Report from King's College
by Denise Reboli

On April 19, 2001 Ron Sperber, Joseph Smith, Marc Evans, Fred Kluempen, Daniel Ghezzi, Lori Fern, and Dr. Luise-Charlotte Kappe from SUNY-Binghamton traveled to King's College for the afternoon. We had two presentations. Father Donald Grimes, Vice President for Academic Affairs at King's College, led the first discussion. Fr. Grimes presented information about the tenure process at a small liberal arts college, and in particular, King's College. He also discussed the transition from being a graduate student to a full-time faculty member and his hope that both administrators and senior faculty would mentor the new faculty. This presentation was well received and cleared many misconceptions about the tenure process.

Ron Sperber presented "Fermat, Prime Numbers and Encryption" to our undergraduate students and faculty. Joining the King's group was Veronica Cybulski from Luzerne County Community College and Louise Berard from Wilkes University. Ron discussed the known origins of encryption. He explained how most of us have used the concept of modular arithmetic since we started telling time and showed that this is the basis for some modern encryption. Ron introduced the Chinese Remainder Theorem and Fermat's Little Theorem. He used a simplified example to show how a message might be encrypted and decoded using those tools. Our students were excited by the topic and some have asked that we pursue the mathematics of coding in an informal seminar.

After Ron's talk, the Math and Computer Science Club provided refreshments so that all present would have an opportunity to discuss the talk and mingle with one another. Some of our students talked with Joe and Marc, who graduated from King's last year, about graduate school. Other students and faculty continued to talk with our guests about the talk.

Afterwards, Drs. Tony Berard, Dave Crotty, Joe Evan and Denise Reboli, King's College, joined our visitors for dinner at Chili's. We discussed many issues that we face in the classroom. The dinner has become a reunion of sorts, and we look forward to updating each other in the future.

Submitted by:
Denise M. Reboli, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
King's College