Page 47 - Academic Report FINAL VERSION WEB

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS

SCHOOL OF COMPUTING

Department of Math & Statistics

The Department of Mathematics and Statistics is Our 39th annual Math Olympics competition was
home to 2018 faculty award winners as well as cham- held in March 2019. This year’s event reached our fa-
pion math competitors. cility’s maximum capacity for the ciphering session.
Nineteen high schools attended the event with about
The department is very proud to be the home of 300 students participating. Provost Anderson gave
the most recent recipients of MGA’s Award for Out- the welcoming address. The math team of the Geor-
standing Service, Dr. Don Brown, and MGA’s Award gia Academy placed second overall in Division II, and
for Outstanding Research, Dr. Matt Noble. In this past Daeyoung Son was the top scorer in that division.
year alone, Dr. Noble had two research papers pub-
lished, another one accepted for publication, and two Dr. Abby Noble and Mr. Duane Day oversaw our
more papers that are currently in the review process. second annual Math Puzzle Party High School Chal-
Dr. Brown’s service contributions to the department, lenge. It was a huge success in that it showed much
university, and community were definitely worth rec- growth and expansion over the inaugural challenge.
ognition by the MGA community.
The Georgia Eta Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon Math-
The department is implementing a Gateways to ematics Honor Society was established at our insti-
Completion (G2C) process (a John Gardner Institute tution in 2011. Since then, the chapter has inducted
initiative) for Math 1111 (College Algebra). The G2C 52 members into the society. Chapters of Pi Mu Ep-
process helps institutions create and implement an silon may be chartered only at academic institutions
evidence-based plan for improving teaching, student whose standards are excellent in all liberal arts and
learning, and success in high-enrollment courses that particularly so in mathematics. Candidates for in-
have historically resulted in high DFWI rates. A Math duction are selected based upon their outstanding
1111 course-specific committee was formed, including scholastic records. Six students comprised the 2019
co-chairs Dr. Gaston Brouwer and Dr. Abby Noble, induction class of the Georgia Eta chapter at MGA,
and members Holly Geiger, Michael Hammock, and all of whom are engaging in activities in the spirit of
Viktoriya Lanier. In spring 2019, the committee ana- the Pi Mu Epsilon motto: “To promote scholarship and
lyzed six groups of key performance indices (KPIs) mathematics.”
to identify opportunities and conditions necessary for
change. Based on this study, the committee wrote a The departmentally operated Mathematics Aca-
course-specific report in May 2019 that summarized demic Resource Center (MARC) continued to provide
their findings and listed a set of recommendations to tutoring services in over a dozen courses from Intro-
improve student learning in Math 1111. Over the sum- duction to Mathematical Modeling and College Alge-
mer, the committee will work with others on the G2C bra to Multivariable Calculus and Differential Equa-
steering committee to prepare a comprehensive re- tions, and all courses in between. The MARC is one of
port and action plan. This report will include priori- the few subject-specific tutoring centers on campus
tized action items for consideration that will be im- with full time staffing in addition to student tutors to
plemented in a select number of Math 1111 sections in provide academic support for our students.
fall 2019.

Students in our program are also experiencing
success. 107 students consisting of 28 teams from 10
colleges and universities in Georgia, Alabama, and
North Carolina competed in the 25th annual Universi-
ty of North Georgia Mathematics Tournament in April
2019. MGA placed first overall in the team competi-
tion, and Daeyoung Son from MGA won the overall
individual competition.

Daeyoung Son also scored the highest on Part I
of the 2018-2019 Kennesaw State University mathe-
matics exam. He ranked 14th out of 177 on Part II of
the exam.

As well, Daeyoung Son presented his student re-
search at the sectional meeting of the Mathematical
Association of America in Texas. His paper explored a
new topic of indexing and its possibility among multi-
ple number realms.

Academic Affairs Annual Report 2019 | Middle Georgia State University 43