Professors Debra Hydorn and Suzanne Sumner (mathematics) were elected co-chairs of the new D.C. regional network of the American Association’s Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL). Hydorn and Sumner are both members of PKAL’s Faculty for the 21st Century (F21) Network. The goals for the network are to continue the work of PKAL toward improving STEM education for all […]
Suzanne Sumner, professor of mathematics, Mary Beth Mathews, associate professor of religion, Kathryn Loesser-Casey, professor of biology, and Debra Hydorn, professor of mathematics, gave presentations at the 2013 Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching. The theme of this year’s conference was “Evidence Based Teaching and Learning.” Professors Sumner and Mathews gave a poster presentation […]
At the 2013 Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego, Calif., in January, two faculty members and a student from UMW presented their work. Suzanne Sumner, professor of mathematics, delivered the talk “Intensive Experiences for Undergraduate Mathematics” in a session on Communicating Mathematics sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America.
Debra Hydorn, professor of mathematics, spoke in a session devoted to Innovative Ideas for Courses in the First Two Years. Her talk was titled “Exploratory Projects in an Introduction to Discrete Mathematics Course.” Hydorn gave a second talk titled “Using R for Data Analysis Assignments in an Introductory Statistics Course” in a session devoted to Modern Ideas in Introductory Statistics Courses. In addition, she was honored to have a piece of geometric artwork accepted through a juried process to the Mathematical Art Exhibition.
Finally, UMW senior Ryan Vaughn presented a poster at the National Undergraduate Student poster competition. Ryan’s poster, titled “Embeddings of Complete Bipartite Graphs in Finite Projective Planes” won one of the Outstanding Poster Awards.
Professor of Mathematics Suzanne Sumner, together with Dr. Wyatt Mangum, adjunct faculty member, recently delivered the invited talk “Worker Bee Aggression towards a Foreign Queen: Modeling from Data” for the Progress on Difference Equations international conference hosted at Virginia Commonwealth University. The talk addressed their continued research into the mathematical modeling associated with the behavior of bees.
Mary Rigsby, professor of English, and Suzanne Sumner, professor of mathematics, gave an invited feature presentation at the Teaching Professor Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, held May 20-22, titled “BustingWalls and Overcoming Blahs: Knotty Problems and Speed Dating.” The Teaching Professor Conference is a premier international conference on teaching pedagogy at the college level, with 800 participants from 10 countries.
Rigsby and Sumner received this invitation because of their past participation in Teaching Professor conferences, and to share their
experiences as former directors of UMW’s Teaching Innovation Program. In addition, Sumner is currently on the advisory board for the Teaching Professor Conference and reviewed proposals for contributed sessions for the conference.
