Articles
After several years of anticipation the mathematics department is pleased to begin fall
term with five full-time faculty members. In addition to the four tenured mathematics faculty,
a tenure-track position in computer science has been filled.
We are excited to welcome Bob Eslinger back from his year long sabbatical in Washington as
Interim Director of Member Services and Programs at the Mathematical Association of
America headquarters. After a trip to Europe with sons David and Dan, Bob and Denice
are back in Conway. We hope Bob enjoyed his year away because we are not going to let him
leave again for a very long time.
Ali Kooshesh joins the department as assistant professor of computer science. Ali received a
B.S. from Iran College of Science and Technology in 1976 and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
computer science from the University of New Mexico-Albuquerque in 1987 and 1992,
respectively.
Ali's area of specialty is geometric and graph algorithm design and analysis. He taught
previously at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green.
Ali's wife Janet is an Arkansas native and has begun working as a systems analyist at Arkansas
Children's Hospital. Ali and Janet live in Little Rock with their two-year-old son Kameron.
Ze'ev Barel, Dwayne Collins and David Sutherland have all returned after busy summers.
Rob Hasker, who held the temporary position in computer science last year during Bob's
sabbatical is now in the computer science department at the University of Wisconsin at
Platteville. We appreciate Rob's work in the department and wish much success to Rob,
Jill and Benjamin.
Bob and Denice Eslinger at home in Washington's Blizzard of '96
Ali and Janet Kooshesh
Each year the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal honors the three best student papers published in the
previous year's issues of the journal. Awards for the 1994-95 year were announced recently.
The first prize winner was Scott Wagner, '94, for "Group generators and subgroup lattices."
Tied for second prize was Lars Seme, '95, for "Automorphisms of Hasse subgroup diagrams for
cyclic groups."
Congratulations to them both.
Beginning with the 1996 graduating class, Hendrix introduced minors.
The minor in mathematics was available in 1996 and a minor in computer science will be
available beginning this year. According to Natural Sciences Area Chair Dwayne Collins,
"the new computer science minor shows Hendrix is committed to continued improvements
in the computer science curriculum."
Several new courses have been added to complement the existing courses in programming,
machine language and architecture, data structures, and computer science theory. The new
courses include a fresher level Introduction to Computer Science, a junior level course in
programming languages and a senior level course in advanced topics. The language used
will shift from Pascal to Java and C++. Hardware includes Macs and X-terminals networked
to our Unix server and the college's Windows NT server.
In the spring of 1996 Hendrix students gave undergraduate research presentations
at three conferences: the National Conference on Undergraduate Research at the
University of North Carolina Asheville,the Hendrix-Rhodes-Sewanee Undergraduate
Mathematics Symposium at Rhodes College and the Oklahoma-Arkansas Section
Meeting of the Mathematical Association of America at Westark Community College.
Donna Sword and Jennifer Powell presented their projects in Asheville. Donna's project
was entitled "Images and Inverse Images of the Line Graph Operator" and Jennifer's
project was "Writing Hypertext Laboratory Exercises for Mathematics Classes."
In addition to Donna and Jennifer, the following students spoke at the MAA
meeting: Jac Cole, "Graphs of Groups and Subgroups"; Wade Satterfield, "Explorations of
Graceful Graphs"; David Lee, "Development of Contest Ranking Schemes"; and Diana
Hua, VThe Geometry of Origami.
All six students spoke at the Hendrix-Rhodes-Sewanee Symposium at Rhodes.
1996 Seniors
Donna Sword is spending a year touring North America and Europe with
"Up With People" and Wade Satterfield is entering a graduate program in history at UCA.
New Problem: Find all three digit numbers n which are twelve times their sum of digits.
Send your solution to Mathematics at Hendrix, Hendrix College, P.O. Box 3478,
Conway, AR 72032 by
December 1. Or e-mail your solution directly to Ze'ev. We will randomly draw two names
from those submitting correct
solutions and send each a Hendrix coffee mug.
The problem in the last issue was to find the sum of all irreducible fractions n/3 where
n/3 is strictly between 1000 and 2000. Six alums sent in the correct answer of 3,000,000:
John Merrill, '80, Dwayne Johnson, '80, Lars Seme, '95, John Reed, '54, Sam Steel '59 and
Susan Welch. Dwayne Johnson and John Reed will receive a Hendrix coffee mug.
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Carol Smith Shumacher, '82, who teaches mathematics at Kenyon College, recently
published a text entitled Chapter Zero.
The text is designed for teaching a course concerning the introduction of proofs.
Lee Minor, '65, who teaches mathematics at Western Carolina University, wrote an
article "Balancing Deductive and Empirical Methods in Calculus I" which appeared in
the December 1995 issue of Primus.
Tara Leslie Kortenbur, '95, died suddenly on September 17, 1996.
Our condolences to her family and friends.