On November 11, 1999, Daniel Slilaty presented "Connect-the-Dots, But Don't Cross You Lines" to a group of Ithaca College students and faculty. Junior and senior mathematics majors comprised the bulk of the student audience. Also in attendance were Professor Tom Rishel and Chris Hruska, a graduate student, from nearby Cornell University. Dan's talk consisted mainly of proving that the complete graph on five vertices K(5) and the complete bipartite graph K(3,3) are not planar by using Euler's polyhedral formula. He finished the talk with a discussion of Kuratowski's famous result that every non-planar graph has a subgraph isomorphic to a subdivision of K(5) or K(3,3). Dan kept the material at a level appropriate for undergraduates and the students seemed to enjoy the talk. We're offering a course in graph theory here at Ithaca next spring, so the talk was timely as well as entertaining.
Accompanying Dan from SUNY Binghamton were graduate students Joe Evan, Bill Hooper, and Joanna Su, as well as faculty members Fernando Guzman and Luise-Charlotte Kappe. After Dan's talk, our undergraduates had the opportunity to discuss graduate school with the Binghamton visitors over refreshments. At least one of the students present is now interested in applying to graduate school.
Following the talk and refreshments, Ithaca College Professors John Maceli, Mary Ann Rishel, and Patrick Ratchford accompanied our Binghamton and Cornell guests to Dinner at the Moosewood restaurant in downtown Ithaca. During dinner we discussed several topics related to the teaching of mathematics at the college level, including calculus reform, the use of writing in mathematics courses, and the problems associated with teaching large lecture classes. Having representatives from three different schools gave us a nice cross-section of opinions and ideas.
Those of us from Ithaca College all agreed that the day was a success and hope that it will be but the first in a series of such exchanges.