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Liaison News – April 2009

In this issue:

MathFest 2009 Abstract Deadline is May 1

MathFest 2009 will be held August 5-8 in Portland, Oregon. We hope you are already making plans to join us. The program promises to be outstanding. For example, Ravi Vakil will deliver this year's Hedrick Lectures: "Classical structure in modern geometry, or modern structure in classical geometry."

Organizers listed on the contributed paper session page solicit papers pertinent to their sessions. Contributed paper sessions generally limit presentations to fifteen minutes. Presentations in the general session will be limited to ten minutes. Each session room will be equipped with a computer projector and a screen. Please remind your colleagues to submit an abstract for MathFest 2009 by the May 1 deadline.

Once again, travel funds are available for both undergraduate and graduate students who are presenting their work at MathFest. Proposals for travel support should be submitted along with abstracts at www.maa.org/mathfest/abstracts.

PREP Registration Now Open

Since 2001, PREP workshops have offered a wide range of options to work with colleagues from across the country to advance mathematics. PREP 2009 is no exception. Early registration discounts expire soon, so please encourage your colleagues to visit the PREP website and reserve a spot today.

We recognize that travel funds may be hard to come by this year. As a result, we have expanded the number of travel supplements that we are offering. PREP participants may request up to $250 to help cover the cost of traveling to this year's workshops. (Note that supplements are not available for all workshops, and the total number of supplements available is also limited. For more information, contact Michael Pearson.)

Renew Your Math Horizons Subscription Now!

Math Horizons renewals for the upcoming school year are in the mail. Please be sure to renew your bulk subscription to Math Horizons so your students won’t miss a single issue. In case you've missed any past issues of Horizons, subscribers now have access to the archive at http://www.maa.org/mathhorizons/. (Note that to view these issues, you must sign in with your username and password.)

Deadline for Voting in MAA 2009 National Election is 12:00 Noon EDT May 29

Voting could not be easier this year, as it is being done by electronic ballot. You should have received your ballot by now. If you haven't, please check your inbox's spam folder. Pictures, short biographies, and statements from the candidates are available here. As we notified members through MAA Focus and MAA Online, this year paper ballots with bio-statements for the candidates will be mailed out only to those members who specifically requested them.

For any questions, please contact Susan Kennedy or Marlesa Adams. (You can also call 202-387-5200.)

RUMC Call for Proposals

The MAA requests proposals for funding for the 2009-2010 Regional Undergraduate Mathematics Conferences. The grant DMS-0846477 from the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation provides support for institutions or groups of institutions that wish to initiate or expand undergraduate mathematics conferences. The awards from the grant are intended to cover a portion of the typical expenses involved with hosting the conference. It is anticipated that most awards will be between $1,000 and $4,000, but smaller and larger requests will be considered where appropriate. Talks presented at funded conferences should be accessible to a wide range of undergraduate students. Conferences may assume any format that accomplishes the object of the grant, but deviations from successful formats should be fully explained.

The review committee is particularly interested in expanding the program to regions of the country that do not traditionally offer undergraduates an opportunity to give mathematical presentations. For more information on the RUMC program go to www.maa.org/RUMC/welcome.html. Information on applying is at www.maa.org/RUMC/apply.html. Questions may be directed to Doug Faires at faires@math.ysu.edu or Robert Vallin at rvallin@maa.org.

Have You Visited the MAA Basic Library List on MAA Reviews?

MAA's Basic Library List (BLL) is a list of books recommended by the Association for purchase by college and university libraries. The current verions of the BLL is part of MAA Reviews; books that are part of the BLL have that fact indicated in search results and on their "book details" page. The Advanced Search feature allows you to restrict your search to books that are in the BLL, and that is the primary way to access the list. Many books in the BLL have ratings contributed by the BLL Committee indicating the strength of their recommendation.

For those of you familiar with the history of the list, you may also be interested to learn that the 1991 version of the BLL is still publicly available.

New Section Governors Announced

Roughly 1/3 of the 29 MAA Sections elect Governors each year. Nine MAA Sections elected new Governors this spring, and the results were announced earlier this month. Each Governor serves a three-year term, beginning at the Board meeting held just prior to MathFest.

2009-2010 Student and Institutional Membership Renewals

Undergraduate Student, Graduate Student and Institutional memberships will expire August 31, 2009.  Renew your membership today to ensure your membership benefits continue without interruption!

Students can renew online and Institutional members can renew by calling 1-800-331-1622.  For more information on membership and benefits visit the membership section of the MAA website.
 

New Books and DVDs from the MAA

Once the labors of the academic year are done, take some time to browse through some of these excellent new titles from the MAA:

  • Calculus Deconstructed, a textbook by Zbigniew Nitecki presents a thorough and mathematically rigorous exposition of single variable calculus for readers with some previous exposure to calculus techniques but not methods of proof. 
  • Who Gave You the Epsilon?, a sequel to the MAA bestselling book Sherlock Holmes in Babylon  is a collection of articles on the history of mathematics from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
  • When Less is More illustrates how the use of visualization can be a powerful tool for better understanding some basic mathematical inequalities..

And, don’t miss these excellent DVDs from the MAA: