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CHAIR'SCORNER

This has been anotherchallenging year for NorthernIllinois University and the

Department of Mathematical Sciences. Like allpublic institutions of higher education in Illinoisand around the nation, we have been facedwith diminishing resources while at the sametime enrollments have been increasing.However, we have experienced many happyevents as well.

The Department of Mathematical Sciences hasa long and proud tradition of excellentteaching. During the past year two members ofour mathematics education faculty havereceived significant recognition for theirteaching. Professor Alan Zollman has receivedone of Northern's three Excellence inUndergraduate Teaching Awards for 2005.This is the university's oldest teaching awardand the recipients of this award are nominatedby their students. Professor Zollman is the11th member of our department to receive thisprestigious award. And we are pleased toreport that this year Northern has established anew award, the Outstanding Teaching Award,which recognizes the contributions of nontenure track educators to the teaching missionof the university. We are very pleased thatCindy Stecher was chosen to be one of the firstrecipients of this award, thus acknowledgingwhat her students and colleagues have knownfor many years.

Congratulations to both Alan and Cindy!

For the third year the department hosted areception and award ceremony on a Sundayafternoon in late April in the Skyroom ofHolmes Student Center. This was a festiveoccasion for the award recipients, their familyand friends, and members of the faculty. Wecelebrated the accomplishments of many hardworking students while enjoying refreshmentsand a beautiful view of campus on a sunny,spring day. Attendance was so large that theSkyroom was filled to capacity. Again this yearthe May commencement ceremonies were heldin the spacious new Convocation Center.

There was a notable retirement this year.Professor Rodney Angotti retired after 38 yearsat Northern. Professor Angotti was theassistant chair of the mathematics departmentfrom 1967 1971. From 1971 1983 he was theassistant dean of the College of Liberal Artsand Sciences, and from 1983 until hisretirement he served as chair of the computerscience department. Even while serving in thecollege office and as chair of computerscience, Professor Angotti often taught thegeometry course in our department takenprimarily by prospective teachers.

There has been great sadness this year aswell. Dennis Filliman passed away suddenlyon September 20, 2004. He was an adjunctfaculty member of our department for 11 years.He taught mathematics education courses andsupervised student teachers for ourdepartment. He was past president of theIllinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics andthe Metropolitan Mathematics Club. Hereceived the ICTM's Distinguished Life MemberAward. His wife, Paula, also taughtmathematics education courses for us.

A short time later our department lost one of itsemeritus faculty members. Professor DaleJungst passed away after a long illness onOctober 16, 2004. Professor Jungst joined thefaculty at Northern in 1959. He was a strongadvocate of a hands on approach to teachingmathematics, and among his many

accomplishments is the establishment of theMathematics Education Laboratory at NIU.Professor Jungst was held in high esteemthroughout the state. He received theDistinguished Life Member Award and the MaxBeberman Award from the Illinois Council ofTeachers of Mathematics.

Frederick L. Kitterle, dean of the College ofLiberal Arts and Sciences, died May 3, 2005after a six month battle with cancer. DeanKitterle was dean of our college since 1995.He cared passionately about students and wasa champion of the undergraduate experience.He firmly supported the close bond betweenthe research and teaching missions of theuniversity, and he worked to incorporateresearch into the undergraduate experience.He launched the Undergraduate ResearchApprenticeship Program, which has been ofgreat benefit to many students in ourdepartment. The College of Liberal Arts andSciences, and our department in particular, willmiss his dynamic and enthusiastic leadership.

Our department is very fortunate that three newendowed scholarships came on line this year.The Clarence Ethel Hardgrove MathematicsScholarship Fund was established through alarge donation from Professor EmeritaHardgrove and will provide support forundergraduate mathematics majors during theirfirst two years at Northern.

The Joseph C. and Marion E. Huber MemorialScholarship was established by Lorene K.Steffes to honor the memory of her parents.Ms. Steffes grew up in rural Illinois and is analumna of our department and a member of theCollege of Liberal Arts and Sciences AdvisoryBoard. The Dale G. Jungst Memorial Scholarship inMathematics Education was establishedthrough the generosity of his family, and withcontributions from his friends, colleagues andformer students it has already reachedendowment status in a few short months.

This was the eighth year in which the HuskieTelefund has solicited donations on behalf ofthe department from our alumni. We greatlyappreciate your generous contributions to ourscholarship funds. Each year the number ofcontributing alumni and the amount of theircontributions have grown. We especiallyappreciate your support during the currenttimes of very tight budgets. Your comments tothe student callers about our department, itsfaculty, and its programs are passed along tous, and we find these to be encouraging andhelpful. If you were not able to donate thisyear, we hope you will consider helping in thefuture. We also greatly appreciate your loyalsupport of our endowed scholarship funds, andyour direct contributions to the department.

This is our 14th annual Alumni Newsletter.They have all been edited by Professor LindaSons, and I wish to thank her for producinganother superb issue. Let us hear from you. Ifyou are in DeKalb, please stop by Watson Hall320 and say hello.

William BlairJuly 1, 2005

Watson Hall

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Graduate Student FeesSupport Speakers

In 2004 2005 graduate students (andfaculty) in the Department ofMathematical Sciences benefitted fromthe graduate student fees collected byhaving three speakers each present acolloquium and seminar. Our graduatestudent Kris Campbell serves on theGraduate Council committee whichselected the award recipientsduring the year, while other studentsof our graduate program approved at thedepartmental level the fund requests.

Our speakers were:

1)In October Professor John Rossi fromVirginia Polytechnic Institute andState University, who gave theseminar "The cos(pi rho) theorem formeromorphic functions," and thecolloquium "Equilibrium points oflogarithmic potentials."

2)In April Professor Thomas Ivey fromthe College of Charleston, who gavethe seminar "Special Solutions of theVertex Filament Flow and RelatedEvolution Equations," and thecolloquium "Which One of These ThingsIs Like the Other? Moving Frames andthe Matching Problem."

3)In June Professor Eric Knuth from theUniversity of Wisconsin Madison, whogave the seminar "Understanding andCultivating the Development ofStudents' Algebraic Reasoning," andthe colloquium "Understanding andCultivating the Development ofStudents' Competencies in Justifyingand Proving."

FACULTY COMINGSFACULTY COMINGS

AND GOINGSAND GOINGS

On sabbatical leave in the past yearwere Professors Harvey Blau and Hui Hu.Professor Blau was on leave for the fullyear, while Professor Hu took only spring2005.

Also on leave for 2004 2005 wasProfessor Harald Ellers. Professor BiswaDatta took the fall 2004 for a leave,while in the spring Professors Fred Bloomand Y.C. Kwong were away.

New to the faculty for 2004 2005 wereAssistant Professor David Hyeon andInstructor Peter Grabow.

DUSABLE IS HOTAGAIN!

In an effort to again saveseveral hundred thousanddollars, theuniversity has once again shut down DuSable Hall forthe summer. No classes are set there, and no air-conditioning is turned on there either... Of course,there is also no air conditioning on Fridays in theentire Watson/DuSable/Reavis complex, so facultywho want to work in their offices there on Fridays orover the weekend need to adjust to a mighty warmatmosphere.

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Departmental AwardsDepartmental Awards

The 27th annual Award Ceremony washeld on April 17, 2005, at the HolmesStudent Center Skyroom. At thereception, Department Chair WilliamBlair gave out the following awards:

Chair's Award Joshua Brady

Dean's Award Jason Boice

Kathleen Varland

Outstanding Student's Award Olga Garcia

George Sparks

Rebecca Stefanelli

M.M. Wheeler Scholarship Award Frank Gambino

Terri Hightower

Lucas Jeanmaire

Lisa Marks

Jessica Smith

M.M. Wheeler Teaching Award Daniel Peddy

Theresa Tinsley

M.M. Wheeler Teaching Award--Honorable Mention

Jordan Preston

D.R. Ostberg Award Kristen Campbell

Joshua Eggenberger

Gail Masters Gallagher MemorialScholarship

Andrew F. Vicent

Jody Yednock

Stelford Prize Joshua Panici

Eugene Hellmich Award Jordan Preston

Dale G. Jungst MemorialScholarship Award

Rebecca M. Bonk

Joseph and Marion HuberMemorial Scholarship Award

Jessica Smith

Benjamin Stover

Adam Slagell Scholarship Brian E. Veitch

Certificate of Teaching Excellence Joshua Eggenberger

Paul Gunsul

Certificate of Merit (Undergraduates) Joshua Brady

Anthony Ciolino

Burton Cooke

Erin Engnell

Olga Garcia

Joshua Panici

George Sparks

Rebecca Stefanelli

Kathleen Varland

Certificate of Merit (Graduates) Jennifer Bluth

Timothy Brown

Kris Campbell

Joshua Eggenberger

April Galyardt

Lingju Kong

Maitreya Lagadapati

Honorable Mention (Undergraduates) Jason Boice

Claudia Carone

Charles Debo

Matthew Drury

Kristin Ellis

Michael Konrad

Eric Lindgren

Daniel Lundeen

Ken Moore

Robert Schwiesow

Robert Showalter

Honorable Mention (Graduates) Vinod Challapalli

Kari Fowler

Ajay Puvvala

Lynn Ratzlaff

Kate Ryterske

Jonathan Szaukellis

Ravi Vompolu

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Where have all thosePh.D.s gone???

An interesting tidbit we gleaned from the files shows that ofthe 50 graduates of our Ph.D. program since the firstgraduate in 1989, 42 obtained their first position at a collegein the United States or abroad.

CONGRATULATIONS TOLINDA FIGGINS!

In April the White House announced that Linda Figginsof Elgin, Illinois, had been awarded the PresidentialAward for Excellence in Mathematics and ScienceTeaching. The award consists of $10,000 and abanquet in her honor at the White House.

Linda taught MATH 402 (the methods course forelementary education majors) for us (and for theCollege of Education) off campus several times.

SMALL WORLD...Can you figure this

one out???Brian Vietch, our recipient of this year's SlagellScholarship, was unable to attend our award ceremonyon time, because he was at another awards ceremonydownstairs at the Holmes Student Center. He cameupstairs when he could, to find his aunt's sister in theSkyroom unexpectedly, since he himself only foundout about the reception a couple of days earlier, and hadinvited no one. It turns out that his aunt's sister wasthere because she is the daughter in law of DaleJungst, and so she was on hand to mark the firstawarding of the Jungst scholarship.

It seems altogether fitting that our "alumni family"should in fact really be family! Just goes to show thatyou can never tell what kind of impact your work willhave how could Adam Slagell have known, forexample, that he would be helping out his teachers'colleague's son's wife's sister's husband'sbrother's/sister's son?

Great anecdote!

We WOWED them at ISMAA 2005

Twelve undergraduate students and eightgraduate students went to the AprilIllinois Section of the MathematicalAssociation of America annual meeting atKnox College.  The NIU group was by farthe largest student contingent there andhad three teams in the UndergraduateMathematics Contest.  Three students,William Ash, Milica Kozomara, and BrianVietch, gave a talk on their solution to aproblem in the Mathematical ModelingContest held in February.  The studentsenjoyed talks at the ISMAA such as: HowShould We View an Art Gallery? (by JeanBee Chan of Sonoma State University),Formulas for Primes (by Underwood Dudleyof Florida State University), TheFibonacci Numbers Exposed (by Dan Kalmanof American University), and Explorationsin the Mathematics of Other Cultures (byPhil Straffin of Beloit College).  Nextspring's meeting is set to be held atNorth Central College, so we should beable to WOW them again!

OUR NEWEST ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR &

PROFESSOR

Congratulations to Ellen Hines upon herpromotion to the rank of associate professorand the attainment of tenure. Professor Hines'specialty is in mathematics education.Congratulations also to Sanjib Basu of theDivision of Statistics on his promotion fromassociate professor to professor.

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Department gets TWOtop awards...

Two of our student teachers in the 2004 2005 academic year wererecognized by the Exemplary Student TeacherAward. Warm congratulations to Jordan Prestonand Theresa Tinsley! We are proud of you.

Math is part of P-20grant to NIU

NIU is the recipient of a P 20 grantwhich begins this summer. Involved inthe planning grant for a mathematicsand sciences initiative in the EastAurora school district are CindyStecher and Alan Zollman from theDepartment of Mathematical Sciences.The board responsible for the grantincludes NIU staff from the Colleges ofEducation, Engineering and EngineeringTechnology, and Liberal Arts andSciences. The aim of the grant is tofoster supportive connections betweenNIU and the public schools.

STATISTICS DIVISIONGETS NEW LEADER

The new director of the Statistics Division isProfessor Rama T. Lingham. Outgoingdirector is Professor Sudhir Gupta; thanks toProfessor Gupta for his time at the top!

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TEACHER DEVELOPMENTGRANTS

The Department of Education through the Illinois State Board ofEducation has awarded NIU two grants for partnerships inteacher development. Professor Alan Zollman is the projectdirector for both the MEANS partnership and the MSTDpartnership.

Both programs involve teachers in a two week summer instituteand follow up work throughout the coming school year.

The MEANS partnership involves East Aurora teachers in themiddle grades and is a partnership composed of NIU, Bliss CreekGolf Course, East Aurora school district, and ETA/Cuisenaire.The MSTD partnership involves teachers at the three through fivegrade levels who are mostly from Glen Ellyn and Addison; it is apartnership composed of NIU, the school districts of Glen Ellynand Addison, BP in Warrenville, and ETA/Cuisenaire.

Raising theRaising theMEANsMEANs

PartnershipPartnership

Glen Ellyn,Addison,

& NIU

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ILLINOIS COUNCIL OFTEACHERS OFMATHEMATICS

57th Annual Meeting

"Math: The Possibilities are Infinite"

October 13 15, 2005

Renaissance Springfield Hotel, Springfield, Illinois

Friends and alumni of NIU are invited to join us for apre-banquet gathering on Friday, October 14(approximately 4 6 p.m.). Look for the announcementof the gathering location on the ICTM message boardat the conference!

ICTM Regional High SchoolMathematics Contest

Eleven high schools in Northern Illinois brought some300 secondary school students along with theirteachers and coaches to campus on February 26,2005. The students participated in 11 mathematicsevents, some of which were individual events, whileothers were team competitions. The participatingschools were: Antioch, Batavia, Elk Grove, Geneva,Lake Forest, Rolling Meadows, Round Lake, Conant,Lake Park, Lake Zurich, and Schaumburg. Thecontest committee consisted of Cindy Stecher, NancyLeifheit, Dr. Eric Behr, Professor Gleb Sirotkin, andProfessor Peter Waterman (Chair). Many othershelped make the event a most successful venture.

Congratulations to our newest doctoral recipient!Lingju Kong is completing his Ph.D. in August 2005having successfully defended his dissertation onMarch 25, 2005.

Lingju's dissertation "Non linear Boundary ValueProblems of Ordinary Differential Equations" waswritten under the direction of Professor Qingkai Kong.Professor Johnny Henderson of Baylor Universityserved as external examiner.

Lingju has a faculty appointment at the University ofTennessee at Chatanooga starting in the fall.

20th annual NIU MATH CONTEST

The annual contest had a unique experience this yearin that the first and second place winners duplicatedtheir positions from the last TWO years. Winnersagain were Matthew Drury from Deer Park, Illinois,and Michael Konrad from Lisle, Illinois. The thirdplace award was a tie between Corey Noone andAndrew Wang.

As in previous years, the contest exam was open toall full time undergraduates at NIU and wasstructured so that lower division students had as good a chance to win as upper division students.Supervising the exam this year were Professors Y. P.Hong and Gleb Sirotkin.

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MATH CLUBOfficers for this year's club were Kenneth Beynon(president), David Kettlestrings (vice president), KatieVarland (secretary), and Anna Zabelka (treasurer).Faculty advisers were Professors Douglas Bowman andDaniel Grubb.

The club once again had a book sale as a fundraiser. Themoney was used to provide support for attending theISMAA meeting at Knox College, Galesburg.

Besides some of the usual programming, the group hadlate afternoon/early evening “hang out" time in the mathassistance center in DuSable Hall.

