This award will support the Pacific Coast Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (PCUMC) which will be held in March of 2012 at the California Polytechnic Institute in Pomona, California. NSF funding will allow 350 undergraduate participants to attend the 2012 PCUMC.
The goals of the conference are to provide an opportunity for undergraduates to share their research and expository projects, provide a forum for students to learn more about graduate school and career options in the mathematical sciences, and to encourage the participation of undergraduate women and minorities, and students just beginning their undergraduate career, in the math community. The conference has been held every year since 2006, growing from 80 participants in 2006 to 330 participants in 2011. The prior conferences have received enthusiastic feedback from student and faculty participants and have been successful in engaging members of under-represented groups.
The Pacific Coast Undergraduate Mathematics Conference (PCUMC) has been held annually for the past seven years, most recently on March 10, 2012 at Cal Poly Pomona. The goals of the conference are: To provide a forum for undergraduates at all levels to learn more about the opportunities available to math majors both during and after college. To encourage the participation of undergraduates at all levels, including freshmen and sophomores. To give students the opportunity to share undergraduate research projects and expository mathematics through student talk sessions. The 2012 edition of the conference featured 95 student speakers, three panel discussions on "Career Opportunities for Math Majors", "What to Expect the First Year of Graduate School", and "Diversity in Mathematics" and a keynote address given by Dr. Ron Eglash of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In total, the 2012 conference attracted roughly 500 participants, 48% of which were women and 53% of which were underrepresented minorities in mathematics. The PCUMC is a one-day conference specifically for undergraduate math students in the Southern California region. The conference is held annually each spring at rotating institutions in Southern California. The conference has been designed so that all sessions and keynote addresses are accessible to undergraduates and that panel discussion topics would be of particular interest to math majors and students in math-related fields. The key components of each conference, listed in order of our priorities as organizers, have been (1) student talks, (2) panel discussions on career and summer opportunities and/or graduate programs in mathematics, and (3) entertaining, accessible keynote addresses by reputable professionals. We strive to attract student participants and speakers at all levels, and from diverse backgrounds, and provide them with valuable information about professional opportunities in mathematics. By designing some of our student sessions specifically for first or second year students, we hope to encourage more freshmen and sophomore math students to attend our conference and participate in the sessions. We have also been extremely successful in encouraging the participation of women and underrepresented minorities. The broader impact of this conference includes providing presentation and networking opportunities for hundreds of undergraduates from diverse backgrounds and institutions and with a variety of mathematical interests and post-baccalaureate goals, developing future members of the mathematical community by providing mathematical role models for the participants via a diverse group of panelists and keynote speakers, and raising awareness about career options in the mathematical sciences. Additionally, this conference offers mentoring and support for students bound for graduate studies in the mathematical sciences. Finally, the students and faculty who return year after year bring more students with them each time, thus creating more opportunities for future student presenters. The intellectual merit of this conference includes introducing undergraduates to new mathematics via the sharing of undergraduate research results during the student talks. Moreover, the keynote speakers from academia and industry provide participants with exposure to current questions in theoretical mathematics and applications of mathematical research, respectively. Description of the 2012 conference: As always, we made a concerted effort to make the conference accessible and interesting to undergraduate mathematics students. The opening session of the day was a panel discussion about career opportunities available to math students. The career panel was followed by ten concurrent sessions of four 15-minute undergraduate student presentations, three of which featured all freshman and sophomore speakers. These sessions were followed by two concurrent 50-minute panel discussions, one about graduate school and one about issues of diversity in mathematics. We invited five current graduate students from local programs to answer participant questions on how to prepare for graduate school and the Math GRE exam, how to apply for graduate school, what to expect in graduate school, and any other topics the undergraduate students wanted to discuss. The panel on issues in diversity focused on those particular challenges faced by women and underrepresented minorities in mathematics. These joint panels were followed by lunch where many of the panelists and the keynote speaker, Dr. Ron Eglash of Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute, were available to chat with participants and answer questions. Lunch was followed by the second round of student talks, consisting of twelve concurrent sessions of three 20-minute presentations. Four of these sessions featured all freshman and sophomore speakers and two featured members of Pi Mu Epsilon, a national math honor society. The second round of talks was followed by a short break and then the keynote address given by Dr. Ron Eglash titled "Calculating Culture: African Fractals, Malaysian Buckyballs and Other Adventures in Ethnomathematics". The day concluded with a prize session, where we raffled off many sponsor-donated prizes, including books, mathematical toys, calculators, and student editions of Maple and PCTeX. At the beginning of the prize session we recognized all student speakers with a certificate, a PCUMC flash drive and a mathematics book.
