California Omicron California State University, Chico Chapter Report

Advisor and Officers

Advisor: Thomas Mattman

Fall Semester:

President – Claire Payn

Vice President – Kate Thomas

Treasurer – Lindsey Cole

Secretary – Samantha Wilson

Publicist – Brandon Heck

Spring Semester:

President – Kate Thomas

Vice President – Brandon Heck

Treasurer – Amanda Havens

Secretary – Chelsea Lindsay

Publicist – Brandon Heck

Number of New Members Inducted:

13

Number of Continuing Members:

30

Describe the two most interesting or unusual chapter activities this year:

This year, our chapter hosted a “Math Outreach” booth on campus to try and address what we perceived as unwarranted fears of and biases against mathematics among students. We wanted to spread the word that math can be fun and exciting to study and can lead to a wide variety of career options. Our booth displayed posters with fun math facts and information about opportunities available to math majors. Another successful event we held on campus was our Grad School Information Talk and Discussion Forum. We invited professors and grad students from various universities to come and talk about their experiences with studying math at a graduate level and to share information about how students can best prepare to go to grad school. We held this event to try and address our concern that information about graduate studies in mathematics was underrepresented in other university grad school events. This event was very popular, and our guest speakers answered many questions in the discussion part of the event.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present a paper at the 2009 PME national meeting at MathFest in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?

Yes

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduates, for example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences?

One of our officers, Amanda Havens, scored a 2 on the Putnam exam, which we’re very proud of her for. Another officer, Chelsea Lindsay, has been awarded the Floyd L English Scholarship, a very prestigious award given out to a few students studying in the Natural Sciences, for next year. Kate Thomas was also ! awarded this scholarship for the current year and is graduating this May.