Preface

This history of the Allegheny Mountain Section was prepared in anticipation of the celebration of the Centennial of the Mathematical Association of America in 2015.  I thoroughly enjoyed working on it during the summer of 2014, and I learned many new things about the history of our great Section.  I am fortunate to be the Section Historian during this exciting time for the MAA.

When I became Historian in 2012, I received two large three-ring binders from George Bradley, the previous Historian.  Two things in the binders proved to be especially important in my work on this history: a set of old Section Newsletters and lists of officers and section meetings prepared in 1994 by the late Albert A. Rabenstein.  I certainly could not have done such a thorough job with this history in such a short time without Rabenstein’s work from twenty years ago, and I am very grateful to him for this assistance.  Fortunately, he also left his computer files (prepared in WordPerfect 5.0) on a 3.5-inch floppy disk that I was able to read!

I learned many new things about the Section while doing this work.  I have long thought that the people who make up the MAA are the best thing about the Association, so I especially enjoyed learning about all those people who have been involved in our Section throughout the past eighty-one years.  They have fascinating stories, and I am grateful to them for their efforts.

Early history of the MAA

The early history of the Mathematical Association of America is well-documented, so we will provide only an overview here.  Interested readers should see the Centennial webpage of the MAA, see this link.  Here one can find the complete book The Mathematical Association of America: Its First Fifty Years, edited by Kenneth O. May and published by the MAA in 1972, as well as a new article by David E. Zitarelli entitled “The Mathematical Association of America: Its First 100 Years.”  (Note:  All references to Zitarelli in this section history are to his book on the history of the EPADEL Section and not this article.)

Two events in the late nineteenth century set the stage for the formation of the MAA.  The New York Mathematical Society was founded in 1888 and became the American Mathematical Society (AMS) in 1894.  Also in 1894, Benjamin Finkel, who taught at the Kidder Institute in Missouri, founded The American Mathematical Monthly with the goal of improving the teaching of mathematics.  Finkel published the Monthly until 1913, when he and others enlisted the help and support of fourteen midwestern colleges and universities.

At this time, Herbert E. Slaught of the University of Chicago realized that “there was a need for more organized and continuing concern for collegiate mathematics.” [May, p. 19]  Soon the AMS began having discussions about the future of the Monthly and the support of college teaching of mathematics.  In 1915, however, the AMS decided not to enter into these areas, while still realizing their importance.  They resolved that “should an organization be formed to deal specifically with this work, the Society would entertain toward such an organization only feelings of hearty good will and encouragement.” [May, p. 20]  This was the beginning of nearly one century of cooperation between the AMS and the soon-to-be-formed MAA.

Slaught then called an organizational meeting to be held at Ohio State University on December 30-31, 1915, with a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  There were 104 people in attendance at this meeting to create the MAA.  Three people from within the borders of the future Allegheny Mountain Section attended:  C.E. Githens, Superintendent of Schools in Wheeling, West Virginia, and F.J. Holder and W.P. Webber of the University of Pittsburgh.  After the adoption of the Constitution and By-laws of the Mathematical Association of America, E.R. Hedrick of the University of Missouri was elected president, E.V. Huntington of Harvard University and G.A. Miller of the University of Illinois were elected vice-presidents, and W.D. Cairns of Oberlin College was elected Secretary-Treasurer.  They soon reached an agreement with the Monthly to have it serve as the official journal of the MAA.  [Monthly, Jan. 1916, p. 5]  Early in 1916 the MAA approved its first three geographic sections (listed alphabetically):  Kansas, Missouri, and Ohio.  It is an interesting question as to which was first, and interested readers can check the individual online section histories to learn more.

The Constitution of the MAA set an initiation fee of two dollars, and the annual dues were set at three dollars.  Members who joined before April 1, 1916, were designated as Charter Members and had their initiation fees waived.  There were 1045 charter members of the MAA, twenty-eight of whom were from Western Pennsylvania or West Virginia.  Two of the twenty-eight were women.  Carnegie Institute of Technology was the only institutional charter member from this future section.

List of MAA Charter Members from Western Pennsylvania and West Virginia

Prehistory of the Allegheny Mountain Section

The founding of the Philadelphia Section (now the EPADEL Section) is part of the story of the Allegheny Mountain Section.  By 1925, the MAA had sixteen sections ranging from the Southeastern Section to the Southern California Section.  However, there were no sections to the north and east of the Maryland-Virginia-District of Columbia Section (now MD-DC-VA), which was founded in 1916.  Albert A. Bennett of Lehigh University noted that MAA officers Slaught and Cairns were “concerned about the ‘seeming apathy or lethargy’ … of the mathematicians in the Atlantic States,” and they encouraged him to consider the creation of a new section.  [May, p. 95]

In November 1926, twenty people from eastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware met at Lehigh University for an organizational meeting of a new section of the MAA.  They proposed to name it the Philadelphia Section, the first section to be named for a city.  This was somewhat controversial, but Bennett defended the name:

“… Pennsylvania had two natural cultural centers, one at the extreme east (Philadelphia), the other at the extreme west (Pittsburgh).  One could not expect much of an attendance at either of these places, from residents near the other.  Philadelphia should attract persons from Eastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New Jersey.  Setting a new precedent might encourage the later founding of a Pittsburgh Section, attracting mathematical instructors from West Virginia and Eastern Ohio as well as from western Pennsylvania.” [May, p. 94]

The MAA Board of Trustees approved the Philadelphia Section at its December 1926 meeting.  As we know, Bennett’s words about a new section being centered around Pittsburgh were to come true seven years later.  In the meantime the Philadelphia Section met annually and grew in number, with seventy-four in attendance at the November 1932 meeting.  Mathematicians from the Pennsylvania State College (which would become Pennsylvania State University in 1953) participated in the Philadelphia Section in important ways before their institution became part of the Allegheny Mountain Section.  Frederick W. Owens, the new department head at Penn State, was the second Chair of the Philadelphia Section, serving from 1927 to 1928.  [Zitarelli, p. 31]  Owens gave a lecture on “The Malfatti problem” at the second annual meeting of the Philadelphia Section, held at the University of Pennsylvania in November 1927.  His wife, Helen Brewster Owens, herself a mathematician with a Ph.D. from Cornell, also attended the meeting.  Owens presided over the third Philadelphia Section meeting as Chair in December 1928, and Penn State’s Orrin Frink presented “An algebraic method of differentiating.”  Isador Sheffer spoke on “Some remarks on non-analytic functions” at the November 1930 meeting, Charles Rupp gave the talk “Redundant co-ordinates” at the November 1931 meeting, and Orrin Frink spoke on “The problem of measure” at the November 1932 meeting.  In these days, there were only four or five talks given at these meetings.  David Zitarelli has interesting descriptions of Frink’s two talks on page 42 of his book EPADEL: A Semisesquicentennial History, 1926-2000, published by Raymond-Reese in 2001 and available free online here.

The Beginning of the Allegheny Mountain Section

Unfortunately there is no record in the Monthly (or anywhere else, for that matter) of an organizational meeting to prepare the proposal for the Allegheny Mountain Section and to write its bylaws.  Such an event must have taken place in 1933, however, because W.D. Cairns, Secretary-Treasurer of the MAA, reported the following from the 18th annual meeting of the Association in Cambridge, Mass., on December 29-30, 1933:

“The Trustees approved the formation of the Allegheny Mountain Section, and the draft of the By-Laws of the section as presented.”  [Monthly, Mar. 1934, p. 132]

Seven members of the new section were in attendance at the Cambridge meeting:  C.S. Atchison of Washington and Jefferson College; L.L. Dines, H.C. Hicks, and E.G. Olds, all of the Carnegie Institute of Technology; F.W. Owens and I.M. Sheffer, both of the Pennsylvania State College; and J.S. Taylor of the University of Pittsburgh.  Atchison counted the votes for the election of the new national officers.

