Past Section Meetings

Summaries: Click here for a summary of past section meetings from 1937 to the present.

Meeting packages: Various information from past section meetings, typically including the program and venue information, is collected into PDF files here:

MeetingMaterials2015.pdf - 2015 Section Meeting (El Paso Community College) meeting materials: conference web page, forms (registration, presenter), campus map, program)

MeetingMaterials2014.pdf - 2014 Section Meeting (Paradise Valley Community College, Phoenix) meeting materials: conference web page, forms (registration, presenter), campus map, program booklet)

MeetingMaterials2013.pdf - 2013 Section Meeting (New Mexico Tech, Socorro) meeting materials: conference web page, forms (registration, poster session, presenter application, vendor application, presider application), campus and area maps, program booklet, article from El Defensor Chieftain

MeetingMaterials2012.pdf - 2012 Section Meeting (Pima Community College Downtown Campus, Tucson, Arizona) meeting materials: summary, program booklet, session schedule

MeetingMaterials2011.pdf - 2011 Section Meeting (Eastern New Mexico University, Roswell, New Mexico) meeting materials: schedule, list of speakers and abstracts, campus map, hotel information, forms (vendor, speaker, registrant)

MeetingMaterials2010.pdf - 2010 Section Meeting (Scottsdale Community College, Scottsdale, AZ) meeting materials: schedule, list of speakers and abstracts, forms (vendor, speaker, registrant), lodging and local information, banquet menu

MeetingMaterials2009.pdf - 2009 Section Meeting (WNMU, Silver City, NM) meeting materials: program, registration forms, vendor forms, lodging

MeetingMaterials2008.pdf - 2008 Section Meeting (Crowne Plaza San Marcos Resort, Tempe, AZ) meeting materials: program and abstracts, registration forms, vendor forms

MeetingMaterials2007.pdf - 2007 Section Meeting (UNM-Valencia) - most materials are lost, here are the Business Meeting minutes and the financials

MeetingMaterials2006.pdf - 2006 Section Meeting (Four Points by Sheraton,Tucson, AZ) meeting materials: call for papers, program, registration forms, lodging

MeetingMaterials2005.pdf - 2005 Section Meeting (University of Texas at El Paso) meeting materials: program, registration forms, vendor forms, lodging

MeetingMaterials2004.pdf - 2004 Section Meeting (Northern Arizona University) meeting materials: call for papers, program, registration forms, banquet, lodgingMeetingMaterials2003.pdf2003 Section Meeting (New Mexico Tech) meeting materials: schedule, call for papers, registration forms, hotel info, Socorro info

FIRST MEETING OF THE SOUTHWESTERN SECTION - 1937

In 1937 the secretarial reports to the MAA read much as they do today. The following is selected from the Monthly, Vol. 44 (1937), 429-432:

The first annual meeting of the Southwestern Section of the Mathematical Association of America was held at New Mexico State College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now NMSU), on Friday and Saturday, April 2-3, 1937.

The attendance was thirty-four, including the following thirteen members of the Association: J. W. Branson, NMSU; R. F. Graesser, UA; E. A. Hazlewood, NMSU; H. D. Larsen, UNM; C. V. Newsom, UNM; E. J. Purcell, UA; P. K. Rees, NSMU; W. C. Risselman, NAU; F. W. Sparks, TTC; R. S. Underwood, TTC; C. A. Barnhart, UA; H. B. Leonard, UA and E. L. Harp, Roswell, NM.

On Friday evening there was a banquet for mathematicians and their guests. The principal address after dinner was given by Professor Emeritus J. B. Shaw of the University of Illinois.

With professor P. K. Rees, Chairman of the Section, presiding, the following papers were presented on Friday:
1. "Some mathematical computations involved in a determination of the oxygen parameters of sodium periodate" by Professor E. A. Hazlewood, New Mexico State College.
2. "Hedging as a mathematical art" by Dr. H. D. Larsen, University of New Mexico.
3. "Involutions" by Dr. E. J. Purcell, University of Arizona.
4. "The characteristic equation of a certain type of continued fraction expansion" by Professor P. M. Singer, New Mexico State Teachers College introduced by the secretary.
5. "A study of a recent theorem of W. B. Ford" by D. A. Lawson (introduced by Professor Newsom) and Professor C. V. Newsom, University of New Mexico.
6. "Algebras defined by abstract groups whose operators are all of the form AxBy" by Professor J. B. Shaw, University of Illinois, introduced by the secretary.
7. "Some corollaries of the Fourier-Budan theorem" by Professor W. C. Risselman, Arizona State Teachers College at Flagstaff.
8. "Relative delicacy of certain convergence tests" by Professor R. S. Underwood, Texas Technological College.

On Saturday afternoon there was a symposium on the teaching problems in mathematics. With R. F. Graesser presiding, the following papers were presented:
1. "The teaching of a unit in hyperbolic functions" by Professor Edna Graham, West Texas State Teachers College, introduced by Professor Graesser.
2. "College mathematics and the new curriculum" by Professor F. W. Sparks, Texas Technological College.
3. "Suggestions for research in teaching procedure" by Professor Branson, New Mexico State College.
4. "Meeting the problem in freshman mathematics" by Professor J. L. Olpin, Gila Junior College, Thatcher, Ariz., introduced by Professor Graesser.
5. "What is to be done about high school mathematics" by Professor Charles Wexler, Arizona State Teachers College at Tempe, introduced by Professor Graesser.

Abstracts included such statements as:

"Only a small percent of students have taken more than the required high school courses. This creates a problem that will be more and more serious until a solution is found." "Students who register for freshman mathematics cannot be expected to have very much background" Professor Wexler advocated that "College mathematics departments should ruthlessly weed out from among their majors the incompetents who just get by in each course."