 

THE 2004 PUTNAMCONTEST

Ken Beynon, Tina Hauch, and David Kettlestringsrepresented NIU in the December national PutnamContest sponsored annually by the MathematicalAssociation of America. Here's one of the problemsthey faced:

Show that if m and n are positive integers, then

_________________ < ______ . _____ .

Try to show it!

2005 MathematicalContest in Modelling

From Thursday, Feb. 3, 2005, until Monday,Feb. 7, 2005, some 664 teams ofundergradua t e student s from across the globeparticipated in the CoMap modeling contest .NIU's Department of Mathematical Scienceswas represented by two teams among the 249participating teams from the United States.Both teams earned "honorable mention"recognition for their solutions to their chosenproblem. Teams have two problems fromwhich to choose, and both teams picked thesame problem. One team had membersChengyang Chia and Andrew Wang. Thesecond team had members William Ash,Milica Kata Kozomara, and Brian E. Veitch.(The second team also presented theirsolution to the problem at the ISMAA meetingin April.) Here's the problem on tollboothswhich both teams solved.

Heavily traveled toll roads such as Interstate 95and so forth, are multi-lane divided highways thatare interrupted at intervals by toll plazas. Becausecollecting tolls is usually unpopular, it is desirableto minimize motorist annoyance by limiting theamount of traffic disruption caused by the tollplazas. Commonly, a much larger number oftollbooths is provided than the number of travellanes entering the toll plaza. Upon entering the tollplaza, the flow of vehicles fans out to the largernumber of tollbooths, and when leaving the tollplaza, the flow of vehicles is required to squeezeback down to a number of travel lanes equal to thenumber of travel lanes before the toll plaza.Consequently, when traffic is heavy, congestionincreases upon departure from the toll plaza. Whentraffic is very heavy, congestion also builds at theentry to the toll plaza because of the time requiredfor each vehicle to pay the toll.

Make a model to help you determine the optimalnumber of tollbooths to deploy in a barrier tollplaza. Explicitly consider the scenario where thereis exactly one tollbooth per incoming travel lane.Under what conditions is this more or less effectivethan the current practice? Note that the definitionof "optimal" is up to you to determine.

(m + n)!

(m + n)m + n

m! n!m nm n

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ABEL PRIZEABEL PRIZEThe mathematician's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, theAbel Prize was announced by the Norwegian Academy ofScience and Letters to go to Professor Peter D. Lax ofthe Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NewYork University. Professor Lax was awarded the 2005prize for "his groundbreaking contributions to thetheory and application of partial differential equationsand to the computation of their solutions."

Professor Lax is credited with clarifying shock wavetheory by solving the Riemann problem and bydeveloping some practical numerical methods forcalculating flows associated with waves. He also workedwith Ralph Phillips to develop the Lax Phillip semi group leading to further understanding of scatteringtheory. And he is credited with providing great insightsinto the KdV equation by creating Lax pairs the KdVequation is the model used by Korteweg and deVries in1895 to study solitons, solitary waves used for high-speed communication in optical fibers.

Professor Lax came to the United States with his familywhen he was 15 (in 1941 just prior to the outbreak ofWorld War II). He earned his Ph.D. at NYU in 1949 andhas been on the faculty there ever since, but spent 10summers consulting at Los Alamos.

HRH the Crown Prince Regent presented the Abel Prize 2005 to Peter D. Lax

Watch your cards andletters for stamps!

In May the U.S. Postal Service issued a set of fourstamps celebrating more than a century of science.The four scientists pictured are thermodynamicistJosiah Willard Gibbs, geneticist Barbara McClintock,mathematician John Von Neumann, and physicistRichard P. Feynman. Mathematicians will claimGibbs as one of their own for his creation of themodern form of vector calculus and for his work onstatistical mechanics; the opening night lecture at theannual January meeting of the AmericanMathematical Society is called the “Gibbs lecture" inhis honor. Gibbs, who dates from 1839 to 1903, wentto Yale where he is credited with earning the firstdoctorate in engineering to be conferred in the UnitedStates, and where he taught for the rest of his life.

