Institution: College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University

Reporting Year: 2024-2025

Advisor: Kris Nairn

Advisor's Email Address: knairn@csbsju.edu

Has There Been a Change in Chapter Advisor During the Past Year?: No

Permanent Faculty Correspondent: 

Permanent Faculty Correspondent's Email Address: 

Officers: 

Chapter Website: http://

Number of New Members: 

Number of Continuing Members: 

Activities: We hosted the Spring 2025 PME Undergraduate Mathematics Conference. More information about this event will be given below. The PME Delta Chapter also continued the recent tradition of hosting a combined event for inducting new members to PME along with a trivia contest hosted by the Mathematics Department. This served as a community-building event. The two main goals were to promote interaction between upper-level mathematics majors and entering or prospective math majors, and to honor the year's PME inductees. The event has grown in popularity over the last couple of years and was very well-attended by students as well as some faculty colleagues from other departments at CSB and SJU.

Do any of your chapter members plan to attend or present at the PME National Meeting this year? No

Do you have any news about current students or recent graduations? For example, scholarships or other awards, acceptances to graduate school, paper presentations at conferences, etc.
None

If you were awarded a PME Lectureship, Conference, or Prize Grant within the past year, please briefly describe the results.
The invited speaker for PME Spring 2025, Ben Orlin, gave two lectures on games and puzzles which bridge the seemingly vast gap between intuitive mathematics and modern, advanced mathematical ideas. The first lecture, entitled "Math Games (and Why They Matter)", was aimed at a general audience and was attended by approximately 50 people. In addition to the local community of CSB and SJU faculty and students, and faculty from Saint Cloud State University, the audience included groups who traveled from Minnesota State University Moorhead, Concordia College in Moorhead, Augsburg University, and Bethany Lutheran College. Many of these individuals were also in attendance on Saturday morning for Ben's second invited address, entitled "The Entirety of Higher Mathematics in 13 Puzzles." In addition to the two invited talks, there were five student presentations, with three on Friday evening and two on Saturday morning. The speakers represented CSB and SJU, Concordia-Moorhead, Augsburg, and Bethany Lutheran. Lastly, the conference included three informal sessions to actively engage participants. The first, which opened the conference on Friday evening, was a time for everyone to share their own art and mathematical humor on the boards around the room in Peter Engl 269. The purpose was to give conference participants to connect with Ben Orlin, who is the author of "Math with Bad Drawings." This session was well-attended by students and mathematics faculty. The second was a pizza social which followed the Friday evening talk by Ben. Participants asked questions of the speaker and created more mathematical art on the whiteboards and chalkboards. The third session, on Saturday morning, was an open problem solving session. Some open problems with low entry points were provided, and morning refreshments were provided. Participants chose a problem on which to work and then formed small groups to discuss ideas. Some of the students in attendance also shared some problems they had been considering in their recent academic years.