The Pot of Gold at the End of the Rainbow — How Mathematics Departments Can Increase LGBTQ+ Inclusivity

By Joseph Nakao, Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Delaware Healthy mathematics departments frequently ask themselves, “Are our students happy?” Although it is a deceivingly simple question, the answer is difficult to discern. What exactly does it mean for a student to be ‘happy’? Personally, I believe it boils down to whether or not a...

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How the Ancient Greeks Constructed the World’s First Mechanical Computer

By Keith Devlin @profkeithdevlin The largest fragment of the 2,100-year-old Antikythera Mechanism, on display at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, Greece. (Image: National Archaeological Museum, Athens, Greece) Researchers at University College London (UCL) have finally figured out the likely mechanism of the 2,000-year-old Antikythera device, arguably the world's first mechanical computer.  In 1900, Greek sponge...

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CBMS Survey of Departmental Responses to COVID

By: David Bressoud @dbressoud David Bressoud is DeWitt Wallace Professor Emeritus at Macalester College and Director of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences Every five years, starting in 1965, the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS) has surveyed mathematics departments across the United States to gather data on course offerings and enrollments. Every...

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Let’s Be Kind to Our Students

By Allison Henrich, Seattle University In the past month, I’ve had a student hospitalized for a panic attack, a student grieving the loss of a high school friend who took his own life, a student whose father is in a coma, a student who had a family member pass away after a battle with COVID,...

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Epsilon of Promise

By Tim Chartier @timchartier, Professor of Mathematics, Davidson College I learned in college that, as the saying goes, the sun will indeed come out tomorrow. But that doesn’t mean everyone will feel its warmth. When I began as an undergrad at Western Michigan University, I was coming off a series of health struggles that kept...

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Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics Statement in Support of our Asian and Asian American Community Members

On March 16, 2021 a man killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, and injured one man in a shooting spree in Atlanta, Georgia. This violence has renewed broader calls to support our Asian and Asian American communities. The specifics of this tragic incident remind us that there are multiple layers of identity-based...

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How STEM Faculty and K-12 Teachers in the US Virgin Islands Found Support During a Pandemic

By Nadia Monrose Mills, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of the Virgin Islands The Virgin Islands Institute for STEM Education Research and Practice, VI-ISERP, is a vibrant intellectual center dedicated to improving STEM education in the Virgin Islands through research, networking, and innovation. The goals of the center are to:  Improve STEM Education in the...

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Technology: Ubiquitous Expectations & Fragmented Access

By Melinda Lanius, Postdoctoral Associate, University of Arizona The third week of February 2021 was awful for so many across the United States. Temperatures reached dangerous lows, water pipes froze, and power grids failed. I hope you all were able to stay safe and warm and were able to connect to the resources you needed....

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Program Seeks to Develop Military and Civilian Leaders in STEM

By Audrey Malagon, Lead Editor of DUE Point, Virginia Wesleyan University The National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM programs provide scholarships and opportunities for low-income students to excel in STEM fields. At Norwich University, the oldest Senior Military College in the country, their goal is to develop S-STEM scholars into leaders in both the military and...

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Oral Exams: A Time-Honored Tool with a Fresh Purpose

By Della Dumbaugh, Professor of Mathematics, University of Richmond With the sudden shift to Zoom classrooms in the spring of 2020, I found it difficult to connect with students and uncertain of their understanding of critical content. On a whim, I resurrected and reconfigured a tool from graduate school: the oral exam. This assessment tool...

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