Executive Committee Meeting
                         Wisconsin Section of the MAA
                               January 18, 2002
                        University of Wisconsin-Baraboo


                      -- PRELIMINARY DRAFT -- 


         Present:  Kathy Muhs, John Koker (chair), John Symms, Rick 
         Tufte, Tony Thomas, Jon Kane, Andy Matchett.  
         Excused:  Jim Marty, Aaron Trautwein, Ben Collins, Bhagat Singh

         Meeting called to order at 4:05 p.m.

      1. Matchett presented minutes of the September 28 meeting and the 
         treasurer's report.  Both were accepted.  

      2. Rick Tufte presented his Governor's report.  Mathfest will be 
         back in Madison, Wisconsin in the summer of 2007.  The MAA is in 
         good shape financially, and membership is up.  Solvency is a 
         high priority with Tina Straley and Ann Watkins.  The 
         organization is back to full staff, so services should be very 
         good.  Rick encouraged the committee to promote student 
         membership.  
         
         A policy on emailings to members is being formulated.  Sections 
         should devise a plan along the lines of having one person 
         designated to transmit emailing requests to the MAA.  In our 
         case, a natural choice might be the public information officer.  
         The MAA will keep the data base of email addresses of members 
         and will not release that.  For the time being we will just 
         request emailings to members as needed.  Jon Kane will request 
         the national organization to send out a second call for speakers 
         to Wisconsin Section members.  The Committee supports this.  
         John Koker will draft a Wisconsin Section policy for mass 
         emailings.  This draft will be discussed at the Business Meeting 
         on April 13, 2002.  
         
      3. The nominating committee -- Linda Thompson, Fredrick
         Tufte, and John Koker -- selected Rick Poss (St. Norbert College) 
         and J. Sriskandarajah (Madison Area Technical College) as the 
         nominees for section governor.  We are fortunate to have two 
         such excellent candidates who are willing to serve.  Rick 
         Tufte's term as governor ends on July 1, 2002.

      4. Jon Kane, John Koker, and Rick Tufte reported on the Section 
         Officer's Meeting, which they attended in San Diego.  More 
         sigmas are in the works, perhaps on math history and on web 
         based teaching.  It was suggested that Kathy consider publishing 
         in the Newsletter a short supportive announcement about the
         professional enhancement program that the MAA is wanting to 
         promote.  There was some discussion of having a Friday morning 
         workshop on assessment in conjunction with the spring meeting.

      5. The Mathematics Contests are on schedule under the leadership of 
         Ken Jewel, Steve Post, and Linda Uselman.  Prizes and 
         certificates are being mailed to high schools.  It may be 
         decided to give each high school just one book, regardless of 
         how many students take the contest at that high school.  
         Whatever works best for Ken, Steve, and Linda is fine.

      6. The Newsletter deadline this year is Feb. 7.  All articles 
         should be emailed to Kathy Muhs by that date.

      7. Spring Meeting.
         
         Matchett will contact Norm Loomer about banquet facilities, and 
         will finalize the registration form.  Invited speakers at the 
         spring meeting tentatively will be Martha Siegel, Ken Ono, and 
         Titu Andreescu.  John Koker will get biographies of the two 
         nominees for chair elect.  The nominees are Mark Snavely 
         (Carthage College) and David Scott (Ripon College).  

         So far there are approximately 10 speakers;  Jon Kane will send 
         out a second call via email, with the support and approval of 
         the Executive Committee.
         
         As usual, students will be charged $5.00 for the banquet and 
         will register for free.

      8. Project NExT

         The consensus was that statistics would be an excellent topic 
         for a workshop.  That one topic alone would be enough.  It is 
         appropriate to have just one main speaker.  Then a second 
         speaker from the local area could be considered to add interest 
         and furnish other points of view on the topics treated.  The 
         consensus was that a $25 registration fee was highly 
         appropriate, and should not be covered by section funds or grant 
         funds obtained by the section.  It is hoped and expected that 
         the home universities and colleges of NExT participants will 
         gladly pay the $25 registration fee as well as travel expenses 
         and room and board.  It was suggested that if the number of 
         applicants for a workshop exceeds the workshop capacity, then 
         the selection process should place a higher priority on newer 
         faculty members.  
         
     9.  The WMC is organizing a panel discussion on PI 34.  Hank Kepner 
         and Marty Schuh are involved in this.  John Koker will consider 
         asking Hank if he also wants to run the panel discussion at our 
         meeting.

     10. The meeting adjourned to the Little Village Restaurant.  

         Respectfully submitted, 


         Andy Matchett 
         Secretary/treas.