President E. Gordon Gee and the Ohio State University Department of Mathematics
honored 69 of its undergraduate mathematics majors at an Undergraduate
Recognition Ceremony on April 26, 1996. All of the students had achieved
distinction in the university community over and above good grades. Among the
distinctions were Goldwater Scholarship Recipient, National Science Foundation
Scholarship Prize, membership in Phi Beta Kappa and Phi Kappa Phi,
scholar-athlete awards, membership in the OSU Marching Band and recognition
of service in various other university activities. President Gee presented
the certificates to the awardees.
In particular, Ms. Shannon McDonald, an undergraduate mathematics and
chemistry major from Perrysburg, Ohio, received a $1000 National Science
Foundation Incentives for Excellence Scholarship Prize. This prize was
awarded in recognition of Lemuel R. Riggins who earned an NSF Minority Graduate
Fellowship in 1994. One purpose of this Prize is to increase the opportunities
for outstanding underrepresented minority students to pursue advances studies
in science, mathematics or engineering.
The Undergraduate Recognition Program is held every year during Mathematics
Awareness Week. This is a national event sponsored by the Joint Policy Board
for Mathematics of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical
Association of America and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
The theme for the year was "Mathematics and Decision Making." The text of the
program booklet included discussion of some of the significant contributions
mathematics makes to decisions that shape our daily lives. Professor Jane
Fraser of the Department of Industrial, Welding and Systems Engineering was
the keynote speaker and discussed some of the mathematics used in decision
making in an industrial setting.
The Recognition Program Committee was co-chaired by Frank Carroll and Judie
Monson of the Department of Mathematics.
