Judges Needed for MAA MathFest Student Paper Sessions
The MAA MathFest Student Paper Sessions, held on Thursday and Friday, August 7 and 8, need judges. Learn more.

And the Winner Is...
Thanks to all who participated in MAA's Annual T-shirt Design Contest, and congratulations to Dave Cooke (Hastings College), whose "Pi" design is this year's winner. The T-shirt will be on sale at MAA MathFest 2014 in Portland, Oregon. Check out (and perhaps purchase?) past winners here.

Back Issues of FOCUS Located and Donated
Thanks to Bryan Dawson (Union University), Cal Van Niewaal (Coe College), Virginia M. "Jimmy" Buchanan (Hiram College), and Alan C. Stickney (Wittenberg University) for their prompt and generous responses to Math Alert's June appeal for back issues of FOCUS. Soon a full run of MAA's newsmagazine will be included in the Archives of American Mathematics.

Correction: Nominations Sought for 2015 Falconer Lecturer
The June/July 2014 issue of MAA FOCUS (see p.2) incorrectly called for nominations for the 2014 rather than the 2015 AWM-MAA Falconer Lecturer. The deadline for nominations is September 1, 2014, as stated, and more information is available here.

Now Open

MAA MathFest 2014 Estimathon Registration
Jane Street Capital will be hosting an Estimathon contest for students at MAA MathFest in Portland, Oregon, onAugust 7 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Read the rules or register to compete.  

2015 Joint Mathematics Meetings Call for MAA Contributed Papers
The MAA Committee on Contributed Paper Sessions is soliciting abstracts for contributed papers pertinent to sessions described on the 2015 Joint Mathematics Meetings website. Abstracts can be submitted electronically through September 16, 2014. 

Blogs

Ignore Limits, Says Bressoud
In the July installment of Launchings, David Bressoud begins to lay out his argument against using limit as an organizing principle of first-year calculus. Read the post.

Devlin Defends Dot Diagrams
Keith Devlin uses the July Devlin's Angle to respond to a New York Times story about the Common Core State Standards for mathematics. Read the post.

I Will Face My Fear
In a June Math Ed Matters post, Dana Ernst uses the litany against fear from Frank Herbert's Dune to broach the subject of how to keep fear from holding students back. Read the post.

Cards Get Dicey in June Card Colm
In the June Card Colm, Colm Mulcahy explores dice and card diversions related to non-transitive and intransitive relations. Read the post.