Dear Friends of the Department,
Welcome to our spring newsletter! We are pleased to update you on our latest news and invite you to engage with us through our online publication and more.
This issue of the newsletter contains an article on our innovative mentoring program for underrepresented math majors. This is a graduate-student led initiative, called “Cycle,” to help students transition to college-level mathematics. Cycle has picked up a lot of momentum in just one year, with impactful results, especially through Cycle’s one credit-hour classes and the research projects organized by Cycle mentors. It is expected that Cycle mentees who complete the program this year will return in future years as mentors, thus completing the Cycle!
We also have an article about how our graduate math community has coped with the pandemic. Our graduate students have made important efforts to keep everyone connected over the last two years. The response to these efforts has been so uplifting and has helped our graduate community combat isolation and continue to thrive. These efforts are in addition to regular activities by our established student organizations like AWM (Association for Women in Mathematics) and MGSA (Mathematics Graduate Student Association), as well as our Directed Reading Program which has continued to grow.
Another story in this newsletter issue is about the phenomenal performance by our alum Matthew Amodio on Jeopardy!. Matthew Amodio ranks third in highest winnings in regular season play, and fourth in all time winnings on Jeopardy!. He is an Ohio native who graduated from our department in 2012 with an honors bachelor's degree in actuarial science. We are thrilled by his success and achievements!
In addition to these stories, this newsletter issue contains an update on our massive open online courses (MOOCs). Our MOOCS have incorporated a textbook platform called Ximera that enables instructors to design interactive online activities for their students and has seen tens of thousands of visitors in a single day.
There are also spotlights on new and selected members of our community, as well as highlights of outreach successes by our department. In addition, the department chair shares with you his vision for the department and our future directions.
We hope that you will enjoy reading our newsletter. And as always, we encourage you to consider donating funds to help support our departmental activities.
