This is a summary for all Pi Mu Epsilon Chapters of the meeting of the National Council of Pi Mu Epsilon, Inc. January 7, 2005 in Atlanta, GA.

Reports

• Arthur Benjamin from Harvey Mudd College will be our 2005 Frame Lecturer Friday evening August 5, 2005 at our annual national Pi Mu Epsilon in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
• The National Security Agency has approved our grant to partially subsidize the room and board costs of our student speakers at our August 2005 Pi Mu Epsilon conference, that is held in conjunction with the MAA"s MathFest.
• T-Shirts are being offered at $9 each in quantities of 25 or more to Chapters that wish to use their sales to earn money.
• The Treasurer reported that Pi Mu Epsilon is on track with its budget at this midpoint of the fiscal year. The one large major expenditure that will be realized soon is the purchase of a resupply of Key Pins to make sure there is an adequate supply through this spring.
• The editor of our Pi Mu Epsilon Journal reported that subscriptions are holding constant. The Journal has new co-editors for its Problems Section: Ashley Ahlin from Vanderbilt University and Harold Reiter from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
• The Webmaster for our Pi Mu Epsilon web site http://www.pme-math.org/ will coordinate with the Secretary to publicize on January 31 the names and short biographical sketches of the candidates in our elections. Ballots must be returned to the Secretary before March 31. Our Webmaster has asked anyone having difficulty contacting our web site to contact him at sutherlandd@hendrix.edu
• Pi Mu Epsilon co-sponsors the Pi Mu Epsilon Banquet at MathFest together with the MAA's Committee on Undergraduate Student Activities. For the 2004 banquet the shortfall between the amount collected from those attending the banquet and the cost of the banquet almost quadrupled to $3000. Neither organization can continue to subsidize the banquet to this extent. Discussions about methods of cost-relief are continuing. The banquet maybe moved away from the hotels hosting the meeting to save on the costs, and the price to those attending will probably increase.
• Those Pi Mu Epsilon Chapters that are interested are asked to have some of their alumni contribute more profiles of mathematics majors and their work to Michael Pearson, MAA Programs Director, so the MAA web site can show the variety of opportunities open to mathematics majors.
• The Pi Mu Epsilon Investment Committee reported that the fund given to us by J. Sutherland Frame to support our annual summer Frame Lectures is doing well and will be able to continue supporting these Lectures.

• The Council then spent well over an hour discussing which of the applications for our National Lectureship and Enhancement Program should be funded. After the President verifies some information from certain of the applying Chapters and after of all the successful Chapters have been notified, the Chapters to be awarded the grants for the Spring 2005 term will be announced on our web site.
• The remaining time in this four-hour meeting was devoted to a continuing discussion of amendments to our Constitution. The Council will continue to work on these amendments by email to have every i dotted and every t crossed by the end of this spring. One of the first duties of our new President when she takes over on July 1 will be to explain to our Chapters all the changes and the Council's rationale for the changes. The Council hopes that the vote on the amendments it is proposing will go to the Chapters in the fall of 2005. Chapters will have three months to consider the amended Constitution and vote. The changes will take effect provided that 3/4 of the Active Chapters vote, and 2/3 of those voting affirm the changes. It has been 16 years since any change was made to our Pi Mu Epsilon Constitution. Updating is certainly necessary to keep it consistent with our current practices.

• An example of one of the sections of the Constitution to be written more clearly is the section that specifies when a person becomes a member of Pi Mu Epsilon. It will be rewritten emphasizing that membership only happens after the name has been registered with the national Secretary-Treasurer. Because of students' schedules, some Chapters have induction ceremonies more than once per term. Council stated that the Secretary-Treasurer shoud emphasize to these Chapters that he will happily accept the names after each induction; all the names do not have to be collected until the end of the term.
• Our current Constitution talks about National Meetings to which each Chapter sends an official delegate to decide on business. Present Councillors can verify that such meetings have not been held in the last 50 years and doubt that they were held more than a couple times in the previous 41 of the 91 years of existence of Pi Mu Epsilon. Such meetings were feasible only very early in the creation Pi Mu Epsilon. Therefore, the Constitution will be amended to indicate how business needs to be conducted currently.

The complete minutes of this meeting will be available from the Pi Mu Epsilon Secretary-Treasurer after they are approved at the August 2005 meeting of the Council in Albuquerque, NM.