It is hard to believe that this is our 10th year of producing a newsletter for you. We hope that you continue to enjoy it and find it informative as you reflect on your alma mater and your field of study. This year we have a theme for our newsletter, Academic Excellence. This is a challenging time in higher education with financial challenges, decreasing student demographics, along with stiff competition from other schools. We want to remind you that Olivet is a strong academic option. Many of you have achieved great success building on the foundation you received at Olivet. In this newsletter we will take a little space to share about the academic quality of the Department of Mathematics. We want you to know that Olivet is a safe investment, whether it be financial support or more importantly, the entrusting of your family members to us for a few short years. Since we both e-mail and postal mail the newsletter, please make sure that your contact information is up to date so that you will not miss any future issues. We are always looking for alumni news or stories to include in the

newsletter so please feel free to send any appropriate information to us. May the God of grace continue to bless you as you do his work in this world. In Christ,

Dale K. Hathaway Chair, Department of Mathematics

Fall 2016, No. 10

Department of Mathematics The Newsletter for the

Department of Mathematics at Olivet Nazarene University

Greetings from the Math Department at Olivet!

Math Morsels

Congratulations to our 2016 graduates: Jessica Anderson, B.S. Mathematics/Actuarial Science, Analyst, NSA Media, Downers

Grove, IL Nathan Benz, B.S. Mathematics/Computer Science, Groupon, Chicago, IL Amy Bernhard, B.S. Mathematics Education, Yorkville High School, Yorkville, IL Ashley Borop, B.S. Mathematics Education, International School of Tegucigalpa

(Middle School), Honduras Angela Brandon, B.S. Mathematics Education, St. Anne High School, St. Anne, IL Jaimie Chen, B.S. Actuarial Science/Psychology, Graduate School in Psychology,

University of Akron, Akron, OH Melissa (Bartholomew) DeRosa, B.S. Mathematics Education, River Valley

Middle/High School, Three Oaks, MI Jessica Dirkse, B.S. Mathematics Education, Carpentersville Middle School,

Carpentersville, IL Tyler Ford, B.S. Mathematics Education, Harrison High School, Colorado Springs, CO Keila Galloway, B.S. Actuarial Science, Data Analyst, Netherland, Sewell & Associates,

Dallas, TX David Leman, B.S. Actuarial Science, Statistical Analyst, United Actuarial Services,

Carmel, IN Krystal Lewellen, B.S. Mathematics/Actuarial Science Elizabeth Nellis, B.S. Mathematics Micah Plank, B.S. Actuarial Science, United Actuarial Services, Carmel, IN Zach Rivett, B.S. Mathematics/Computer Science, Systems Analyst, State Farm

Insurance Company, Bloomington, IL Robert Wagner, B.S. Mathematics/Actuarial Science, Western & Southern Financial

Group, Cincinnati, OH Jamie Walker, B.S. Mathematics Education, Providence Catholic High School,

New Lenox, IL Sarah Walmsley, B.S. Actuarial Science, Reinsurance Group of America, Minneapolis,

MN Joshua Ware, B.S. Mathematics Education, Palatine High School, Palatine, IL Amanda Zoladz, B.S. Actuarial Science

Math Morsels

Congratulations to Zachary Rivett ‘16, the Department’s Outstanding Graduate for 2016. Zach was a double major in Mathematics and Computer Science from Howell, MI. Congratulations to Drew Philson ‘17, and Ryan Kennell ‘17, who both recently passed the Actuarial FM exam. The three-hour exam covers interest theory (discrete and continuous) and an introduction to derivative securities, and is for those pursuing an actuarial career.

Congratulations to all of our teams that participated in the 2016 Calculus Competition — sponsored by the Associated Colleges of the Chicago Area (ACCA) — Olivet’s top team of Zachary Rivett ’16, Devin Battice ’19 and Lucas Ward ’19 placed second out of 47 teams from eight colleges and universities. This Olivet team beat 16 of 17 teams from Wheaton College!

Congratulations to Ashley Borop ‘16, Jessica Dirkse ’16 and Tyler Ford ‘16, Math Education graduates, who were elected to Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges for 2016.

Congratulations to Jaimie Chen ’16, Actuarial Science and Psychology, who received the Samuel L. Mayhugh student research award for her outstanding work and diligence as a student researcher in the Department of Behavioral Sciences.

Congratulations to Christine Dorband ’17, Mathematics, who received a Pence-Boyce summer research grant on an Analysis of the 2016 Election Polls. Her research was supervised by Dr. Dale Hathaway. The Pence-Boyce summer research grants are funded by an alumni to foster mentoring of individual students by Olivet faculty in mathematics, science or engineering research.

