2024 Mathematical Association of America
Certificate for Meritorious Service
Citation to

David Housman

The Mathematical Association of America, especially the Indiana section, wishes to recognize the extensive and praiseworthy contributions of David Housman by awarding him the Certificate of Meritorious Service.

After briefly teaching at each of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Drew University, and Allegany College, David joined the faculty at Goshen College in 1998. He is currently a full professor and serves as the Department Chair of Mathematics and Computer Science. David was recently elected by all full-time faculty at Goshen to his second term as Chair of the Faculty. In this role, he represents faculty on the President’s Cabinet, leads faculty-wide meetings, and chairs the Academic Affairs Committee. Ann Vendrely, Goshen’s VPAA, wrote that “I've enjoyed getting to know him better through this role as we meet for at least an hour each week.  He is an organized leader of the faculty and of committees and is very collaborative with solving problems.”

David has been active in the Indiana Section of the MAA since he arrived at Goshen. In fact, David has attended 46 Indiana Section meetings, which is the second highest attendance recorded since the section began tracking meeting attendance. David frequently gives talks at section meetings on interesting undergraduate topics such as game theory, apportionment, and voting. He is committed to bringing students to section meetings to connect them with the wider mathematical community.

David has held many positions in the MAA committee and governance structure. At the section level, he served as the Secretary from 2001-2008 and as the Visiting Program/Outreach Coordinator from 2012-2018. He also served as the Indiana Section Governor from 2008-2011 and is currently the Section’s Congress Representative. At the national level, he has served in the Council on the Profession and the Council on Meetings, including a term on the Committee on Faculty and Departments and a term as Chair of the Committee on Sessions of Contributed Papers. He currently is a member of the Committee on the Merten Hasse Prize.

David has also been active in multiple SIGMAAs throughout the years, including RUME, Mathematical and Computational Biology, and Environmental Mathematics. This range of memberships reflects his broad interests and intellectual range. He has mentored over seventy students in undergraduate research through Goshen’s Maple Scholars summer program, independent studies, and senior theses. Both of the textbooks he has co-authored also reflect this range of knowledge and interest in applications of mathematics.

David reports that at Goshen College, he is able to “connect mathematics and computing with other disciplines and faith. I have enjoyed teaching a course on fair allocation and collaborating with a biologist to teach a course on biomathematics. As a co-director of the regional Science Olympiad tournament, I help coordinate over 100 volunteer students, faculty and community members to provide an engaging interdisciplinary science experience for several hundred middle and high school students.”

In summary, David Housman is well-deserving of the Certificate of Meritorious Service, and it is the pleasure of the Indiana Section of the MAA to nominate him for that award.