The Allegheny Mountain Section got right to work, holding its first section meeting at the Carnegie Institute of Technology on February 10, 1934, just six weeks after its founding.  In fact the new section would hold three meetings in 1934.  According to the Monthly, Clyde S. Atchison presided over the February meeting as the first Chair of the Allegheny Mountain Section, with no mention of an election; perhaps Atchison was named Chair before the section was given its approval.  The Monthly report was submitted by James S. Taylor as Secretary, who may have been named in the same way.  The report states, “Seventy-one representatives of twenty-three educational institutions and research laboratories of Western Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Eastern Ohio attended the meeting, including … thirty-four members of the Association.”  [Monthly, Apr. 1935, p. 191]  Thomas S. Baker, President of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, welcomed the Section to their meeting in the Carnegie Union.

There were seven talks presented at this first meeting:

1.      Numerical solution of partial differential equations, Professor J.C. Hicks, Carnegie Institute of Technology.

2.      A note on parabolic anti-collineations, Professor J.C. Stayer, Juniata College.

3.      A note on anti-involutions, E.E. Hess, Huntingdon High School.

4.      Flat-sphere geometry in non-Euclidean N-space, R.H. Downing, West Virginia University.

5.      An alignment chart for homogeneous functions, Professor David Moskovitz, Carnegie Institute of Technology.

6.      A new method for evaluating double integrals, W.L. Morris, Gulf Research Laboratory.

7.      The ruled Vn-1n-1 in Sn with an (n-2)-fold Sn-2 , J. K. Stewart, West Virginia University.

It is interesting to note the variety of speakers at this first meeting.  Three were professors, and one was a researcher in industry.  Elvin E. Hess was a high school mathematics teacher from central Pennsylvania.  Reginald H. Downing and Joseph K. Stewart were graduate students of Professor John A. Eiesland, who introduced both of his students’ talks.  In addition, Professor W.H. Cramblet of Bethany College and Professor F.A. Foraker of the University of Pittsburgh led a round table discussion on the timeless topic, “What can the college do for students without adequate training in high school mathematics?”  The meeting featured a morning session and an afternoon session with a luncheon in between, a schedule that was typical for the early section meetings.

The Allegheny Mountain Section held its second meeting only three months later, on May 5, 1934, at Washington and Jefferson College.  Attendance rose to ninety-one, with thirty-one members present.  The section was fortunate to have in attendance Professor Arnold Dresden of Swarthmore College, President of the Mathematical Association of America.  He spoke on “Generalizations of the calculus of variations.”  Including Dresden’s talk, there were seven talks in total, five by professors and two by industry researchers.  Two of the seven talks were related to the teaching of college algebra.

The third and final meeting of 1934 was held October 13 at Grove City College.  Attendance fell to sixty-one, with twenty-eight members in attendance.  Seven papers were presented on topics ranging from integrals to economics to distribution functions to mathematics in small colleges.  Dr. Elizabeth B. Cowley of Allegheny High School was the first woman to speak at a meeting of the Allegheny Mountain Section, giving the paper “Mathematics and character education.”  The Grove City meeting was the first to feature an election, as the members voted on officers for the upcoming year.  Clyde S. Atchison was elected Chair, and James S. Taylor was elected Secretary-Treasurer.  William E. Cleland of Geneva College and Edwin G. Olds of the Carnegie Institute of Technology were elected to the Executive Committee. 

Early Section Involvement in the National Organization

Since its beginning, the Allegheny Mountain Section had members among the officers of the national MAA.  The first actually began his tenure before moving to western Pennsylvania, and in fact before the existence of the Section.  Lloyd L. Dines of the University of Saskatchewan was an elected member of the Board of Trustees from 1931 through 1933.  While on the Board, Dines moved to Pittsburgh to become Head of the Mathematics Department at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in September 1933.  When the Section came into existence in late December, Dines had a couple of days to represent the Section in his capacity as a Trustee.  In 1935 Dines was elected to a one-year term as a Vice-President of the MAA.  Dines then continued his service to the organization by serving as the second Chair of the Section, from 1936 to 1938.