Ashley Borop Jessica Dirkse Tyler Ford

Drew Philson

Zachary Rivett Devin Battice Lucas Ward

Zachary Rivett

Jaimie Chen

Ryan Kennell

Christine Dorband

Amy Bernhard ‘16, Mathematics Education, Elwood, IL Tung Anh Cao ’17, Engineering, Bourbonnais, IL Taylor Coble ’17, Engineering, Severy, KS Adam Dettman ‘17, Engineering, Rock Falls, IL Bradley Fitzgerald ’17, Engineering, Quincy, IL Deirdre Gerke ’18, Engineering, South Lyon, MI Matthew Haerr ’17, Engineering, Kirklin, IN Allison Howell ’17, Mathematics, Springfield, IL Stephen Johnson ’18, Engineering, Tacoma, WA Jamie Kraus ’17, Geological Engineering, Oak Forest, IL Whitney Knox ’16, Engineering, Marysville, OH Catherine Lindquist ’18, Engineering, Round Lake, IL Joshua Martin ’17, Engineering, Chicago, IL Srdja Nikolic ’17, Actuarial Science, Bourbonnais, IL Kayla O’Donohue ’18, Mathematics, Manteno, IL Jennifer Taylor ’16, Engineering, Clinton, IL Joshua Ware ’16, Mathematics Education, Gurnee, IL Megan Woods ’17, Mathematics, North Canton, OH

New members of Olivet’s Mu chapter of Pi Mu Epsilon. Back (L-R): Srdja Nikolic, Bradley Fitzgerald, Kayla O’Donohue,

Matthew Haerr, Jamie Kraus, Adam Dettman, Joshua Martin, Dr. Jeremy Lyle. Front (L-R): Taylor Coble,

Catherine Lindquist, Jennifer Taylor, Allison Howell, Megan Woods, Tung Anh Cao, Deirdre Gerke,

Professor Darl Rassi Not pictured: Amy Bernhard, Steven Johnson, Whitney Knox, Joshua Ware.

Lyndsey Herndon ‘17 and Ryan Kennell ‘17 both completed internships this past summer. Lyndsey’s worked as an assistant for HS summer school at Novi Community Schools in Novi, MI. Ryan worked with Lockton Companies, LLC, in Chicago, IL. Ryan recently accepted a position with Lockton following graduation. Pi Mu Epsilon, the national mathematics honor society, inducted new members to Olivet’s Mu Chapter during the spring semester. Our new student members, are listed alphabetically:

Math Morsels, continued

Lyndsey Herndon Ryan Kennell

Full time Faculty Ph.D. Schools- Nationally Ranked All of the Ph.D.’s earned by current Olivet Mathematics faculty come from nationally ranked universities in the United States. The universities and their 2016 rankings include:

#39 (tie) Boston University (Dale Hathaway) #39 (tie) Northeastern (Justin Brown) #60 Purdue University (Lei Cheng) #66 Clemson University (Jeremy Lyle) #82 Michigan State University (Nick Boros) #194 Bowling Green State University (Dan Green)

The seventh member of the department faculty, Darl Rassi, has started a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education at #152 Illinois State University. The Best Colleges Rankings are calculated and published by U.S. News and World Report annually.

The Department of Mathematics has adjunct professors of exceptionally high quality for which we are very grateful. These fine individuals (along with their nationally ranked schools) include:

David Johnson: Dr. Johnson, a mathematics graduate of Eastern Nazarene College with an Ed.D. in Mathematics Education from the University of Georgia (#56), worked for many years as a Professor of Mathematics at Eastern Michigan University. Now a retired Professor Emeritus, Dr. Johnson adjuncts for Olivet teaching the mathematics courses for Elementary Education majors. Heather Makarewicz ‘07: Professor Makarewicz is a graduate of Olivet with a degree in Mathematics and also completed a Master of Art degree in Mathematics from the University of Kansas (#118). She worked for NASA and has an extensive list of publications. She is a full time mom to Scarlette (6), Berenger (5) and Hawthorne who was born this past May. Professor Makarewicz teaches a section of the statistics course for nursing majors.

Lee Turner ‘72: Dr. Turner is another graduate of Olivet’s Department of Mathematics. He earned a Masters in Physics from the University of Iowa (#82). He also earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education from the University of Oklahoma (#111). For the past 38 years he has taught at Southern Nazarene University, serving as chair for 30 years. Recently retired, he and his wife moved to Kankakee to be near their son. Dr. Turner has been teaching our Finite Mathematics courses.

