30 am and will end at 11 am. It will also contain an additional 5 problems. Each problem will be worth 10 points and will be scored by a committee of the MAA Missouri section. The committee consists of the following members: Mangho Ahuja (SEMSU), Jim Bruening (SEMSU), Hang Chen (CMSU), Curtis Cooper (CMSU), Joseph B. Dence (UMSL), Leon Hall (UMR), and Alvin Tinsley (CMSU). Some partial credit may be earned for substantially correct work toward a solution to the problem.

There will be a registration fee of $25 per team. A complementary continental breakfast will precede the Friday morning competition. Each team member and the faculty sponsor are invited to a Friday luncheon at 12 noon. Each team member is also invited to be a guest at the MAA Missouri Section Banquet on Friday night. At that time, the results of the competition will be announced. A traveling trophy will be awarded to the first place team. In addition, each member of the first place team will receive a plaque. Certificates will also be given to each participant in the competition.

Any questions about the competition can be sent to Curtis Cooper, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Central Missouri State University, Warrensburg, MO 64093-5045, (660) 543-8851, fax: (660) 543-8006, email: cnc8851@cmsu2.cmsu.edu

Board of Governors Meeting

San Antonio, Texas

January 12, 1999

Jim Tattersall, Associate Secretary, reminded the governors and guests that the summer 1999 meeting will be held in Providence, Rhode Island July 31 through August 2, and upon his recommendation, the Board voted unanimously to hold Mathfest 2000 on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles. Jim stated further that he is working toward a mid-west site for the 2001 meeting, and mentioned the Universities of Michigan and Wisconsin as possibilities. Tom Banchoff, President Elect, added that the MAA is working to bridge the gap between the AMS and MAA meetings in 2000.

Gerald Porter, Treasurer, reported that the 1998 audit was incomplete, but the committee hopes for a balanced budget or a surplus. He added that the Atlanta meeting broke­even and that the Toronto meeting will probably show a $50,000 deficit, an amount which had been budgeted for the meeting.

Barbara Faires of the Budget Committee stated that 1998 dues show a $30,000 reduction and that as a result of adjustments necessitated by the Toronto meeting, the 1999 budget is currently balanced with a $50,000 contingency and $2,000 surplus. David Sanchez, speaking for the Budget Committee, recommended a 4% increase in the dues matrix, and the Board gave its approval.

Caroline Hearn Fuchs, Director of Marketing and Membership, reported that the current membership stands at 26,638, and she outlined initiatives taken by her office in the areas of recruitment and retention. Such efforts include redesigned materials and offers, greater involvement by the liaisons, a push to get more institutions to take membership, consideration of joint membership with AMS, a mailing to non­member MAA book buyers, and advertisement in foreign journals. She noted that 1200 members have chosen the recently initiated two year membership from which both the member and the MAA realize a savings.

Tom Banchoff urged the governors to start thinking seriously about membership issues. He stated that sections should be concerned about both individual and institutional memberships, and he asked why MAA is not attracting more SIAM and AMS members and two­year college mathematicians to its membership.

Anita Solow, First Vice­President, presented a summary detailing the levels of achievement of the goals set forth in the 1994 Strategic Plan, and she recommended that the Board support the recommendation of the Executive & Finance Committees to inaugurate the process for planning a new agenda.

The Board approved a charge to the ad hoc Committee on Planning A New Agenda which provides that the team prepare a list of prioritized goals for the Association. Included in the charge is a time line requiring that a Member Needs Assessment Study be completed in early March followed by a retreat in late March or early April and a report to the Executive and Finance Committees in time for consideration at their May meeting.

The governors were instructed to discuss during the luncheon a document entitled A New Agenda for the 21st Century: Questions for MAA Board and Committees and to informally report their conclusions at the beginning of the afternoon session. The governors were encouraged to solicit input from the membership by publishing the questions in the newsletters and on the webpages of their sections and to encourage discussions during section meetings.

In her Executive Director's Report to the Board of Governors, Marcia Sward stated that the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics will contract with Lewis­Burke & Associates for legislative services. She added that the layers of paint had been stripped from the 1529 headquarters building returning it to its turn­of­the­century brownstone appearance. The paint in addition to being costly to apply was retaining moisture which was causing deterioration of the brownstone and concealing leaks to the interior. She concluded her report by stating that she welcomes the opportunity to work with the person selected to succeed her as executive director so that the transition may be smooth.

Bill Hawkins who volunteers his time as SUMMA Director reported that SUMMA is assisting the Benjamin Banneker Association in making reconditioned Texas instrument calculators available at an extremely low cost to schools, districts, and professional development projects serving minority and/or economically disadvantaged students. He mentioned the development of

the Archival Record which will include information about minority mathematicians who are American citizens with Ph.D.s in mathematics or mathematics education, and he reported that the summer ENACT workshop for tribal college faculty and enhancement project for American Indian teacher aides at reservation schools was successful. Support for ENACT is provided by the EXXON Education Foundation.

Walter Mientka, former director of AMC and new Director of IMO 2001, Inc., proposed the introduction of a new examination directed to students in grades 9 and 10. The new examination, called AHSME I, would be offered for the first time on Tuesday, February 8, 2000, would be administered simultaneously with the current examination to be called AHSME II, and would be 60 minutes in duration. The time allotted for AHSME II would correspondingly be reduced to 60 minutes. The hope is that the new exam would encourage many more 9th and 10th graders to participate in the competitions. Currently, large numbers of students participate in the American Junior High School Mathematics Examination and large numbers of juniors and seniors participate in the AHSME, but the number of 9th and 10th grade students who take the AHSME is low. The Board gave its approval for the new exam.

Dick Gibbs, Chair of the CAMC, reported that registrations for the 1999 AHSME were ahead of last year and that School Science and Mathematics has become the twelfth sponsor of the American Mathematics Competitions.

Walter Mientka added that the Illinois section had made a $500 contribution to IMO 2001, Inc. and that the site for the 2001 IMO would be in the Washington, D.C. area.

Christine Stevens of Project NeXT reported that the Jim Leitzel Lecture fund has reached $40,000 and that contributions are still welcomed.

Proposals offered by the ad hoc Subcommittee of the Coordinating Council on Meetings to Review Mathfests and the Task Force to Review the Structure of the Executive and Finance Committees were approved by the board. The first asked that the Board approve in principle having Mathfests after the year 2000 with the proviso that summer meetings be fiscally sound, and the second recommended that the Executive and Finance Committees be combined and that the Finance Committee be replaced by an Audit Committee.

The Membership Committee asked for Board approval to make Math Horizons an option of membership along with the Monthly, The College Mathematics Journal, and the Mathematics Magazine. The price of the journal would not change. Those who favored the proposal argued that more people would be attracted to membership, and the opposition maintained that Horizons is directed toward students. In the absence of any data to support either position, the motion was referred back to the Membership Committee for further consideration and future action by the Board after research has been conducted to gather data indicating whether such a change would be justified.

The final action of the Board was to make the Subcommittee on MAA/Department Liaisons a standing committee.