In a 1940 amendment to its bylaws, the MAA divided the United States and Canada into fourteen geographic regions (which were different from the Sections that were appearing).  [May, p. 119]  Region 3 consisted of Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.  [Zitarelli, p. 118]  Each region had an elected Governor who would serve for two years.  Frederick Owens served as the first Regional Governor from 1941 to 1943.  Albert Dresden of Swarthmore College in the Philadelphia Section (and former MAA President) served from 1943 to 1945 [Zitarelli, p. 118], and Lloyd Dines served from 1945 to 1947. 

Not long after establishing the regions of the MAA, the organization decided to abolish them.  In a 1946 amendment to the bylaws, the MAA created Sectional Governors who would serve three-year terms.  [May, p. 119]  They divided the existing sections into three groups and staggered the elections over a three-year period.  The first group of nine Sectional Governors was elected in 1947.  The Allegheny Mountain Section was in the second group, whose Governors were elected in 1948.  The first Governor of the Allegheny Mountain Section was Harold L. Dorwart of Washington and Jefferson College.  Dorwart was a very active member of the Section.  He presented six papers at Section meetings between 1937 and 1942, and he served on the Executive Committee and as Secretary-Treasurer in the 1940s.  After one year as Governor, Dorwart left Washington and Jefferson for Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.  While at Trinity, however, Dorwart was allowed to complete his term representing the Allegheny Mountain Section on the Board until 1951.

The second Governor of the Section was Joseph B. Rosenbach, Department Head at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.  He began his term on July 1, 1951, but died a few months later on November 6.  At the Annual Meeting of the MAA in December, the Board elected Frederick H. Steen of Allegheny College to complete Rosenbach’s term ending in 1954.

Members served the national organization in other ways as well.  Both Frederick Owens and Helen Brewster Owens were named Associate Editors of the Monthly in 1935, positions that they held until 1938.  Clyde Atchison, while serving as Section Chair in 1935, was one of two MAA Representatives on the Council of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The 1934 Pittsburgh Meeting

One year after the creation of the Allegheny Mountain Section, the MAA held its annual meeting in Pittsburgh from December 28, 1934, to January 1, 1935, with the AAAS and the AMS.  Forty-four of the total 352 attendees at these joint meetings were members of the Allegheny Mountain Section.  Sessions were held at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Mellon Institute, and Carnegie Hall.  The MAA held a joint session with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, a joint session with the AAAS and AMS, and two sessions of their own.  Lloyd Dines was the MAA program committee chairman.  At the annual dinner at the Hotel Webster Hall, “Dines expressed the pleasure of the teachers in Pittsburgh in having the mathematicians present in these meetings and in having the National Council there for the first time, and emphasized the great contributions which the presence of the men in mathematical research makes toward an extension of research in the Pittsburgh region.”  [Monthly, Mar. 1935, p. 128]  It was at this meeting where Dines was elected Vice-President of the MAA.

Certainly one of the highlights of the Pittsburgh meeting was the presence of Albert Einstein of the Institute for Advanced Study.  Einstein gave the AMS Josiah Willard Gibbs lecture on the topic, “An elementary proof of the theorem concerning the equivalence of mass and energy.” 

There was also a social event on New Year’s Eve on an upper floor of the Cathedral of Learning of the University of Pittsburgh.  The full report from this meeting can be found in the March 1935 issue of the Monthly.