John von Neumann, who lived from 1903 until 1957,received the Enrico Fermi Award in 1956 for his designof a computer based on the stored program conceptwhich was completed in 1952 and essentially became amodel for all modern computers. He developed themathematical foundations for quantum mechanics, andtogether with Oskar Morgenstern producedfundamental work on the theory of games. He wastogether with Albert Einstein and other scientists atthe Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ, in the1930s, and served as a consultant on the U.S. projectto build an atomic bomb at Los Alamos, NM, in theearly 1940s.

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AIC this SummerThe Applications Involvement Componentfor our Ph.D. program usually has acouple students doing their fieldworkexperience in the summer.  But in thesummer of 2005 the number is HUGE!Here's a list of the students and theirconnection for summer work.

Devrim Bilgili at the MolecularDiagnostic Laboratory of the Van AndelInstitute at Grand Rapids, Michigan;Kristen Campbell at the NeurologyDepartment of the University of ChicagoHospital; Joshua Eggenberger withCollaborative Investigators for AppliedNanotechnology in Medicine which jointlyoperates at the Chemical EngineeringDivision of Argonne National Laboratoryand the University of Chicago Hospital;Paul Gunsul at the Meteorology divisionof the Department of Geography at NIU;Cathy Poliak at Decision SupportServices (a market research firm) inNaperville;  Vadim Sokolov at WolframResearch, Inc. at Champaign; SouravSantra at the Center for HealthStatistics located at the University ofIllinois at Chicago; and JonathanSzaukellis with the Decision andInformation Sciences Division of theCenter for Complex Adaptive AgentSystems Simulation at Argonne NationalLaboratory.  Also doing AIC related workthis summer is Mihai Racovitan with theDecision and Information SciencesDivision of the Center for ComplexAdaptive Agent Systems Simulation atArgonne National Laboratory.  

It's been a busy spring and summer forProfessor Hamid Bellout who isresponsible for all the studentplacements.

Twin PrimesConjecture a Theorem

Soon?The twin prime conjecture says thatthere are infinitely many twin primepairs. That is, there are infinitely manyprime numbers n for which both n andn + 2 are prime numbers (like 3 and 5,or 11 and 13).

One way to look at the problem is tostudy the gaps between successiveprimes. A variation of the more generalquestion is to compare the gapsbetween pairs of successive primes withthe average size of P(n + 1) P(n)where P(n) denotes the nth positiveprime. According to the prime numbertheorem the average size isasymptotically equal to log P(n). Thus,the question becomes one of computingthe limit infimum as n goes to infinity ofthe ratio of P(n + 1) P(n) to log P(n).

Early in 2003 Dan Goldston of SanJose State University and Chem YalcinYildrim of Bogazici University, Istanbul,released a proof showing that the limitinfimum is zero, but a fatal flaw wasfound in the proof. Now in December2004 the pair working with Janos Pintzof the Hungarian Academy of Sciencespresented a new proof which is believedto be correct! The techniques are saidto be amazingly elementary and lead tothe hope that the twin prime conjecturemay indeed become a theorem soon...

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NEWS ACCORDING TO YOU

Each year we invite you to share news and comments.Here are some items we have gleaned this year!

After completing their degree and teacher certificationrequirements, NIU graduates have accepted teachingpositions for the academic year 2005 2006. Here's thelist we know:

Eddy Shaheen Still Middle School in NapervilleJim Bellon Grant High School in Fox LakeCandice Benesch Hononegah High School in RocktonMike Miller McHenry West High SchoolJonathan Schaefer Lyons Township High School in LaGrangeRob Showalter Willowbrook High School in Villa ParkRebecca Stefanelli Freeport High SchoolTheresa Tinsley Jane Adams Middle School in BolingbrookKendra Updegraff J. W. Eater Junior High School in RantoulErin Engnell Romeoville High SchoolKen Moore Hononegah High School in RocktonDan Peddy Dundee Crown High School in CarpentersvilleJordan Preston Elgin High SchoolBecky Sturdy Lyons Township High School in LaGrange

Weddingbells in July 2005

rang for...Randy Hammond ('01) and Jennifer Cravens ('03)

Katharine Nicholls ('96) and Marc Dams

Jennifer Lynn Nelson ('00 and '02) reportedmarriage to Don Smith ('99) in April 2004.Jennifer is an analyst at Information ResourcesInc. in Chicago, while Don is a project director atthe University of Illinois at Chicago. They residein Lockport.

