The officers of the Southeastern Section of the MAA invite the submission of titles and abstracts for 15 minute contributed papers in all areas of mathematics by college and university faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students, and others, to be presented at our 2021 annual virtual meeting on Saturday, March 6 and Saturday, March 13. The abstract submission deadline is Monday, February 15, 2021. Talks will be scheduled in concurrent sessions and organized by the general mathematical area as indicated by the abstract.
Guidelines for Titles and Abstracts: Abstracts are expected to deal with theory, application, teaching, history, or philosophy of mathematical sciences; they should indicate what the presenter intends to communicate in the allotted time. For multiple authors, the presenting author’s name should be clearly designated; please identify undergraduate and graduate student presenters/authors. The use of special symbols should be considered judiciously; however, if an abstract includes LaTeX formatting, this can be rendered when compiling the abstracts for publication.
Undergraduate Poster Session: Students are encouraged to present research and results of special projects in poster format. The exact format of poster sessions in our online format is to be determined; they will be scheduled concurrent with contributed talks. Abstracts should be submitted through the conference website no later than Monday, February 15, 2021. Contact organizer Karen O’Hara (kohara@highpoint.edu) if you need additional information.
In addition to general contributed paper sessions, abstracts may be submitted for consideration in the following special sessions:
Inquiry Based Learning in Online and Socially Distanced Classrooms, Joseph Barrera (Converse College, Mandy Mangum (Converse College), Allie Ray (Birmingham-Southern College), Hwayeon Ryu (Elon University), Joseph Spivey (Wofford College)
This session will include presentations of various inquiry based learning (IBL) techniques and activities that have been adapted to fit new styles of instruction, including online synchronous and asynchronous as well as in-person socially distanced classrooms. Inquiry based learning (IBL) has been adopted by many faculty because of its emphasis on student-centered learning through collaboration, deep engagement with the material, and inclusive practices. With the Covid-19 pandemic and the move to different methods of instruction, these IBL techniques became more difficult to implement. This special session will give faculty many tools so they can adapt daily activities or the structure of whole courses to continue using IBL in these new settings. The session organizers started a Southeastern-IBL Consortium this semester and have been holding monthly meetings discussing these ideas. In selecting speakers, the session organizers will make sure we have a variety of classroom settings as well as different levels of mathematics represented in the talks.
Mathematics Outside of Teaching Math, William Cocke (Army Cyber Institute), Lee Troupe (Mercer University)
Often the only practitioners of mathematics that students encounter are mathematics instructors in the classroom. It is common to try and use the ubiquity of “mathematical thinking” as equivalent to the ubiquity of mathematics. However, students are rarely given concrete examples of mathematics outside of academia. This does not accurately portray the reality that mathematicians can be found in many different places, doing many different kinds of mathematics. This session will bring together several professionals from outside math departments, part of whose work consists of doing mathematics. The session speakers will come from industry, government, and non-mathematical academic backgrounds. The session will conclude with a panel discussion led by the organizers with questions coming from both audience members and collected in advance from classrooms.
Opportunities in Data Science for Undergraduate Programs, Kristen Abernathy and Zach Abernathy (Winthrop University)
Data science is a highly employable field that combines statistics, computer science, mathematics, and substantive domain knowledge (often business). Since 2007, over 500 programs in data science have sprung up. Until recently, the majority of these programs have been master’s degree, PhD, or certificate programs. With the growing opportunity to offer undergraduate programs in data science, a Park City Mathematics Institute group met in 2016 to formulate curricular guidelines for undergraduate data science. In this session, we hope to expand on these efforts and discuss problems, issues, and resources faculty have encountered in creating curricular and co-curricular opportunities in data science.
Recreational Mathematics, Timothy Goldberg (Lenoir-Rhyne University)
“Recreational mathematics is inspired by deep ideas that are hidden in puzzles, games, and other forms of play.” (Robert Vallin, quoted in “Three New SIGMAAs Formed”, by Jacqueline Jensen-Vallin, MAA Focus Vol. 38, No. 2, April/May 2018.) The field of recreational math includes a startling variety of mathematical ideas and strategies and tends to be especially entertaining and accessible. (And they make wonderful examples and research projects for students!) This session is devoted to talks related to recreational math, in any of its myriad forms!