USA Foundation Professorship
Mathematics and Statistics - 1999/2000

• If money earmarked for a specific purpose, e.g. a mathematical artist in the Lecture Series, cannot be spent, it will be held over for next year and spent for the same purpose.
• If money not earmarked for a specific purpose is not spent, return it to the general pool for future projects.

In particular, funds are still available for speakers and travel to teaching related meetings.

Funding for 1999/2000 will be distributed as follows. Project descriptions are taken for the most part from the submitted proposals.

Student Activities - $3,000

Project 99-A

Administrator: Student Affairs Committee

The Student Affairs Committee is charged with investigating the feasibility and if feasible organizing the implementation of the following two projects.

• MathStat Problem Contest - Every three weeks or so a problem would be posted on a bulletin board. Students would have a few days to submit solutions to the department office. The first two correct answers received would win a small prize, such as a gift certificate for a free lunch.

  If necessary, restrictions could be placed on who would be eligible to submit solutions. And a limit could be placed on the number of small prizes a person can win.

  At the end of each semester we could have a drawing where the entries are all those who have submitted a correct solution during the past semester -- not just the prize winners. We could have three prizes, such as software or books, given out. And we would have a reception following the drawing.

• Saturday MathStat School - This would consist of two hours of lectures (and problem sessions and time in the computer lab) each Saturday over a ten week period in the spring. We should try to get junior-level students from the local high schools -- before they've made up their minds on which college to attend.

  The lectures would be given by a team of faculty, taking turns, occasionally working together. The faculty who participate should get release time for this activity.

1999/2000 USA Foundation Lecture Series in Mathematics and Statistics - $12,000+

Project 99-B

Administrator: Colloquium Committee

The Departmental Colloquium Committee will be charged with all management of the Lecture Series. In general, the committee should actively seek scholars that can attract a wide University audience of both students and faculty, and speakers that can address innovative, controversial or timely, approaches to teaching mathematics and statistics. Two specific projects for this year will be coordinated through the Colloquium Committee

• Careers in Statistics - $6,000
  Project 99-B1
  Administrators: Mark Carpenter and Pandu Kulkarni
  
  To highlight the exciting careers in Statistics that are available to our students and increase the quality of our teaching skills, This seminar series will bring in six statistical practitioners and researchers from across the country and across applications. The speakers will be as follows two research statisticians from such places as Bell Laboratories and federal agencies, one to two statisticians in the biomedical field, and one to two statisticians from industrial areas, and two statisticians who specialize in statistical education. The presentations will be designed to have a broad-based appeal across all programs on campus and will be accessible to faculty and students alike. Students in our introductory statistics and mathematics courses will be strongly encouraged to attend. The goal of this series is two-fold,
  • Get students at all levels excited about pursuing their statistical study, whether they add one or two courses, pursue a minor, or commit to becoming one of our math/stat majors and
  • Enhance our skills as statistical educators.

Mathematical Scholars Series - $6,000

Project 99-B2

Administrator: Scott Carter

The colloquium series in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics provides a means of professional interaction among the faculty and students in our department and world experts in a number of areas. Six to eight scholars will be invited for short visits culminating in departmental colloquia. The speakers would be chosen from among: John Baez, mathematical physics (University of California, Riverside); Dror Bar-Natan, mathematical physics and knot theory (Hebrew University); Joan Birman, topology and group theory (Columbia University); Louis H. Kauffman, knot theory and physics (University of Illinois, Chicago); Greg Kuperburg, knot theory, combinatorics, and dynamical systems (University of California, Davis); David Manderscheid, analysis and representation theory (University of Iowa); Gail Ratcliff, analysis and representation theory (University of Missouri, St. Louis); Daniel Ruberman, gauge theory and Donaldson/Seiberg-Witten Invariants (Brandeis University); Lee Rudolph, knot theory (Clarke University); and Masahico Saito, higher dimensional knot theory (University of South Florida).

1999/2000 USA Foundation Travel Fund - $2,500

Project 99-C

Administrator: Department Chairman

This fund shall be used to support student activities involving travel. This could include support for faculty advisers as necessary. Travel needs could arise, for example, in the following two ways:

• Travel to present undergraduate research at appropriate conferences.
• Travel to participate in undergraduate competitions in mathematics, statistics, or modeling.

It is not suggested that Endowed Professorship funding for student related travel be limited to the two items above.

Practical Aids for Engineering Statistics - $300

Project 99-D

Administrator: Madhuri Mulekar

It is important to illustrate concepts of statistics through experiments. This fund will be used to purchase supplies for two experiments conducted by students in ST 315. The first experiment can be used to illustrate selection and use of appropriate graphical and numerical measures, estimation using confidence intervals, one sample t-test, two sample t-tests, paired difference t-test, analysis of variance. The second experiment can be used to illustrate all the above and concepts involved in factorial experiments. These experiments need practical aids such as different types of paper clips and stop watches. They will be designed so that all the instructors of ST 315 will be able to use them.

G³ - Geometric Groups on the Gulf Coast - $1,000

Project 99-E

Administrator: Stephen Brick

Brick: "It is my hope to establish the conference G³ as a regular annual event in the field. The nature of funding, especially early application dates and late award notifications, makes the planning of such affairs somewhat difficult. To guard against the chance that we (Jon Corson from Tuscaloosa, myself, and Phil Bowers from Florida) do not receive the necessary funds elsewhere, I wish to apply for a minimal amount of funding through the Foundation Professorship program.

This request is for the third annual meeting of the conference, which will take place in late spring or early summer of the year 2000. It happens that is around the time of the 65th birthday of my former advisor, John Stallings. It is our plan to advertise G³ that year as being part of a birthday celebration for him. We are hoping that doing so will strengthen our chances for NSF funding."

Contingency Fund

Project 99-F

Administrator: Department Chairman

Any funds remaining will be held as a contingency to take advantage of opportunities that might arise during the year. These may be specifically requested from the Chair at anytime.