News and activities
Π Μ Ε
The induction ceremony for 2008 was held on Academic Excellence Day on May 29 in the Santiam Room, Werner University Center. Dr. Maria Fung, Worcester State College, was the guest speaker. Her talk was entitled, "Hamilton's Quaternions: A Brief Introduction."
The Π Μ Ε Oregon Delta Chapter President, Wesley Parker, introduced our new members: Kristal Temple, Courtney Stowell, and Meghann Barger.
The induction ceremony for 2009 was held on May 28. In the summer of 2004, the Mathematics Department at WOU was installed as the Oregon Delta chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon. We are proud and honored to be part of this great tradition. To learn about how students qualify for membership for Π Μ Ε at Western Oregon University, click here.
To learn more about Π Μ Ε, visit the national Π Μ Ε home page.
Math Club Meetings
See the WOU Math Club Web Page
STUDENT MOMENTS
The recently graduated mathematics majors (2009) finished in the 95 th percentile in the nation on the Major Field Test, put out by ETS. We consider this a great accomplishment.
Masaki Ikeda (BS Math 2009) received an award funded by the American Mathematical Society and the American Statistical Association for excellence in student exposition and research at the MAA's MathFest 2009 in Portland, OR.
Laura Waight, a senior mathematics major, is pictured with her $2000 Oregon Space Grant Consortium scholarship she received.
Matt Schmidgall and Masaki Ikeda won second place and third place, respectively, for their student presentations at the 2009 Pacific Northwest MAA conference in Ellensburg, WA.
Kristal Temple, a senior mathematics major funded by Π Μ Ε, presented her talk, "What I Did with My Summer" at the 2008 MathFest. She also presented a poster at the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in February of 2008. This poster, entitled "Singular-ities of Planar Curves" concerned her research done with Maria Fung. The Mathematics Department is very proud that Kristal was accepted to and attended the very prestigious summer mathematics program for women undergraduates at Carleton College. (Visit http://www.math.carleton.edu/smp/ for more information).
Three junior mathematics majors, Molly Mack, Dania Morales, and Emily Trigg, participated in the Pre-REU on Signal and Image Analysis at the Texas A&M University during the summer of 2008.
FACULTY MOMENTS
Cheryl Beaver has submitted the article "Cryptology in the Classroom: Using Zero-Knowledge Proofs to Analyze Cryptographic Protocols" It will appear in Cryptologia (accepted pending minor modifications).
During the summer of 2008, Laurie Burton, Cheryl Beaver, and Klay Kruczek ran a Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Professional Enhancement Program (PREP) Workshop entitled, "Active Learning Approaches and Visual Methods for Teaching the Foundational Mathematics for Elementary Teachers Courses." More information can be found at: The WOU PREP Workshop Page.
Scott Beaver was chosen a 2008 Pacific Northwest NExT member.
Mary Beisiegel was chosen a 2009 National Project NExT member.
Laurie Burton is the new co-author for the eighth edition of the Mathematics for Elementary Teachers: A Conceptual Approach textbook and the continuing co-author for the eighth edition of the Mathematics for Elementary Teachers: Activity Approach workbook published by McGraw Hill January 2010.
Klay Kruczek is currently the President of the Oregon Mathematics Education Council.
Mike Ward, with his coauthor Barbara S. Edwards, wrote "The Role of Mathematical Definitions in Mathematics and Mathematics Education," which appeared as a chapter in "Connecting Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education to Practice", M. Carlson and C. Rassmussen, Eds., Mathematical Association of America 2008.