The 1937 Penn State Meeting

The next national meeting of the MAA to be held in the Allegheny Mountain Section was the summer meeting held at the Pennsylvania State College on September 6-7, 1937, along with the summer meeting of the AMS.  Twenty-six of the total 457 attendees were members of the Allegheny Mountain Section.  The two MAA sessions contained the presentation of eight papers, including one by Penn State’s Orrin Frink.  Two of the presentations were memorial papers for H.E. Slaught, who had died in May.  John von Neumann gave a series of four lectures on “Continuous geometry” for the AMS.  There were many non-mathematical events at this meeting as well.  There was a concert on the first night at which MAA member Teresa Cohen of Penn State performed a violin sonatina.  There were many outdoor activities that took advantage of the central Pennsylvania setting of the meeting, and the Owenses hosted a reception at their house.  The full report from this meeting can be found in the November 1937 issue of the Monthly.

The complete list of national meetings held within the Allegheny Mountain Section is as follows:

Dec. 28, 1934 – Jan. 1, 1935, Pittsburgh (Carnegie Inst. of Tech. and Univ. of Pittsburgh)

September 6-7, 1937, Pennsylvania State College

December 30, 1954, Pittsburgh (Univ. of Pittsburgh)

August 26-29, 1957, Pennsylvania State University

Aug. 30 – Sept. 1, 1971, Pennsylvania State University

August 17-19, 1981, Pittsburgh (Univ. of Pittsburgh)

August 5-7, 2010, Pittsburgh (Omni William Penn Hotel)

The Established Section

After holding three meetings in 1934, the Section settled into a routine of holding two meetings per year, one in April or May and one in October or November, until April 1942.  The Section then held a meeting in April 1943, after which World War II interrupted the activities of the Section.  These early meetings were one-day affairs, typically with five to eight speakers.  The first nineteen section meetings were held at twelve different educational institutions plus the Sharon Works of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company and the Aluminum Research Laboratories of Alcoa (with each of these industry sites hosting a meeting in 1938).  Participation from industry was high in the early years of the Section, with numerous speakers coming from local corporations.  The greatest involvement was from Westinghouse, Alcoa, and Gulf.  In fact, Rolland G. Sturm of the Aluminum Research Laboratories served as Section Chair beginning in 1942.  After the war, industry involvement continued through the 1950s.  Morris Ostrofsky of Westinghouse (although formerly of Duquesne University) was Sectional Governor from 1954 to 1957, and the Westinghouse Research Laboratories hosted the May 1957 meeting.  Industry participation in the Section became virtually nonexistent by the 1960s, however.

The section started its post-war activity with a meeting in November 1947 at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.  This meeting and the one in November 1948 at the University of Pittsburgh were extremely well-attended, attracting 162 and 160 people, respectively, although the numbers declined in the 1950s.  At this time the section was transitioning to one meeting per year and in 1950 switched to a spring meeting, usually held in early May.  This spring meeting persists today, with the meeting now usually held in early April.  In the 1960s the meetings started to have fewer invited addresses (usually three or four), although there was an increase in invited speakers from outside the Allegheny Mountain Section.  In 1971 the section switched to the two-day (Friday and Saturday) format that exists today.  Attendance fluctuated for many years until several meetings in the 1990s attracted more than 100 people.  Most meetings in the 2000s then attracted more than 150 people.  The first to exceed 200 was the Section’s 75th Anniversary Meeting in April 2008 at the University of Pittsburgh – there were 217 on hand to celebrate the occasion.  The current attendance record is 263, set at the April 2013 meeting at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. 

Student Activities

While the early section meetings were places for faculty members and industry researchers to talk about their work and to discuss curricular issues, today’s meetings are known just as much for their student activities.  One of the first such meetings was in May 1974 at Allegheny College, which featured panel discussions entitled “Job Opportunities for Mathematics and Computer Science Majors” and “Graduate School Programs in the Allegheny Mountain Section.”  Since then, meetings have had panel discussions and breakout sessions aimed at undergraduate students in the section.  Meetings now feature lively sessions of student talks, which have increased dramatically in number.  The first Section Newsletter in November 1978 mentions “several excellent student talks” at the April 1978 meeting at the University of Pittsburgh.  In the mid-1980s student talks typically numbered in the single digits.   They rose to double digits in the early 1990s and are now regularly above twenty.  In 2004, the Section began scheduling student talks in a Friday evening time slot, with the faculty talks on Saturday morning, to encourage greater attendance at these presentations.

