New Faculty

The department is very pleased to welcome three new faculty members - Dr. Stephen Doblin, Dr. Wm Ted Mahavier, and Dr. MaryE Wilkinson. Dr. Doblin and Dr. Mahavier joined us in August 2001 and Dr. Wilkinson joined us in January 2002.

Dr. Doblin joins us as Professor of Mathematics and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs. Dr. Doblin most recently served as the dean of the College of Science and Technology at the University of Southern Mississippi prior to coming to Lamar. Dr. Doblin holds both a Ph.D. in complex analysis and a master's in mathematics from the University of Alabama. His undergraduate work was also completed at the university in mathematical statistics. Dr. Doblin has received numerous awards for teaching and administrative excellence from honor societies, associations and government entities. He has published scholarly articles in mathematics journals and has secured approximately $900,000 in support from a variety of agencies including the U.S. Department of Education, National Science Foundation and University of Southern Mississippi Research Council.

Dr. Mahavier joins our department as Associate Professor of Mathematics. Dr. Mahavier holds the Ph.D. from the University of North Texas, the M.S. from Emory University, and the B.S. from Auburn University. Dr. Mahavier joins us after serving on the faculty of Nicholls State University in Thibodeaux. La. His area of specialty is numerical analysis and he is also heavily involved in discovery-style learning.

Dr. Wilkinson joins us as our newest Assistant Professor. A Golden Triangle native, Dr. Wilkinson returns home after completing her Ph. D. at the University of Central Florida. Dr. Wilkinson is jointly on the faculty of the Department of Mathematics and the College of Education. Her area of specialty is mathematics education. She has a passion for helping prepare pre-service teachers of mathematics.

Please join us in welcoming these great additions to our department and to the University!

Chair Search

We are presently engaged in a search for a new department chair. We hope to have a new department head in place by Fall 2002. John Harvill has been serving as interim chair while the search is being conducted.

MathFest! 2002

The Lamar University Mathematics Festival, MathFest! 2002 occurred on April 19, 2002 at the John Gray Center. MathFest! is an annual fun day of mathematics-related events. Texas and Louisiana high schools are invited to send a group of students for a day of individual and team competitions. We will also be presenting a series of mathematics exhibits and presentations. The individual competitions cover the areas of algebra, geometry, calculator use, and MathTalk. The department is grateful to the University and to Entergy Texas for financial support of MathFest! activities.

New Math. Ed. Requirements

The Texas State Board of Education (SBEC) has set new Educator standards for Texas teachers. The standards are based on certification field and grade level, with the new grade levels being Early Childhood - 4, 4 - 8, and 8 - 12. The new TExES certification-testing program will replace the current ExCet certification-testing program in the fall of 2002. To meet the new certification standards, especially at the 4 - 8 grade level, several new degree plans for Lamar are in the process of being approved. These include a 4 - 8 Math degree plan, requiring 129 hours of which 42 hours are in math and 6 are in computer science, and a 4 - 8 Math Science degree plan, requiring 125 hours of which 30 are in math and 27 are in the four major sciences. Four new courses in math and 4 new courses in science have been developed to meet the needs of these new degree plans and the new state standards for certification.

Funded grants and proposals

Daniel and Mahavier have been awarded a three-year, $300,000 NSF grant in collaboration with Drury University and Central Missouri University to write the textbook Calculus, A Discovery Workbook over the next three years.

The department is presently pursuing National Science Foundation funding in the Computer Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Scholarship Program. The proposal, "Growing Mathematicians and Computer Scientists in the Golden Triangle," would fund a competitive scholarship program for our majors over a four-year period. Key personnel from our department include Matheson, Andreev, and Daniel.

STEMTP / Academy for Math and Science Educators

This ambitious project will be a joint project of many members of the Lamar University faculty and staff with our department taking an integral role. Dean Carl Westerfield of the College of Education is spearheading this project. This project is intended to institute a comprehensive program for training of mathematics and science teachers in the southeast Texas area.

Putnam Team

Mathematics majors at Lamar who receive a scholarship participate in the Putnam Mathematical Competition. The Putnam Exam has been given every year since 1938 (except for a few years during World War II) and since 1967 has been given the first Saturday in December. This very difficult test is open to undergraduate students in colleges and universities across the United States and Canada, and a student may take it a maximum of 4 times. To help prepare our students for this exam, a one-hour course is offered by the Lamar Math Department and is taken by these Math majors with scholarships and is open to any other student who is interested in taking the exam. All students taking the exam compete individually while a particular set of three students is designated as a team and compete for team honors. This past year Lamar's team members were Jeremy Loukas, Thomas Wood, and Frances Read. Also competing individually were Jakob Felkl, Pam Hudnall, Jodi Combest, Elizabeth Gunter, Josh Fuller, and Natasha Digges. The results of the last exam, given on December 1, 2001, were received the week before Spring Break. There were 2954 students from 453 institutions who competed in that exam. Jeremy Loukas' score ranked him at 494, in the top 18%, while Frances Read and Elizabeth Gunter ranked 1494.5 at the 50th percentile. Our congratulations to Jeremy, Frances, and Elizabeth!

Successes of Recent Graduates

We are always pleased to see our recent graduates doing well. Ms. Kandle Kulish ('98) is presently in graduate school in mathematics at Texas Tech University. Mr. Charles Kilgore ('00) is on the mathematics faculty at Alvin Community College in Alvin, Texas. Congratulations to each of these alumni - we are proud of you! If you are a mathematics alumnus be sure that you are registered in the alumni database on this website. We want to know what you are doing.

