This is a summary for all Pi Mu Epsilon Chapters of the meeting of the National Council of Pi Mu Epsilon, Inc. January 14, 2006 in San Antonio, TX.

Reports and Actions

• In Council action between the August 2005 meeting and this meeting, petitions for establishing two new Chapters were accepted by unanimous vote. This brings our total number of Chapters to 319. Our newest Chapters are:
  • Texas Sigma Chapter at the University of Texas at Brownsville.
  • New York Alpha Nu at Fordham University in Bronx, New York.
• Donald G. Saari from the University of California at Irvine will be our 2006 Frame Lecturer Friday evening August 11, 2006 at our annual national Pi Mu Epsilon conference in Knoxville, Tennessee.
• The National Security Agency has approved our grant to partially subsidize the room and board costs of our student speakers at our August 2006 Pi Mu Epsilon conference that will be held in conjunction with the MAA's MathFest.
• 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 Pi Mu Epsilon Banners to make sure there is an adequate supply through this spring.
• The editor of our Pi Mu Epsilon Journal reported that the fall 2005 issue was late getting into the hands of our subscribers due to a problem with the printer, and that the problem will be corrected with a new printer beginning with the spring 2006 issue.
• Since the fall 2005 issue of the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal was delivered so late, the deadline for submission of solutions to problems in its Problem Section will be moved back to February 28, 2006 from February 1.
• The Council voted to give the editors of the Problem Section of the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal permission to post the problems posed for each issue on the Pi Mu Epsilon web site. This will give solvers approximately two additional months during which to work on the problems and submit solutions compared to waiting until they see the problems in print in our Journal. The Council anticipates no negative effect on subscriptions to the Journal since solutions and acknowledgements of solvers will not be posted on our web site.
• The idea of a special issue of the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal to be published in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of Pi Mu Epsilon in 2014 was voiced and will be pursued.
• The Webmaster for our Pi Mu Epsilon web site http://www.pme-math.org/ reported that our site is running smoothly.
• In January 1998 the widow of former Pi Mu Epsilon President J. Sutherland Frame gave shares of a Mutual Fund to Pi Mu Epsilon to establish the Frame Lecture series in his honor. An ad hoc investment committee appointed by the Pi Mu Epsilon President recommended that this year these funds be moved to a different Mutual Fund, one with a better performance record.
• Angela Spalsbury was appointed to collect the titles and abstracts from Pi Mu Epsilon speakers and form the program of Pi Mu Epsilon speakers for our conference in Knoxville, Tennesssee Wednesday August 9 through Friday August 11 in conjunction with MathFest. For 2006, the time allotted by MathFest for Pi Mu Epsilon student talks was cut from 8 hours of two parallel sessions in previous years to 7.5 hours of two parallel sessions.
• SIAM and MAASIG-EM were not able to offer their $150 cash awards to PME student speakers in 2005 because they did not have the personnel present in Albuquerque to judge the PME talks. They promised PME that that problem would be solved, and our PME student speakers with talks on applied and environment mathematics would be judged in 2006, and thereby be eligible for their awards.
• The MAA permuted its schedule for MathFest to put more activities that are directed toward students between the Wednesday afternoon Student Reception (which had to be scheduled an hour earlier) and Friday evening's Frame Lecture. In addition to the student talks and Pi Mu Epsilon Banquet that were always scheduled in that interval, the MAA Student Lecture was moved to 1:00-1:50pm Thursday and the MAA Student Activity was moved to 1:00-1:50pm Friday; these used to be scheduled on Saturday. In addition, the MAA will stage a Mathematical Jeopardy game between students Wednesday 5:30-7:15pm.
• The future sites for MathFest are: 2006 in Knoxville, Tennessee; 2007 in San Jose, California; 2008 in Madison, Wisconsin; 2009 in Portland, Oregon; 2010 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and 2015, the 100th anniversary of the MAA, in Washington, DC.
• PME has requested that the MAA schedule MathFest 2014 in Syracuse, New York since 2014 is the 100th anniversary of Pi Mu Epsilon which started at Syracuse University.
• Almost two decades ago, Pi Mu Epsilon initiated a continental breakfast at the January Mathematics Meetings so that Pi Mu Epsilon Chapter Advisors and Councillors could share ideas and common concerns on an informal basis. Now that breakfast, shared by MAA Student Chapter Advisors, is too large for such informal interchange to take place. Much of the interchange between Councillors and Chapter Advisors that took could take place years ago at these breakfasts now takes place at our Pi Mu Epsilon exhibit. Although a final decision was not made, the idea of no longer co-sponsoring winter meeting breakfasts was discussed.
• Although it is late in the scheduling for MathFest 2006, our Pi Mu Epsilon President will try to schedule a breakfast for Pi Mu Epsilon Chapter Advisors and Permanent Faculty Correspondents for this summer's meeting.
• At our August 2005 meeting we accepted proposals for Pi Mu Epsilon Lectureships at five Chapters. The schedule, as it stands now, is
  • David Sutherland visited our Florida Delta Chapter at the University of Florida November 8-9.
  • Joan Weiss had originally been scheduled to visit our Florida Zeta Chapter at Florida Atlantic University this fall, but that visit has been postponed because it would have coincided with the visit of Hurricane Wilma to that area. Her visit has been rescheduled for early spring.
  • Robert Smith will visit our Illinois Alpha Chapter at the University of Illinois early this spring.
  • Brigitte Servatius will visit our Rhode Island Beta Chapter at Rhode Island College later this spring.
  • Leo Schneider will visit our New York Omicron Chapter at SUNY Potsdam later this spring.
• The duties of Council Liaisons assigned to institutions interested in preparing a petition to form a new Chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon were discussed. Each of the Councillors has been assigned a few institutions to work with. At this meeting, Paul Fishback was assigned to be the Council Liaison to the College of Wooster which has expressed interest in forming a Chapter.
• The remainder of the Council meeting was devoted to a discussion of the proposed amendments to the Pi Mu Epsilon Constitution and Bylaws. These have been discussed at each of the Council meetings for the past four years, and now they are in order. Since the last Council meeting, the Pi Mu Epsilon President has consulted with a Professor of English to make sure all grammar and punctuation in the amended Constitution would be correct, and she has consulted with a Professor of Political Science familiar with writing Constitutions to make sure our amended Constitution would meet the highest standards for honor societies. With a few cosmetic changes suggested by these experts, our amendments are now ready to present to our Chapters for a vote. Decided by Council at this meeting were the (a) form of this presentation and the (b) timing of the vote:
  • (a) Since there are changes on every page and in almost every sentence being proposed, and since some of these changes are non-substantive but others are major, the Council decided that the best way to present the amendments to our Chapters for a vote would be to (1) Show them the present Constitution; (2) Show them the form the Constitution would take if the proposed amendments are passed; (3) Enclose a short list that primarily points out the major changes. These are to be distributed to all of our Chapters in appropriate forms both by USPS and by email for a vote, and votes both by USPS and email will be accepted.
  • (b) Our Constitution requires that Chapters be given three months to vote on Constitutional amendments. Therefore, February 15 will be the target date for getting the vote to our Chapters since we want the period of the vote to extend over three months of an academic year and most institutions have not yet completed their graduation ceremonies by May 15.

The complete minutes of this meeting will be available from the Pi Mu Epsilon Secretary-Treasurer after they are approved at the August 2006 meeting of the Pi Mu Epsilon Council in Knoxville, TN.