Thirty Years Ago This year

Rick Gillman
Spring 2026

Thirty years ago, in the spring of 1996, I was finishing my first year as secretary-treasurer for the Indiana Section of the MAA (INMAA). One of my tasks that spring was to write a report to the Association about our activities for the previous academic year. I found that report and other related files this past semester winter and can describe that year for you; the original documents are in the archives at the Briscoe Center for American History.

At the time, the MAA asked that the section report the number of men and women holding offices and other roles in the section. The INMAA had one female and three male officers (Catherine Murphy, Don Miller, Steve Carlson, and myself). All four committees had male chairs, and four of 24 committee members were women. At the fall (1995) meeting, two of five contributed papers were given by women and at the spring (1996) one of four were. Also, in the spring one of the two panel sessions was organized by a woman and three of nine panelists were women. One of four student presenters was a woman, but none of the invited speakers were.

Ninety of the 186 attendees at the spring meeting (held at Butler University) were students, and the remainder consisted of 30 “university” faculty and 66 “four-year college” faculty. At the fall meeting (held at Taylor University), there was one student attendee, 9 university and 38 four-year college faculty. Registration at both meetings was $5.00 for faculty and students were free. Individuals who were not from colleges or universities were invited, but none attended either meeting. The section was charging exhibitors, of which there were several, $75 for space at the meeting.

Don Saari, Northwestern University, and Lowell Beineke, Purdue University Fort Wayne, were the invited fall speakers. There were also five contributed papers, including one from a guest from the University of South Africa.

Phil Straffin, Beloit College, and Ken Ross, then president of the MAA, spoke at the spring meeting. John Emert and Dale Umback, both from Ball State University were noted as outstanding speakers for their talk “Inconsistencies in Wild Card Poker” while Bob Foote and Nathan Fonts, both from Wabash College, were recognized for their talk “Cruisin’ Through Hyperbolic Space: Interactive Non-Euclidean Geometry.” There were six other contributed talks in the spring, four by students, and two panel sessions.

In the fall, certificates of recognition were given to individuals with 25 years of membership while at the spring meeting Dan Maki, Indiana University, received the Distinguished Service Award and Hal Hane, Earlham College, received the Distinguished Teaching Award. A special plaque was given to Elton Graves, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, for his work as editor of the section newsletter.

At the spring meeting, the state-wide winners of the American High School Mathematics Exam were recognized, and the Indianapolis Star wrote a story about these young people the following day. This winning team, from Park Tudor School, consisted of Melanie Wood, Christopher Mihelich, and Torry Bievenour. Over 18,000 students statewide participated in the AHSME that year. The state was 5th ranked in the junior high exam that year and 12th in the senior high exam.

A significant change to the ICMC was made that spring. For the first time, the exam was graded overnight, Friday into Saturday, so that the winners could be named at the business meeting. The new grading model was deemed successful.

Also new, NExT-IN, the section’s version of Project NExT, was approved at the spring 1996 business meeting. At that same meeting, Mike Karls (Ball State University) was appointed as the new newsletter editor and Dolores Tichenor (Tri-State University) was elected as vice-chair.

In the category of “same old same old”, the report noted concerns about delays involved in working with the MAA headquarters office. But the report also noted other significant changes in the section, namely that the section had had a “WWW page designed” that summer but was making minimal use of email.