Society of Actuaries Exam

Congratulations to Actuarial Science major Andrew Iden on recently passing the Society of Actuaries Exam FM - Financial Mathematics.  Andrew completed a Special Topics course in Financial Mathematics with Dr. Christopher Swanson in the Spring of 2011.

ACM-ICPC East Central North America Regional Programming Contest



Dr. Boris Kerkez (far left) and Dr. Paul Cao (far right),with
Ashland University's 2010 ACM Contest participants.



Dr. Paul Cao directed nine students at the Association for Computing Machinery East Central North America  Regional Programming Contest, held on October 23, 2010 in Youngstown, Ohio.  115 teams from 60 colleges and universities throughout western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, eastern Ontario, and Indiana participated in the contest. 

Participants from Ashland University included: John Bentley, Thomas Conti, Kees Edwards, Jim Huang, Allen Kowal, Anna Payne, Patrick Shehan, Matthew Smithburger and Marissa Uhrig.

ACM participants preparing to depart for the competition.

William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition

Nicole Peterson, Cara Whitcomb, Caitlin Music, Anna Payne

On December 4, 2010, Nicole Peterson, Cara Whitcomb, Caitlin Music, and Anna Payne participated in the 71st William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition.  For those of you unfamiliar with this competition, they worked on six problems from 10:00 am—1:00 pm and then six more problems from 3:00 pm—6:00 pm.  Typically, approximately 50% of the people who enter this competition nationwide (and in Canada) receive 0 points on the entire test.  Nicole Peterson received a score of 10 and Cara Whitcomb received a score of 12.  Cara’s score broke the previous top score, 10, received by an Ashland University student. 
Dr. Christopher Swanson directed these four students at the competition.  This historical competition began in 1938 and is designed to stimulate a healthful rivalry in mathematical studies in the colleges and universities of the United States and Canada.

OHIO SECTION OF THE MATHEMATICAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

The Mathematics Department at Ashland University was well represented at the Spring meeting of the Ohio Section of the Mathematical Association of America, held on the campus of Youngstown State University, March 25-26, 2011.

Dr. Cathy Stoffer, Dr. Vickie Van Dresar, Dr. Christopher Swanson, Dr. Gordon Swain and Dr. Thomas Dence, as well as several AU students, attended the conference.  Some gave talks and others participated in a Mathematics competition.

Dr. Gordon Swain was one of the featured invited speakers to the conference.  He gave an hour talk titled "On Lines and Parabolas, Again and Again."




Dr .Thomas Dence delivered one of the contributed talks, titled "Residues Modulo a Prime."

Dr. Christopher Swanson served as a mentor and coordinator for the six Ashland University students who participated in the conference by delivering contributed talks.  The students who gave presentations at this conference were:

Kara Biltz "Exploring the Platonic Relationship Between Probability and Yahtzee"
Niko Blankenship "A Different Look at March Madness"
Alayne Ruggles "Weird Dice"
Nicole Peterson "Sequences and Balanced Distributions"
Polly Widmer "To Be, or Not to Be, Dry!"
Donnie Dottei "Baseball's Record Breaking Math"

Under the direction of Dr. Dence, nine students braved serious competition, and fared quite well, in the Leo Schneider Ohio Student Mathematics Contest.  The students who participated were:  Kara Biltz, Niko Blankenship, Clay Harris, Nicole Peterson, Alayna Ruggles, Makenzie Sauder, Cara Whitcomb, Polly Widmer and David Woods