Governor’s Report

Andrew Bennett

Kansas Section Meeting

May 2, 2009

Like (almost) everyone else, the MAA has been adversely affected by the economic climate. We were in good financial shape beforehand and we are still in a solid position. However, we may be facing some cutbacks and modest dues increases in the future.

Our investments fell from $7 million to $6 million during the last year. Overall assets are over $15 million including our headquarters building in DC (and this is probably a low estimate). The budget for the last several years has been around $7.5 million. We did not meet the budget for 2007 due to multiple factors: decreases in federal grants, decreased membership income, and investing in staff for the student and books programs. The difference between our income and our expenses is small and doesn’t endanger the organization financially, but we may be looking at a third straight year of deficits in 2009 and so cutbacks are being considered. As yet there are few proposals on the table. One issue is shifting to electronic access to journals for selected categories of members. This will probably be implemented for student members in the next year. The increase in dues for the 2010 year will be held to 2.5% for most membership categories. More detailed financial information about the MAA is available online (for members only) at www.maa.org/treasurer.

The MAA is stepping up online offerings in general. New columns/blogs are available, including MathMinute and NumberADay (1903 is the smallest number whose cube is zeroless pandigital: 1903³ = 6891541327). MAA Reviews, with 8 new reviews each week, and Classroom Capsules and Notes are available online. The old JOMA, Convergence, and MathDL have been consolidated into a single site, Loci. The old Basic Library List is now being updated and incorporated into MAA reviews. See http://mathdl.maa.org/mathDL/19/ (note that the capitalization is important in this link).

Project NExT has now had over 1000 participants and counting. The Professional Enhancement Program for faculty has received funding through 2013(see www.maa.org/prep for details on the various workshops available). The American Mathematics Competition currently attracts nearly 400,000 students. The Madison MathFest attracted over 1400 participants and the DC joint meetings set a record with over 5900 participants. Student travel grants to allow students ot go to the joint meetings and to MathFest will be available for at least the next 5 years thanks to NSF support. MathFest this year will be in Portland, OR, Aug. 6-8, and the joint meetings will be in San Francisco, Jan. 13-16.