Math Newsletter - Winter 2021
January 2021 Math Department Newsletter
Happy January!
Congratulations to everyone for making it through a challenging and unprecedented Fall semester! The hard work of a pandemic spring helped us get prepared for the fall. Our instructors adapted to the new circumstances: MATH 1113 (Precalculus) used projects instead of exams to assess students; MATH 2250 used the videos created for our flipped calculus courses as valuable supplemental material for hybrid classes which incorporated both online and face-to-face components. Our dedicated instructors did a great job of giving our students a positive educational experience.
It is a pleasure to embark on the Spring semester with news of an award: faculty member Toyin Alli was selected to receive a Sandy Beaver Excellence in Teaching Award from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. Toyin is an outstanding contributor to the department’s teaching mission. Her classroom teaching is superb. She is a first-rate mentor and contributor to teaching-related professional development at UGA (pictured is some boardwork from her presentation in our MATH 9005 course for new graduate student instructors). She has played a significant role in the dramatic improvements in MATH 1113 (Precalculus), one of our largest and most important gateway courses. For all of these reasons and more, she is an ideal recipient of this award – congratulations to Toyin for receiving this honor!
Our department’s teaching was recognized by a nomination for a Regents Teaching Excellence Award from the University System of Georgia. Among the highlights of the nomination was the continued improvement in our gateway Precalculus and Calculus courses: for example, the percentage of students receiving grades of D or F or withdrawing (DWF rate) in MATH 1113 fell from 33% in Fall 2015 to 9% in Fall 2019. Moreover, students who complete Precalculus at UGA are showing greater gains in our Calculus than those who fulfill their Precalculus elsewhere – strong evidence that academic standards have been maintained.
Two members of our department – Joseph Hoisington and Sofya Zaytseva – were selected to participate in Project NeXT (New Experiences in Teaching). This Mathematical Association of America professional development program for recent Ph.D.s “addresses all aspects of an academic career: improving the teaching and learning of mathematics, engaging in research and scholarship, finding exciting and interesting service opportunities, and participating in professional activities” (to quote from the MAA website). In other MAA news, faculty member Robert Schneider is the President-elect of the SIGMAA (Special Interest Group of the MAA) on Recreational Mathematics.
We welcomed Kestrina Shrestha to the department this fall. Kestrina joined us as a math advisor from the Franklin College. Kestrina has taken the lead in improving our faculty advising, and organized a very helpful “Math Faculty Mentor Resource and Support Event” in January. This was led by Jeremy Daniel, Associate Director of the UGA Mentor Program, and focused on ways in which faculty can enhance mentorship relations with their students. You can read more about Kestrina's background and the insights she has shared with our students in the article which appeared in the Graduate School magazine.
Our Undergraduate Research Program, led by Undergraduate Research Coordinators Lin Mu and Robert Schneider, continues to flourish. This past August, about 20 undergraduates (and a number of graduate students and other guest speakers) contributed projects in various formats to the department’s first Summer Undergraduate Mathematics Research Conference (SUMR). The conference was held in a hybrid asynchronous and synchronous virtual environment using UGA’s eLearning Commons platform (eLC). We intend SUMR to become an annual end-of-year conference, to highlight the excellent work of our undergraduates and research mentors. Undergraduate research activity continued during Fall 2020: about 15 students were enrolled for research and experiential learning projects, and several received CURO Research Assistantships.
Department faculty continue to innovate in undergraduate research. For example, building on his successful track record of projects linking mathematics and art, David Gay is starting an undergraduate research opportunity called GROVI (pronounced “groovy”), the Geometry Research, Outreach and Visualization Initiative at UGA. This program will begin Spring semester, and provide an opportunity for undergraduates to work on geometric visualization projects. It will be particularly well-suited to students with solid mathematical training, and some skills in programming, or graphic design or art. The outcomes may be presented in a variety of media, from computer animations to hand drawings to 3D models. The long-term goal is to work towards a “Pop-up Museum of Geometry.” In the short term the group will focus on one or two small projects, making them mathematically meaningful, professionally presented, and aesthetically appealing, and also on developing an overall framework for the design processes involved.
Our department made use of Zoom to maintain research collaborations and connections with each other at a time when in-person meetings are few. Our seminars hosted speakers from as far away as Australia – one advantage of meeting virtually! Graduate Coordinator Neil Lyall organized our departmental colloquium series this year, also held via Zoom. This year, the colloquium is focusing on in-house speakers, to showcase the great research that is happening within our different research groups. Three faculty gave presentations: Ming-Jun Lai (Multivariate Splines: Theory, Computation, and Applications), Daniel Litt (Arithmetic topology and the fundamental group) and Akos Magyar (Polynomial ergodic theorems); pictured are two illustrations from Daniel Litt's talk. The colloquium was a welcome venue for us to virtually get together, as well as a way to provide junior graduate students with clearer picture of some research directions they might ultimately get involved in.
Our distinguished Ph.D. graduate Shirley McBay was profiled as part of the Georgia Groundbreakers series, which celebrates innovative and visionary members of the UGA community -- faculty, students, and other leaders.
The article highlights Dr. McBay’s accomplishments, and her advocacy of policies and programs to help minority and other underrepresented students succeed. The article contains a brief snippet of Dr. McBay’s testimony to a congressional subcommittee in 1992, which can be found in full at this link, starting at around 34 minutes.
The members of the UGA Math Club produced a video,"I Like Math Because: UGA Math Majors and Minors Talk About Mathematics." It's an excellent reminder of the many reasons to major or minor in math -- thanks to the members of the Math Club who produced this great video and to Mo Hendon (our Undergraduate Coordinator) and to Robert Schneider for helping with the effort.
I’m proud of what our department has accomplished during these trying times. Our flexibility and our robust instructional culture have helped us meet the demands of hybrid and online instruction. We’ve worked to maintain community and provide a quality experience for our students, and the lessons we’ve learned will help us do an even better job in the coming semester.
In closing, I would like to ask that you consider supporting the Mathematics Department. We are very grateful to the generous donors who have helped provide funds for awards and support of our students. Our general math fund supports a variety of educational and research activities in the department. You can contribute online at this website. Our Math Club organizes events and speakers for our majors throughout the academic year. You can contribute to the Math Club fund online at this website.
Best wishes,
Bill Graham
Head, Department of Mathematics
|
The University of Georgia Foundation is registered to solicit in every state and provides state specific registration information at http://www.ugafoundation.org/charity.