MORENEWS

Kevin Helmick ('90) has completed his 10th yearon the mathematics faculty at Benet Academy,Lisle, IL. Kevin teaches AP Calculus and is one ofthe five math team coaches for Benet, the 3AAICTM State Champion this year!Congratulations!!! Kevin resides in Willowbrook.

Kevin Sommerfield (M.S. '98) reports working asa full time mathematics instructor at Sauk ValleyCommunity College. Previously he served as anadjunct instructor at Benedictine University andWaubonsee Community College.

Kathleen Almy (M.S. '00) has taught full--time atRock Valley College since 2001 and recentlyreceived tenure. She also had her second child,William, in April 2004.

Susan Talarico (Ph.D. '89 ) stopped in DeKalb fora visit bringing along daughters Anya and Lenora.Susan is on the mathematics faculty at theUniversity of Wisconsin at Stevens Point.

We were sorry to hear that Ron Biggers died onApril 23, 2005, after a stroke. Ron earned amaster's degree at NIU in 1972 and was the firstAfrican American to earn a Ph.D. in puremathematics from the University of California atIrvine. He taught at a number of institutionsbefore settling at Kennesaw State University inKennesaw, Georgia, in 1989.

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Alumni of 25 Years

Congratulations on the 25th anniversary of theclass of 1980. Here is a listing of the Class of1980 and their current hometowns. If you can

update some of the information, we wouldappreciate your help.

Ms. Lauren Lee Anderko, St. Charles, IL

Mr. Donal C. Bassler, Crystal Lake , IL

Ms. Terry Lee Barr, Elk Grove Village, IL

Mr. Robert James Bodlak, San Francisco, CA

Mr. Dennis W. Brown, Burr Ridge, IL

Mr. Scott Alan Coffland, Geneva, IL

Mrs. Lynne M. Feldman, Lisle, IL

Mr. Dean Albert Follmann, Bethesda, MD

Mr. Lawrence John Garton, Rockford, IL

Mrs. Diane Alane Gerke, Schaumburg, IL

Ms. Cynthia Green, Painted Post, NY

Mr. Michael Patrick Hand, Naperville, IL

Mrs. Audrey M. Hutchcraft, Mundelein, IL

Mr. Kenneth G. Kowalski, Northville, MI

Mrs. Cheryl Kistner Link, Sycamore, IL

Mrs. Kim M. McCasland, Spencer, NY

Ms. Joan Mary Pardini, Collegeville, PA

Ms. Denise Marie Moyse, Vernon Hills, IL

Mrs. Peggy Jo Pflueger, Elgin, IL

Mr. Thomas P. Prusinski, Elburn, IL

Mr. John F. Rajca, Jr., Muncie, IN

Mr. James W. Speaker, Richmond, IL

Mrs. Marilyn Sullivan, Carrollton, TX

Mrs. Diane L. Terlep, Crystal Lake, IL

Mr. Alan Ray Vonachen, Minneapolis, MN

Mrs. Sandra K. Veselka, Plainfield, IL

Mrs. Susan M. Waterstraat, Oak Lawn, IL

Mr. Paul L. Wescott, Rock Falls, IL

Mr. Bruce David Zimmerman, Ellicott City, MD

Officers ofDepartment ofMathematicalSciences

Chair Professor William Blair

Assistant Chair Professor John Wolfskill

Director of Undergraduate Studies Professor Dave Rusin

Director of Graduate Studies Professor Bernard Harris

Coordinator of Applications Involvement Professor Hamid Bellout

Director of the Division of Statistics Professor Rama Lingham

Coordinator of Teacher Certification Cynthia Stecher

Systems Manager Eric Behr

Web PageWeb Page

Look for announcements regarding the latestactivities in the department at the website

www.math.niu.edu

Also full of useful information is the page for theStatistics division at

www.math.niu.edu/StatDiv

Northern Illinois University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institute. Printed by authority of the State of Illinois. www.niu.edu 07/05 N012

Nor

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ern Illinois University

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