Eight students and seven faculty members from the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science attended and participated in the Spring Meeting of the Indiana Section of the Mathematical Association of America at Franklin College, Franklin, Indiana, on April 9-10, 2010.

Associate Professor Ken Luther is Chair of the section in 2009-10, and organized the meeting.  Associate Professor Patrick Sullivan was elected Vice Chair of the section for 2010-11, and will become Chair of the section in 2011-12.

Assistant Professor Melissa Desjarlais gave the presentation, “Threshold Signed Dominating Function for Trees”.  Assistant Professors Lara Pudwell, Daniel Maxin and Sara Crawford helped organize a panel session on undergraduate research. 

Two students gave presentations; Brittany Wagoner gave the presentation, “Medians of Permutations”, which is based on work with Patrick Slattery, Samantha Frisk, and Kelsey Watson – who also attended the conference.  Mark Burek presented, “Modeling the Political Stability of Neighborhoods in the U.S.”, which is based on work with Michael Borchert and Spencer Roach. 

Two teams of Valpo students participated in the annual Indiana College Mathematics Competition (ICMC), the “Friendly Competition” of problem solving among teams of students from many Indiana colleges and universities.  Participating students were Kelsey Watson, Samantha Frisk, Traci Blonquist, Patrick Slattery, Robert Thompson, and Dave Wyman. 

Professor Bill Marion was presented with the Indiana Section Distinguished Service Award for 2010.