Dear Friends,

What follows is a a monthly informational newsletter related to the department of Mathematics and Computer Science. It contains a student profile plus highlights of some of recent news and upcoming events. I hope this information helps you remain engaged in the life of our department.

Class of 2007 Senior Spotlight

Name: Peter M. Shaw
Hometown: Livonia, Michigan

Peter Shaw doing homework in the Math/CS Lounge.

Peter Shaw has found success in the classroom and on the football field. On the Dean's list five times, he was also a four year letterman on the football team.

Peter is majoring in mathematics with a concentration in Elementary Education as a member of the Fritz Shurmur Education Institute. "I came to Albion for a combination of reasons. I wanted to play football, the education department had a good reputation, and so did the math department."

Albion math students are pretty bright and hard working."

He likes the small size of Albion and the close-knit community. "Coming from a small high school where I knew everybody, I felt it was important to not feel like just another face on campus, but to feel like another person; someone that people know more than just recognizing the face."

As a member of Campus Crusade for Christ and Athletes in Action, Peter was also able to stay active in his faith. "One of the most rewarding experiences was participating in a service trip providing relief to victims of hurricane Katrina." This year, he is active in leadership roles in both organizations.

Lots of mathematical areas interest him, especially Linear Algebra. "I love math. I knew I was interested in Math during my junior year of high school. Without the influence of my high school teacher, Mr. Gordon Larson, there's no way I'd be a math major." At Albion, Pete enjoys classes with Dr. Bollman and Dr. Anderson. "I just love to chat with Dr. Anderson, about anything really, but I'm sure we could talk about football forever."

Even when you enjoy a subject, success often requires significant time commitments, hard work, focus, and determination. "I'm in Real Analysis right now and it's pretty tough." Peter says many of his other courses have been also been challenging, particularly Abstract Algebra and Multivariate Calculus. That said, he advises younger students that "you can figure it out!"

This semester he is working in the Quantitative Skills Center (QSC), helping students who are struggling with understanding mathematics. A frequent visitor to the QSC in his earlier classes, he was still a little uncomfortable talking to his professors. "The student workers in the QSC really helped me understand the concepts."

He enjoys the mathematics facilities in the new science complex. "I like to spend a lot of time in the building now. I used to only come to the building for class, now I do homework here quite frequently." One benefit of studying in the building is talking with other math students. "Most are excited to work with and help others with homework and studying. I typically work alone, but every time I've needed help, other students are more than willing to help and work with me. Albion math students are pretty bright and hard working."

Teaching is Peter's real passion. He plans to student teach in the fall, then teach upper elementary or middle school grades. He is also looking into the possibility of coaching once established as a teacher. His experiences with the education department have been his favorite academic experiences thus far, especially spending time in the local elementary schools to observe, teach, and mentor. "I love working with young children."

Serving others. Now that is success!

Recent News and Upcoming Events

• Cayley Pendergrass gave a well-attended talk, titled "Primeness of Just Infinite Algebras," at the MAA-AMS Joint Mathematics Meeting, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, January 5-8, 2007. The talk, coauthored with John Farina of the University of California-San Diego, outlined work from their forth-coming paper regarding the structure of just infinite rings. Examples of just infinite rings include familiar sets in algebra like the integers and polynomials in one variable; examining these and other sets with similar properties provides new perspectives on standard topics and allows us to extend our understanding to new, exciting examples.
  
• Darren Mason gave a talk entitled "Developing a successful undergraduate colloquium course" at the MAA-AMS Joint Mathematics Meeting held in New Orleans, Louisiana, January 5-8, 2007. David Reimann was a coauthor. The authors gave details on the development and evolution of the Albion College Math/CS Colloquium. Currently, our Colloquium provides students with the opportunity to grow intellectually through exposure to concepts, ideas, and research areas that exist beyond the traditional classroom setting. Their talk was one of over 1800 talks at the conference.
  
• Mark Bollman's book, Calculator Labs for the TI-15 Explorer, has been published by Linus Publications. The book is a collection of eight laboratory exercises designed to introduce teachers to the TI-15 Explorer™ calculator manufactured by Texas Instruments and designed for use in the 3rd through 6th grades. This project is the end result of Mark's 6 years of work with Albion's prospective elementary school teachers in Mathematics 104. In writing this book, Mark sought to overcome two perceived shortcomings of the TI-15: the relative complexity of the keyboard symbols and the fact that it ships without an owner's manual.  The power of the calculator in elementary math topics like arithmetic practice, place value exploration, fraction manipulation, and simple algebraic experiments is frequently concealed behind obscure calculator keys.  Without an owner's manual for guidance, a novice teacher encountering one of these in a student's hands is likely to be baffled.  By providing a detailed guide to the distinctive functions of this calculator, Mark hopes to send Albion graduates with elementary teacher certification into their first classrooms with the strongest possible awareness of the issues that calculators raise in mathematics teaching. Mark's professional and personal interest in calculators dates back many years.  His calculator collection currently numbers 799 different models.  Many of them may be seen at his Calculator Collection web site.
  
• Darren Mason and Mark Bollman joined approximately 60 other members of the Michigan mathematical community on Saturday, January 20 to grade Part II of the 50^th Michigan Mathematics Prize Competition exam. Part II of the MMPC was taken on December 6 by approximately 1000 Michigan high school students who scored the highest on Part I, given on October 11. Part I of the MMPC is open to all students in Michigan high schools, and consists consists of 40 multiple-choice questions involving topics from high school mathematics. From approximately 14,000 participants in Part I, the top 1,000 students are invited to take Part II of the MMPC. There students work on five challenging problems and write their solutions providing full justification and proof of their claims. The top 100 students from this year's competition will be honored at the MMPC Awards Banquet on February 24. The MMPC is sponsored by the Michigan Section of the Mathematical Association of America and is currently hosted by Oakland University. Albion College hosted the MMPC under the direction of professor Robert Messer during the 1999-2000, 2000-02, and 2001-02 academic years.
  
• February 8: The Mathematical Contest in Modeling is a contest where teams of undergraduates use mathematical modeling to present their solutions to real world problems. The contest begins at 8pm EST on the 2nd and runs through 8pm EST on Monday, February 12th. Talk to Darren Mason for further information about this competition.
  
• February 24: The Denison Spring Programming Contest challenges teams of up to four programmers to solve up to six programming problems in a period of four hours. The programmers have their choice of programming in Java and/or C++. The team with the most questions solved in the least amount of time wins. See David Reimann or the related Web page for more information about this competition.
  
• Charles R. MacCluer ( Professor, Department of Mathematics, Michigan State University) will give a talk entitled "The Classical Problems of the Calculus of Variations" for our departmental colloquium on February 1.
  
• Robert W. Bell ( Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and, Lyman Briggs School of Science, Michigan State University) will give a talk entitled "A Combinatorial Gauss-Bonnet Theorem" for our departmental colloquium on February 8.
  
• Cayley Pendergrass ( Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Albion College) will give a talk entitled "The Enigma Machine" for our departmental colloquium on February 15.
  
• Kevin Compton ( Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan) will give a talk for our departmental colloquium on February 22.
  

Please feel free to contact me or visit our website (http://www.albion.edu/mathcs/) for further details on any of these items.

Sincerely,
David A. Reimann
Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
517-629-0426