Recent Papers and Presentations of Faculty and Students

Valerio De Angelis, Paul Dawkins (Lamar), W. Ted Mahavier (Lamar), and Allen Stenger, "MathNerds," accepted for publication in FOCUS Magazine

Paul C. Chiou (Lamar) and Paul Dawkins (Lamar) "Confidence bounds of the Weibull shape (extreme value scale) parameter using pilot samples," Journal of Propagations in Probability and Statistics, August 2001.

Paul C. Chiou (Lamar) and A. K. Md. Ehsanes Saleh (Carleton University), "Preliminary test confidence sets for the mean of a multivariate normal distribution", Journal of Propagations in Probability and Statistics, February 2002

Joseph A. Cima (University of North Carolina) and A. Matheson (Lamar), "Compact composition operators on VMOA," to appear, Rocky Mountain Journal of Mathematics.

Joseph A. Cima (University of North Carolina) and A. Matheson (Lamar), organizers of a CBMS Regional Research conference, May 2002, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Nonhomogeneous harmonic analysis, weights, and applications to problems in complex analysis and operation theory," Alexander Volberg, principal speaker.

Joseph A. Cima (University of North Carolina) and A. Matheson (Lamar), "Compact embeddings of star-invariant subspaces" presented at SEAM XVIII, Chapel Hill, NC, March 2002.

D. Daniel (Lamar), J. W. Eyles, W. Ted Mahavier (Lamar), and J. C. Pember (Lamar), "On using the discovery method in the distance-education setting," Educational Advancement Foundation, 2001.

D. Daniel (Lamar) and S. Shauger, "More Results on the Erdos-Gyarfas Conjecture," accepted for publication in Congressus Numerantium

D. Daniel (Lamar), J. Nikiel, B. Treybig, M. Tuncali, and E. D. Tymchatyn, "On rim properties of continua," Q. and A. in General Topology, 2001 (Q)

A. Matheson (Lamar), "Alexandrov Operators as Smoothing Operators," Illinois Journal of Mathematics, Fall 2001.

A. Matheson (Lamar), "Isometries into function Algebra", to appear, Houston Journal of Mathematics.

Math. Ed. Degree

The Department has joined with the College of Education to develop a new program to provide a graduate option for those seeking secondary mathematics certification. The program is a post-baccalaureate program of 36 hours - 18 hours of pedagogy, 15 hours of mathematics, and 3 hours for an action research project. Individuals completing the program will receive a Master's degree in Secondary Education with specialization in Mathematics. The program began in Fall 2001 and we have students now in the program.

Lamar Math Club/Pi Mu Epsilon

The 2001-02 Math Club formally announces officers: Jeremy Lucas - President, Frances Read - Vice President, Natasha Digges - Treasurer, Nay Armstrong - Public Relations and Jodi Combest - Secretary. The hectic 2001 Fall Semester made it difficult for the Math Club to get rolling but since returning for Spring 2002, things are really taking off. Weekly meetings are being held on Tuesdays in the Math Office Lounge at 2:00 and are open to all who wish to attend. Topics currently be discussed include the finalization of the new Cheat Sheet T-shirts, the sale of the new Math Club T-shirts (see a member for size availability and price), new problems for the problem solving contests, and plans for Spring Fest and a guest speaker. Homecoming was very exciting and the Math Club won third prize in the table-decorating contest for the Food Fest portion of Homecoming festivities. Also during Homecoming the Math Club participated in the Engineering Alumni Reunion, getting the chance to meet some of those who paved the way for current students and to learn fascinating stories about past and present faculty.

COE Reunion - Feb. 15-16, 2002

The College of Engineering held an alumni reunion on February 15 and 16. Among the math alumni attending were Michael Conerly (76), Alfred De la Rosa (99), Robert Hoepner, Mary Jo Graham Holloway (91), John L. Hunsucker (63), Robert Jantz, Rosemary Laidacker (69), Bill Nylin (65), Roger C. Pryor (64), Deborah A. Stagg (81), Russell L Staley (69), Norma White (56), James H Wright (66). If you have not registered on our departmental website please take a look and register.

Here are some pictures from the reunion.

Affiliation with Mathnerds.com

The department is now affiliated with an important web-based resource, MathNerds, through Dr. Mahavier. Dr. Mahavier is co-founder (with V. DeAngelis of Xavier U. of Louisiana) and managing partner of MathNerds, www.mathnerds.com. MathNerds is a free internet service providing hints, references, and guidance (but not answers) to students who submit questions via on-line forms. The service consists of a fully tested and monitored network of volunteer mathematicians from institutions including U. C. Berkely, U. Chicago, Georgia Tech., U. of North Texas, U. of Rochester, SUNY, Temple, USMA, Washington U., Xavier U., and Lamar U.

Scholarship Recipients

The Department is pleased to continue to support our majors through several scholarships. The scholarships are awarded to continuing students based on grade point average, University service and demonstrated potential in mathematics. This year's recipients are:

Homer Dennis Memorial Scholarship - Joshua Fuller
Margaret Lumpkin-Lakie Scholarship - Natasha Digges
Ralph and Ruth Brookner Scholarship - Jeremy Loukas and Pamela Hudnall
Annie Sue and Richard T. Green Memorial Scholarship - Elizabeth Gunter, Jodi Combest, and Pamela Hudnall
Norman and Harold Orton Scholarship - Frances Read

Congratulations to these fine students!