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While Baltimore is still fresh in my mind, let me pass on to you some of my impressions. I was glad to see so many members of the Seaway Section at the meeting. To some I only could say hello while they were passing on the escalator in the opposite direction, to others I could talk more extensively, addressing Seaway Section matters. Most of my business I conduct by e-mail, but I realized that in a ten-minute face-to-face meeting I can accomplish more than spending an hour on the computer. Above all, e-mail never can convey the enthusiasm someone expresses when telling me how delighted they are invited to serve on a particular committee.

Project NExT in the sections was high on the agenda of the section officers meeting at Baltimore. Made possible by a grant from Exxon, this support network and mentoring program for new faculty just entering the profession has been running on the national level for several years with great success. By expanding Project NExT to the section level more new faculty can be reached in a less costly way. With the help of some of the Project NExT fellows in our section, the MAA Seaway Section plans to join some of the other sections who have already started this project.

Our invitation of Education Commissioner Mills to our Fall meeting at Siena College caught the eye of MAA headquarters and was highlighted in the section officers meeting, the only event explicitly mentioned when reporting about activities in the sections. It appears almost as if national trends follow those in the Seaway Section: The address of Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, entitled "The State of Mathematics Education: Building a Strong Foundation for the Twenty-first Century" was a first for an annual AMS/MAA-meeting. Later on in the meeting, the forum and panel discussion on NCTM Standards was quite informative and made the audience aware of the complexity of the issue. Our Spring meeting will have its focus on NCTM Standards, something I am looking forward to.

It appears to me that of lately mathematics education is more on the mind of the public and the government and in the news. A new sputnik effect? Things are much more down to earth. We may want to call it TIMMS effect, after the "Third International Mathematics and Science Study", where in an international comparison between eighth graders, the US students are not very favorably placed. "K-12" is the buzzword occurring in talks, addresses, studies and articles. Just look at the program of the Baltimore meeting and see how often it appears there. In this context, Secretary Riley in his address mentioned a study which found that the competence and engagement of the teacher is a very significant contributing factor to the success of students. I think, we did not need any studies to confirm this. We believed in it all along. On whatever level of iteration we are working in this process as teachers, or teachers of teachers, it should remind us to put our belief into action and to do our share to build a strong foundation for mathematics education in the next century. Let's hope that "FIMMS" will bring good news.

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