Alas, it seems that the problems of teaching mathematics have changed very little over the years! Found in the same Monthly is an advertisement for K. & E. slide rules and one for the Duke Mathematical Journal for $2.00 per year.

INVITED SPEAKERS

The list of invited speakers to the section meetings is indeed impressive. Some were section members, but often they were MAA officers. There have always been a variety of presentations, some on technical and expository mathematics, some on mathematical education, some on women and minorities in mathematics, some on history and some on interesting combinations of these. Presidents and past presidents of MAA have often accepted invitations to speak. For a complete list of speakers see the Summary of Meetings in the Appendix C. The following list gives a flavor of these speakers and their topics.

The reader will notice that there are many missing entries in the list that follows. Appendix C contains the names of the invited speakers but not the titles of their talks. If you happen to have an old program that lists the titles of the talks, please send them to the Webmaster. Any such information would be much appreciated by the section.

  • 1941: E. T. Bell, 1931 president of MAA, California Institute of Technology, Diophantine analysis.

  • 1963: L. J. Mordell, UA, Diophantine equations. Stefan Bergman, Stanford University, On orthogonal functions in the theory of conformal mapping. R. H. Bing, 1963 president of MAA, Institute for Advanced Study, Spheres in E3. Visiting Professor L. M. Milne-Thompson, UA, Some thoughts on determinants.

  • 1966: E. Dyer, Rice U, Quasi Topology. I. N. Herstein, University of Chicago, Rings of quotients. R. B. Crouch, NMSU was the keynote speaker.

  • 1967: G. S. Rogers, NMSU, How to pick a campsite. M. S. Klamkin, Ford Science Laboratory, Problem solving via transforms. G. L. Thompson, Carnegie Institute of Technology, Game theory and the von Neumann model of an expanding economy.

  • 1971: A. W. Tucker, 1961 president of MAA, Princeton University, Comments on curricula reform.

  • 1976: C. V. Newsom, Chairperson of the Guggenheim Foundation, primary founder of the Southwestern Section and former Editor of the Monthly.

  • 1978: Victor Klee, 1971 president of MAA, University of Washington, How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

  • 1981: R. W. Anderson, 1981 president of MAA, Louisiana State University, Washington representation of mathematics and Some elementary ideas in infinite dimensional topology. Ruth Rebekka Struik, University of Colorado-Boulder, Women mathematicians some famous and some not so famous and A group construction associated with Lagrange's theorem. Jean J. Pederson, University of Santa Clara, There is more to geometric figures than meets the eye and Teaching mathematics to adults.

  • 1982: Reuben Hersh, UNM, True facts about imaginary objects. Henry Alder, 1977 president of MAA, University of California - Davis, Drama in mathematics: A demonstration with partitions. John Brillhart, UA, A scholar's trip to China.

  • 1985: Constance Reid, San Francisco, Hilbert as a household word. Ivan Niven, past vice president of MAA, University of Oregon, Some observations on mathematics and mathematicians. Gregory Brumfiel, Stanford, Modern real algebra. George Bergman, University of California - Berkeley, Representable functors among categories of algebras.

  • 1987: Leonard Gillman, University of Texas and president of MAA, Classroom notes. Judy Moore, Sandia Corporation, Cryptography: Are two keys better than one? E. D. Gaughan, NMSU, secretary/treasurer of the section, 50 years of the Southwestern Section.

  • 1988: Joe Crosswhite, past president of the National Council of the Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), NAU, Curriculum and evaluation standards for school mathematics. Bernard Madison, Project Director of MS 2000, University of Arkansas, Mathematical sciences in the year 2000. Kenneth Ross, Secretary of MAA, University of Oregon, Random walks on Z. Saunders Mac Lane, 1951 president of MAA, University of Chicago, What makes a good textbook?

  • 2003: Martha Siegel, Towson University, Secretary of the MAA was the keynote speaker.

  • 2004: David Bressoud, MAA Pólya Lecturer, Macalester College, Alternating Sign Matrices. Underwood Dudley, DePauw University, Trisecting the Angle.

  • 2005: Annie and John Selden, New Mexico State University, Two Research Traditions Separated by a Common Saubject: Mathematics and Mathematics Education, Bruce Palka, University of Texas at Austin, and editor of the American Mathematical Monthly, Why Things Go Quasi in Higher Dimensions.

  • 2006: Lesley Ward, Harvey Mudd College, The Harvey Mudd College Mathematics Clinic. Steve Dunbar, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, The MAA American Mathematics Competitions: Easy Problems, Hard Problems, History and Outcomes.

  • 2008: Lowell Beineke, Purdue University, Splendor in the Graphs.

  • 2010: Betty Mayfield, First Vice President of the MAA, Women and Mathematics in the Time of Euler. Pat McKeague, Islam Math and Culture Across the Curriculum.

  • 2012: Phil Kutzko, University of Iowa, The National Alliance For Doctoral Studies in the Mathematical Sciences: A community based approach to broadening participation. Steven R. Dunbar, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Olympiad Problems for Fun, Learning and Research with Dynamical Software. Omayra Ortega, Arizona State University, Realizing the dream of parity in STEM Education. Rebecca McGraw, University of Arizona, The wide, wide world of mathematics education.

  • 2013: Bob Devaney, Boston College and president of the MAA, The Fractal Geometry of the Mandelbrot Set, Dr. Brigette Russell, Policy Director for the New Mexico Higher Education Department, NMHED and Developmental Education.

  • 2014: Jennifer Quinn, University of Washington, Tacoma, and Second Vice President of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), Mathematics to DIE For: The Battle Between Counting and Matching, Anne Dudley & Laura Watkins, Glendale Community College, Building a Better Linear Algebra Experience.