Business Meeting Wisconsin Section of the MAA April 13, 2002 Ripon College 1. The meeting was called to order at 8:03 a.m. by Chair John Koker. Approximately 45 members were in attendance. Matchett presented minutes of last year's business meeting at St. Norbert College. He also presented his Treasurer's Report. Both were approved. Special thanks were extended to the two companies that had exhibits at the meeting. They were Brooks Cole/Duxbury, represented by Lisa Miller, and Texas Instruments, represented by Bill Stiggers. 2. Rick Tufte gave his Governor's report, and Martha Siegel contributed information on developments since the last governors' meeting. The MAA is now in robust financial shape. Rick gave an overview of workshops and panel discussions planned for Mathfest 2002 at Burlington, Vermont Efforts to increase membership continue. Our section has done its part thanks to Charlotte Chell, Aaron Trautwein, and John Frohliger, who have paid visits every year to UW- Madison, UW-Milwaukee, or Marquette University to talk with graduate students about services and activities of the MAA. The MAA is considering making part of the MAA website open to members only. Martha reminded us that the joint meetings are in Baltimore this January, and encouraged all to attend. Because Mathfest was so successful in Madison last summer, it will return to Madison in 2007. Tufte thanked the Section for the opportunity to serve these past three years as governor which was met with warm applause from those in attendance. He will move on to be the MAA representative to AAAS. Rick Poss is the new governor of the Section. 3. The candidates for Chair-Elect were introduced: David Scott, Ripon College, and Mark Snavely, Carthage College. Ballots were distributed to those in attendance. 4. Kathy Muhs led a discussion of future directions for our Newsletter. There was a serious discussion of publishing the newsletter via the web instead of by mailing out printed copies. Proponents for the change cited saving paper and saving money as reasons. Opponents to the change noted that people like printed copies and printed copies will be made anyway by many readers lessening the paper saving. John Koker closed the discussion saying that the executive committee would consider all the points made and would come to a decision at its meeting at noon that day. [Update: The newsletter will be distributed by mail as usual, but will also be available on the section website and may be emailed to members as well. In the future members may be given the option not to receive a printed copy if they so desire.] Announcement of election results: Mark Snavely is the new Chair-Elect. 5. The National office is wanting each section to designate one person to be the person to pass requests for emailings to members to the national office which has an up-to-date list of email addresses of section members. Our public information officer, Aaron Trautwein, is the natural choice to take on that job. 6. John Koker led a discussion of future meeting sites and a meeting date for 2003. A vote of 18 to 9 showed a preference for holding the 2003 meeting on Apr 25-26. As for future meeting sites, we have invitations from MATC, UW- West Bend, and UW-Platteville. UW-Whitewater expressed interest last year, but has withdrawn its invitation. There is some question about whether there will be enough space at UW-West Bend for the Friday evening banquet. Ben Collins made a strong case that UW-Platteville was ready and eager to host the meeting. Thus the following consensus emerged: The meeting should be at UW-Platteville in 2004, and, contingent upon availability of suitable facilities, at UW- West Bend in 2005. 7. John Symms gave his annual report on the Mathematics Contests. He particularly wished to extend our thanks to Ken Jewell, Steve Post, and Linda Uselmann for their unremitting attention as Contest Co-chairs to the details of running the State Math Contest. Each year the two students with the highest combined scores in the AMC and State Contest are awarded prizes by the Wisconsin Section. This year the winners were, for the second year in a row, Po-Ru Loh and Yian Zhang. 8. Tony Thomas, our coordinator of student activities, thanked faculty sponsors for the many excellent student talks. This year many students enjoyed the Friday night banquet, of which they were able to partake at the reduced price of $5.00 because of a generous subsidy from the Section. Tony also thanked Pi Mu Epsilon for supporting student participation in the meeting. 9. Our Project NExT Director, Ben Collins, reported on the Panel Discussion which he organized for this meeting. Panelists were Diane Benjamin (UW-Platteville), Jen Szydlik (UW-Oshkosh, Linda Thompson (Carroll College), and Tom Wineinger (UW-Eau Claire). The event occurred Friday morning. Ben is planning a workshop for the fall. The speaker/facilitator will be Michael Starbird and the title of the workshop will be "Presenting the Heart of Mathematics to All Students". Project NExT is open to faculty in the mathematical sciences in their first four years. 10. The meeting was adjourned at 8:55 a.m. Respectfully submitted, Andrew Matchett Secretary