REPORT FROM KING'S COLLEGE
On October 14, 1999 Joe Evan presented "Eureka! The Mathematics of Archimedes" to our undergraduate students and faculty. Joe was accompanied by Bill Hooper, Joanna Su, Peggy Sullivan, and Luise-Charlotte Kappe. The audience primarily consisted of students from my Analytic Geometry and Calculus class and senior math majors. My students have been asked to write a reaction paper based on the presentation. Joe's main topic was the quadrature of the parabola, although he also discussed some of the history and other ideas in Archimedes work. I plan to revisit some of the ideas in the talk later this semester when we discuss areas between curves and next semester when we discuss geometric series. Many of the students that I talked to were impressed not only by the talk, but also of the amount of geometry behind the problem discussed. After the talk, our students were given the opportunity to meet and talk to the graduate students from Binghamton over refreshments. Some of our students asked about graduate school, while others discussed the various math courses taken as undergraduates. I think our students were particularly interested to talk to Joe, since he graduated from King's and took many of the same classes with the same professors that our current students have.
Afterwards, Dr. Louise Berard, Wilkes University, Drs. Tony Berard, Dave Crotty, and Denise Reboli, King's College, joined our visitors from Binghamton for dinner at Chili's. Our dinner conversations covered many things - from the social aspects of getting to know one another to questions of applying for a job at a liberal arts school. King's has had a long history with SUNY-Binghamton, having sent several of our students there for graduate work. Part of this time was spent discussing what has happened to those students. One of the conversations concerned the differences between a small liberal arts school and a large research university, especially in regards to administration and services. Some of us discussed the expectations that a liberal art school has of those applying for jobs. It was noted that participating in a program such as "Preparing Future Faculty" gives graduate students a wonderful opportunity to present talks and to meet faculty and undergraduate students in a setting that may be different than they have previously experienced. Giving such talks also enhances the curriculum vita of the graduate students when they apply for jobs. It was also mentioned that many potential employers from liberal arts colleges would generally weigh such talks and experiences more heavily than the number of research papers that have been submitted and/or published.
Some of the graduate students pointed out that there seems to be a rise in the number of jobs advertised for Ph.D. students. We discussed that this trend may continue, although some schools have eliminated positions once retirements occur.
All of us concurred that the day was a success and look forward to the next opportunity to get together.