In 1995 the Section received a $1000 grant for Student Programs from the Exxon Education Foundation, thanks to the work of Section Chair Antonella Cupillari of Penn State Behrend, along with Francisco Alarcón of IUP, George Bradley of Duquesne University, and Cheryl Leech of Penn State Behrend.  The Section used these funds to host a career fair for students entitled “Math + Creativity + You = A Great Career” in a three and a half hour session on Saturday afternoon at the end of the April 1996 meeting at IUP.

For many years, a student puzzle contest has been held during the section meeting.  In the late 1970s Barbara Faires of Westminster College with some of her students ran the first puzzle session.  In 2009 Coordinator of Student Programs Natacha Fontes-Merz of Westminster College implemented a new form of the Student Problem Competition.  In this current high-energy version, students work in teams to solve problems, and correct answers earn team members entries in a random prize drawing.

Women in Leadership Roles

The Allegheny Mountain Section existed for more than thirty years with all-male leadership.  The first woman to break the barrier was Bertha Mather of Penn State University, elected to a two-year term as Secretary-Treasurer in 1965.  Next was Carol Booth of West Liberty State College, elected Second Vice Chair in 1977.  In 1983 the Section had its first woman Chair, Barbara Faires of Westminster College.  She was immediately followed by Kathleen Taylor of Duquesne University in 1985 and Christine Cancro of Penn State-New Kensington in 1987.  As of 2014, the Section has had seven women serve as Chair.  Interestingly, four of these women served before the Section officially changed the name of the office from “Chairman” to “Chair” in a revision to the section bylaws approved by the Board of Governors in January 2000.

Barbara Faires was also the first woman to be elected Allegheny Mountain Section Governor, serving from 1987 to 1990.  Kathleen Taylor was Governor from 1993 to 1996, and Tami Lakins of Allegheny College was Governor from 2011 to 2014.  Many other women have served the Section as First and Second Vice Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, Coordinator of Student Programs, Section NExT Co-Coordinator, Newsletter Editor, and Director of E-communications.

Barbara Faires has continued her dedicated service to the MAA at the national level.  She was Chair of the Audit and Budget Committees from 1995 to 2000, and she served as First Vice President from 2004 to 2006.  Faires began a five-year term as Secretary in 2010 and will serve a second term from 2015 to 2020.

Short Courses

For twenty consecutive years, the Allegheny Mountain Section offered Summer Short Courses on the campus of Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania.  First organized by Dick McDermot of Allegheny College and Dave Wells of Penn State-New Kensington, these courses brought a prominent mathematician to the Section each year for four days.  The courses consisted of lectures, workshops, and a contributed paper session, and they were often held simultaneously with the Allegheny Summer Music Festival.  The first presenter was Alan Tucker of SUNY Stony Brook in 1985 with the course, “Topics in Introductory Discrete Mathematics.”  The following courses featured Vera Pless, Steven Brams, Fred Roberts, and many more.  Topics ranged from graph theory to algebra to statistics to history of mathematics to Fermat’s Last Theorem.  After McDermot and Wells got the short courses off to a good start, they were succeeded as short course directors by George Bradley of Duquesne University, Steve Bowser of Allegheny College, Don Platte of Mercyhurst College, and Ron Harrell of Allegheny College.

In the November 2004 Section Newsletter (after what was to be the final short course in June 2004), Harrell wrote an article entitled, “Trouble for the Summer Short Course.”  He explained, “Despite excellent speakers, wider advertising, and improved facilities on the Allegheny campus, attendance has been declining over the last four years, resulting in a total financial loss to the section of about $4000.”  The Section leaders found no easy solution to the problems facing the summer short course, so the Executive Committee voted in June 2005 to discontinue it.

