This year the Discretionary account has been used to support the math department colloquium expenses, a Pi Day party with the Math Club, retirement celebrations for Professors Malyshev and Weddington, a joint Math Department/CS Department picnic, student travel to conferences, technology purchases and various other miscellaneous expenses.
In addition, we thank emeritus faculty member Martin Billik who generously contributed money for a yearly prize to a student with notable accomplishments in classwork or research related to real or complex analysis, ordinary or partial differential equations, or numerical analysis. The first Billik prize in Analysis was awarded this year to Jason Smith for his research and classwork in Partial Differential Equations. Professor Billik was a member of the Math Dept. for 45 years and fully retired in 2007.
Besides the Billik prize, the Math Department also gives the following scholarships and awards every year, 1) Hoggatt prize, 2) Fuller scholarship, 3) Dieckmann scholarship, 4) Math Department scholarship, 5) Morton award, (to a prospective teacher), 6) Byrd scholarship, 7) Bradshaw award (to the best Math Dept. TA), 8) Problem of the Week prizes, and 9) Putnam Exam prizes. The Math Dept. is blessed that the gifts of past donors have allowed us to fund such a variety of scholarships and awards. We encourage the past recipients of these awards to make contributions to support the Franklyn B. Fuller scholarship fund, the Richard H. C. Dieckmann scholarship fund, the Lucille R. Morton scholarship fund, the Paul Byrd scholarship fund, the Kenneth Bradshaw scholarship fund, the Problem of the Week prize fund, and the Putnam Exam prize fund. Making contributions to these funds will allow us to offer larger awards (or more awards) in the future to the many deserving recipients who apply for Math Department scholarships each year. The 2008 scholarship and awards winners were 1st place POW undergrad division Siddhartha Kanungo, 1st place POW grad division, Michael Pejic, Putnam Prize winners, Siddhartha Kanungo 1st place, Cuong Dong 2nd place, Phuong Ho 3rd place, Hoggatt prize Siddhartha Kanungo, Bradshaw scholarship Simon Ward, Math Dept. scholarship Chris Fowler, Fuller scholarships Anita Chinthalapati and Peter Hansen, Dieckmann scholarship Sejal Dharia, Byrd scholarship Michael Pejic, Morton scholarship Leslie Stamm. This year our scholarship winners will all receive awards of $500.
We also want to thank those who generously contributed to the Math Department’s Advancement Council Account including, Julie Mitchell and Sandy Zhang, Marilyn Blockus and Samih Obaid for their contributions to the Problem of the Week prize fund, Tim Hsu, Samih Obaid, and Linda Valdes who contributed money for the new magnetic picture display board in the main math department display case (special thanks to our webmaster Bem Cayco for her awesome pictures), and Ken Bradshaw who contributed money to fund which supports a yearly award given to the Math department’s best TA. This year the Math Department Advancement Council fund has been used to fund the Math Department scholarship fund, the Bradshaw award, the Problem of the Week prizes, the Putnam Exam prizes, small equipment purchases, as well as various other miscellaneous expenses.
