From: "Kujawa, Jonathan" <kujawa@ou.edu>
To: "faculty2@aftermath.math.ou.edu" <faculty2@math.ou.edu>,
        mathgrads <mathgrads@ou.edu>, "Cross, Patrick S." <pcross@ou.edu>
Subject: A few things to let the undergrads know about
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:26:36 +0000

All,

I would be grateful if you would take a few minutes in your classes and
other meetings with undergraduates to advertise the following:

1.  This week Ravi Shankar is hosting a visit by the well known expositor
    of math, Frank Morgan of Williams College.  He will be giving two talks
    this Thursday:

His first talk (at 4 pm in PHSC 1105) is about the Poincare Conjecture.
The title and abstract is:

    “From Soap Bubbles to the Poincaré Conjecture”

    Abstract: A single round soap bubble provides the least-area way to
    enclose a given volume. How does the solution change if space is given
    some symmetric positive density like r^2 or e^-r^2 that weights both
    area and volume? Such densities appear prominently in Perelman’s
    paper proving the Poincaré Conjecture. No prerequisites; undergraduates
    welcome.

His second talk (at 5 pm in PHSC 1105) is about math and baseball.  The
title and abstract is:

    “Baserunner’s Optimal Path”

    Abstract: When you hit that final long ball in the World Series of
    Baseball and know you need the home run, what is your optimal path
    around the bases?

Both promise to be excellent talks and students should be encouraged to
attend.  The second talk is a Math Club event and pizza will be provided
for the undergraduates.


2.  Encourage your students to visit the OU Math Club blog
    (http://oumathclub.wordpress.com/).  There are several posts a week
    advertising upcoming events (e.g. Frank Morgan's talks), job
    opportunities, math in the news, etc.  Consider putting a link to the
    blog on your course webpage and on D2L.  Some instructors also offer
    their students some small extra credit for posting comments to the
    blog.

Amazingly, the blog already receives 200+ visits a day, but the more the
merrier!  Many undergraduates are still unaware of all the career
opportunities and other resources the department provides and the blog is a
good entry point to this information.


3.  Finally, please encourage students to visit the "Math Majors" and
    "Undergraduate Info" links on the dept. homepage.  These pages were
    revamped recently and provide a great deal of information about the
    math major/minor, summer research opportunities, study resources, etc.


Best,

Jon Kujawa