List of Summer Short Courses from 1985 to 2004

This twenty-year run of summer short courses was preceded by two similar events jointly sponsored by the Allegheny Mountain Section and the Ohio Section.  In June 1977, Maynard Thompson of Indiana University presented “Mathematical Problems in Biology and Medicine” at Ohio University.  In June 1978, Don Norris of Ohio University presented “Application of Control Theory” at Allegheny College.  These two courses were part of a longer series of short courses offered by the Ohio Section.

Section NExT

In 1994 the MAA began the highly successful Project NExT (New Experiences in Teaching) program.  Project NExT, for new mathematics Ph.D.s, “addresses all aspects of an academic career: improving the teaching and learning of mathematics, engaging in research and scholarship, and participating in professional activities,” according to the Section NExT website.  Nearly 1500 mathematicians have been Project NExT Fellows during the first twenty years of the program.  Soon after the birth of Project NExT, similar programs began to appear at the section level, with the first ones in the Southeastern and Texas Sections in 1996.  The Allegheny Mountain Section began its own Section NExT program in 2000.

Tami Lakins (formerly Hummel) of Allegheny College wrote an article for the November 1999 Section Newsletter announcing the formation of the Allegheny Mountain Section NExT program and inviting applications from faculty with fewer than four years of full-time teaching experience.  Lakins, Barbara Faires, Beverly Michael of the University of Pittsburgh, and Section Chair Tom Keagy of Duquesne University submitted a preliminary grant proposal to the national Project NExT organization for funding for the section program and were awarded $1185 for an organizational meeting in 2000.  The program thus began at the April 2000 section meeting held at the Community College of Allegheny County, South Campus.  Todd Will of Davidson College gave a presentation on teaching linear algebra using technology, and there was an organizational meeting for Section NExT.  According to Lakins, “Interest in forming a Section NExT was strong,” so they submitted the final proposal to NExT and received a total of $3000 to fund the program during the calendar years 2000 and 2001.  The group met again in September 2000 in a stand-alone meeting on a Saturday at the University of Pittsburgh, which was to become the tradition for many years.  In fact, the Allegheny Mountain Section NExT has met twice each year since 2000, once at the Spring Section Meeting and once on a Saturday in September.  The Section NExT program received a continuing grant for 2002 and 2003, and it has been funded by the Section itself since that time, with help from voluntary contributions from Section members.

In the early years of Section NExT, presenters often came from outside the section.  In particular, NExT was very fortunate to have Joe Gallian, Co-Coordinator of the national NExT program, present to its members in both 2002 and 2005.  The program has also taken advantage of many presenters from within its own section.  On some occasions, one of the invited speakers for the Section Meeting has also presented the NExT program.  After the early leadership of Lakins, Faires, and Michael, the Section NExT program was also led by John Bukowski of Juniata College, Tami Lakins (for a second stint), John Thompson of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Jacqueline Jensen-Vallin of Slippery Rock University, and Kimberly Roth of Juniata College.

Acknowledgements

As mentioned in the preface, I owe a great thanks to the late Albert Rabenstein of Washington and Jefferson College, who in 1994 compiled most of the information in the lists of officers and section meetings.  Twenty years later, I was able to access this information on a 3.5 inch floppy disk he left. I also thank the following people for their contributions to this Section History: Alexandra Bainbridge, Pennsylvania State University Libraries; Barbara Faires, Westminster College; Ben Freed, Clarion University; Tami Lakins, Allegheny College; James Sellers, Pennsylvania State University; Cathy Stenson, Juniata College; and Ben Sunderland, Juniata College.

References

May, Kenneth O., ed., The Mathematical Association of America: Its First Fifty Years, MAA, 1972.

Zitarelli, David E., EPADEL: A Semisesquicentennial History, 1926-2000, Elkins Park, PA: Raymond-Reese, 2001.

Zitarelli, David E., The Mathematical Association of America: Its First 100 Years, 2014.  Available at MAA Centennial website, http://www.maa.org/about-maa/maa-history/celebrating-the-centennial-of-the-mathematical-association-of-america-1915-2015

The American Mathematical Monthly, various issues as noted.