We in the Math Department are fortunate to have many outstanding students. Some of these students are able to perform mathematics-related research with the guidance and encouragement of one of more of the mathematics department faculty members. While we have many scholarship funds it would be nice to have additional funds which can be used to support student research, including funds to support student travel to conferences to talk about their research with others. In the past several years we’ve been able to get students to present their work at the College of Science Research Day at SJSU, the MAA summer MathFest, the Northern California Undergraduate Math conference, and the AMS joint mathematics conference. Many of these students are inspired to pursue advanced degrees including PhDs after they leave San Jose State. In the past 5-6 years we’ve been able to convince many of our best students continue on to pursue a PhD in mathematics, including 1) Tracy Holsclaw BS Applied Math MS Math 2007 applied math PhD student at UCSC, 2) Weitao Wu BS Applied Math 2006 (triple major in math, physics, EE) physics PhD student UCSC, 3) Efrem Rensi BS Applied Math 2005 applied math PhD student UC, Davis, 4) Matthew Low MS Math 2005 math PhD student UC, Davis, 5) Marian Hofer BS Applied Math, emphasis in Stat 2005 applied math & Statistics PhD student UCSC, 6) Earvin Balderama, BS Applied Math, emphasis in Stat, 2004 statistics PhD student UCLA, 7) Andrew LeDoan, MS Math, 2002 math PhD U Illinois, now a math professor at University of Rochester, 8) Dashiell Fryer MS Math 2005, math PhD student U Illinois, 9) Dean Leonardi MS Math 2002, applied math PhD student U Illinois, 10) Ken Hoover MS Math 2001, math PhD U Oregon, now a math professor at CSU, Stanislaus, 11) Qiang Wang, math Ph.D. student UC Davis, 12) Alex Jing-Wei Huang, BS Math 2006, applied math Ph.D. student UC Davis, 13) Lucinda Robledo, BS Applied Math applied math Ph.D. UCSC, 14) Alex Waagen, Ph.D., Applied Math UC Davis, 15) Siddhartha Kanungo, BA Math SJSU 2008 Ph.D., Math UCLA, 16) Michael Pejic, Ph.D., Mathematics UC Berkeley, 17) Ivan Zaigralin MS Math SJSU 2006, Boston University PhD student in Mathematics and Statistics. We wish them every success in their advanced studies.
Recently the College of Science received a 2 million dollar STEP grant to improve the success rates of its students in science gateway courses. In the Math Dept. the main gateway courses (for science and engineering majors) are Math 19 Precalculus, Math 30,30P,31,32 Calculus, and Math 42 Discrete Math. The STEP grant is funding a new College of Science advising center. The STEP grant will also be funding several math department initiatives, including the addition of workshops in Precaclulus, Calculus I, and Calculus II to improve the student passing rates in those courses. The workshops we are adding are modeled after the Calculus workshops at CSU, LA, which have improved the passing rates in their calculus courses to more than 80%. The STEP grant is also being used to pay for math tutors in MacQuarrie Hall. We are also trying to make the hallways of MacQuarrie Hall more conducive to getting students to interact and study together by adding tables, chairs, and boards in certain areas.
The university library has had to deal with severe declines of financial support. At the time the cost of books has increased, further eroding the ability of the library to support mathematics and other disciplines. The library estimates its purchasing power has been eroded by 58%. The Department of History has an endowment which can be used to offset the erosion. The Department of Art also receives an annual gift of $4,000 to support an online journal. Mathematics has no current angels. It would take approximately $20,000 to recover the buying power of the library in the early 90's. Our department's goal is to raise $5,000 or 25% of this loss through fundraising. Make Checks payable to San Jose State University Library. On the memo line or lower left hand corner of your check, please write " For Mathematics".
Even in the best of times the Math Department doesn’t get enough money from the state to buy the equipment that it needs. We are in the process of changing over our classrooms so that instead of being equipped with TVs and overhead projectors, they will become full-fledged smart classrooms with ceiling-mounted LCD projectors and/or smart boards that can be hooked up to laptop computers for in-class presentations. We may get help from the university in changing some of the university classrooms that the Math Department uses to smart classrooms but there are still several classrooms that are controlled by the Math Department (MH 221, MH 320, and MH 426) where we would like to install LCD projectors or Smart boards and for these rooms the full cost will need to be paid by the Math Department. Some of the math department faculty members will also need laptops to use in the smart classrooms.
Our CAMCOS program recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. In CAMCOS, teams of students supervised by a professor from the Math Department work on a problem supplied by a sponsor in business or industry. Our CAMCOS director is always looking for companies and individuals who will want to sponsor CAMCOS projects. If you know of any such individuals you should contact our CAMCOS director Tim Hsu (hsu@math.sjsu.edu).
The Math Department is also in the process of developing new Professional Science Master’s degrees in applied math and statistics. A Professional Science Masters degree is designed to be a terminal degree, which not only teaches students mathematics and statistics and related areas of science but also teaches them some of the other skills necessary for a successful career in business and industry (communication skills, computer skills, teamwork skills, etc.) We are looking for people who have experience working in business and industry, who would be willing to help us in designing the degrees as well as people with connections in business and industry who might be willing to sponsor CAMCOS projects and internships for the students in these programs.