High Quality Faculty

High Quality Adjuncts

Faculty Professional Activity The mathematics faculty have been very active professionally. The following list represents some of the activities over the past academic year. Notice that all of the faculty in the mathe-matics department are involved. Nicholas Boros Presentation: Matrix Weights, Littlewood Paley Inequalities and Riesz Transforms , Special

Section on Bellman functions in Harmonic Analysis, American Mathematical Society Southeastern Sectional Meeting, University of Georgia, March 2016.

Justin Brown Book: The Grassmannian Variety: Geometric and Representation-Theoretic

Aspects, Springer, 6459. The book is co-authored by his dissertation advisor and is Dr. Brown’s second book.

Reviews: Authored six published article reviews on “MathSciNet: Mathe-matical Reviews”.

Lei Cheng Presentation: Mathematical Analysis on Chevron Structures in Liquid Crystal Films ,

Energy Materials Nanotechnology Meeting on Liquid Crystal, Orlando Florida, February 2016.

Daniel Green Article: Penguin Math, with Thomas Kearney, Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School,

vol. 21, no. 2, September 2015. Dale Hathaway Article: Calculus Meets the Birthday Problem , with Joshua Barks ’06, The Mathematical

Gazette, vol. 100, issue 547, March 2016. Presentation: The Birthday Problem and its many Surprises , Kappa Mu Epsilon Induction,

University of St. Francis, April 2016. Jeremy Lyle Article: A Structural Approach for Independent Domination of Regular Graphs , Graphs

and Combinatorics, vol. 31, issue 5, 2015. Darl Rassi Article: Taking Calculus to new Heights , Illinois Mathematics Teacher, vol. 63, no. 1, 2015.

After completing my junior year at ONU, I spent the summer interning at Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, in Omaha, Nebraska. Mutual of Omaha is a Fortune 500 insurance company that focuses primarily in Medicare Supplement and Life Insurance business. Throughout my internship, I gained an understanding of what an actuary does on a daily basis and what it means to be a business professional.

Going into the internship, I had no idea what the summer would look like. I was confident that Olivet provided me with all of the tools necessary to be successful, but I didn’t know how they would come into effect in the workplace. Most of the work I performed was in Excel, but I also used Microsoft SQL and VBA to accomplish tasks. I was surprised that actuaries really don’t perform many mathematical computations, rather they use modeling software and Excel tools to achieve

their tasks. I worked on several different projects including pricing new products, data reconciliation, and a trend study. The assignments I worked on were challenging and relevant, and also exposed me to a wide variety of actuarial work.

I couldn’t have asked for a better summer and I accepted a position to

work at Mutual of Omaha fulltime after graduation! I am grateful for the opportunity to attend Olivet as I believe it helped me to flourish in the work environment. I am thankful for my professors who have invested in me and helped prepare me for a successful career.

If your company or organization offers internship opportunities for college students, please let us know. We would love to connect you with one of our qualified department majors.

Drew Philson

Mathematics Foundation Scholarship The Department of Mathematics has established a fund to support scholarships for current

students. This is the only Foundation scholarship that focuses on majors in the Department of Mathematics. One of our recent recipients gratefully expressed, “It is such an honor to have received this award and recognition. This generous gift will motivate me in my studies. I am so grateful and I hope to represent the school and scholarship well in my future career. “ A special thank you to those who have made a gift to the Mathematics scholarship over the past few years. Would you like to contribute to the scholarship fund and make a difference in the life of an Olivet mathematics student? Please send your contributions to:

Office of Development Attn: The Department of Mathematics Scholarship Fund

Olivet Nazarene University Foundation One University Avenue, Box 6003

Bourbonnais, IL 60914

Internship Reflections, by Drew Philson ‘17

NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE

PAID BOURBONNAIS, IL

PERMIT NO. 61

Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/ONUMath or visit our department website at http://academics.olivet.edu/math/

Mathematics Department Contacts Dale Hathaway Department Chair, hathaway@olivet.edu

Nicholas Boros Assistant Professor, nboros@olivet.edu

Justin Brown Associate Professor, jbrown7@olivet.edu

Lei Cheng Assistant Professor, lzcheng@olivet.edu

Daniel Green Professor, dgreen@olivet.edu

Jeremy Lyle Associate Professor, sjlyle@olivet.edu

Darl Rassi Assistant Professor, dsrassi@olivet.edu

Marci Reynolds Admin. Assistant, mlreynolds@olivet.edu

Olivet Nazarene University One University Ave., Box 6057 Bourbonnais, IL 60914

Department of Mathematics