Dear Alumni,

I hope that you will enjoy reading this most recent edition of our Newsletter. The recent news about the University of Memphis has been dominated by various funding woes (which are real) and sports news, some good and some bad. But after reading our Departmental Newsletter, I am certain you will see that there are a lot of positive things happening in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

Our faculty has been active in research, with several members receiving external funding. Dr. E. O. George, Professor of Statistics, is a co-Principal Investigator on a grant for $2.4 million dollars, from the National Institute of Health. Three faculty in Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems were awarded individual, 3-year research grants from the National Science Foundation: Dr. M. Wierdl, Dr. A. Quas, and the newest member of the Department, Dr. R. McCutcheon.

We have one of the best research groups in the world in the area of Graph Theory and Combinatorics as well as highly regarded research groups in Partial Differential Equations, Ergodic Theory and Dynamics, Analysis, and Bio-Statistics. This past October we were the host for an international conference on Banach Spaces and Operator Theory that was attended by Mathematicians from more than 20 countries . We were also the host of a well- attended CBMS conference this past May. Another CBMS conference is planned for this coming May and a workshop on special topics in Banach spaces is also scheduled for the coming fall.

We are proud of our undergraduate students who are going on to successful careers in various fields. We are also pleased with the success of our Putnam team and we look forward to even more success for this team in the future. Our graduate students are winning awards for teaching (Angie Murdock) and research (John Cutler, Van Fleet Scholar).

I am very pleased to be a member of a department that has a proud history of successful alumni, and is planning for a bright future. Our plans include adding different options for the undergraduate major such as a track in Math-Stat for Biosciences and Math-Stat for Actuarial & Business applications. In graduate education we hope to increase our activity in the training of Mathematics teachers for primary and secondary levels.

As in the past, the key to a successful department is a good student base and a strong faculty. We promise to keep faculty standards high and we will work hard to recruit the best Mathematics and Statistics students available. You can help us in this venture in several ways. Financial contributions are always needed, and always welcome. Contributions may be earmarked to our scholarship funds, the general departmental fund, or for travel for faculty. (Due to a lack of state funding, some faculty regularly attend national and international conferences at their own expense. Contributing for this expense will help us retain some of our top young faculty, who are constantly being lured to other universities by salary and travel perks). If you have friends or acquaintances whose children are considering majoring in Mathematics or Statistics, please tell them about your experience at the University of Memphis. Encourage them to contact us so that we can invite them to campus and introduce them to other students and faculty.

I hope that you look back on your experience at The University of Memphis with fond memories. I encourage you to stay in touch by letting us know about your career moves and other important events in your professional life. You are the foundation on which we will build for the future.