It's November, when leaves fall, over-eager Christmas enthusiasts decorate, and dogs who like playing in leaves get ticks. Academically, November is the month in which we finally get a BREAK. And of course it's the month for being grateful for our blessings, including the right to vote (for more on the election, see "Something to Think About" below). So use this newsletter as a reprieve from the mad scramble of schoolwork. Sip hot cider and read about PSL events and people, including the GSG Leader who appeared on America's Next Top Model and the fascinating, multi-faceted Dr. James Hager, our resident mathematician.
Note: The winning caption of the October caption contest (see below), was provided by Dr. Jon Olson. Please congratulate him when you see him. That is his reward.
Note: The winning caption of the October caption contest (see below), was provided by Dr. Jon Olson. Please congratulate him when you see him. That is his reward.
Upcoming Events (not including the Holiday Party, oddly)
Something to Think About“Do I really need to worry about this situation, or can I affect this situation simply by not worrying about it and allowing it to be and unfold as it will?” ~ from A Course of Love, by Mari Perron
Move your head up and down if you agree. Move your head side to side if you don't agree. Bang your head on the wall if you want to black out for awhile. |
Job Opportunity!Penn State Learning is seeking an Alumni Network Coordinator to begin work in January 2017. The Coordinator will encourage alumni to join the network and facilitate communication via our Facebook and LinkedIn pages. The Coordinator will also help maintain the alumni website and plan alumni reunion events. If you have a passion for helping PSL peeps stay in touch and time to work an extra 1-2 hours a week, please see the job description and application instructions.
October Caption Contest Winner! |
Holiday Party! (this is where we talk about the Holiday Party)Don't forget to RSVP for the 2nd Annual Penn State Learning Holiday Party! We'll celebrate the end of the semester, our graduating seniors, and the holiday season on Friday, December 9, starting at 5 p.m. in 220 Boucke. It's a potluck, so bring some food to share, even if it's just a bag of pretzels. (Check out these "easy" potluck recipes from Martha Stewart.) Feel free to bring a game to share as well. RSVP HERE.
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PSL UpdatesTeamwork Center renovations will begin (fingers crossed!) on November 14. As you can see from the plan on the left, the new space will allow several small groups to work at once. It also appears to include two built-in Daleks. Until the renovations are complete, probably sometime in January, the Teamwork Area will be closed.
The Guided Study Group program is in a new location! Dr. Angelique Bacon-Woodard, Dr. Brendaly Drayton, Clewi Challenger, and Cecil Shelton now share a large, freshly-painted space in 212 Boucke. After another meeting about Starfish and whether it could work to track tutorials for Penn State Learning, it was concluded that the program does not currently fit our needs. For now, we will continue to use LionPath and work with its technicians to make data-entry less excruciating and to extract the data we need for reporting and budget-planning. |
Seeing Math in Color: Dr. Jim Hager
Although he’s not often in Boucke or Sparks, Dr. Jim Hager, Scholar in Residence for Mathematics & Physical Sciences, plays a key role in the GSG and math tutoring programs here at Penn State Learning. He works with the Math Department and the Eberly College of Science faculty to identify areas in which students need assistance and to consider and encourage teaching innovations. As the Associate Director of Undergraduate Education in the Mathematics Department and Senior Research Scientist at SRI International, Dr. Hager knows students, knows faculty, knows tutors, and knows how to bring all three groups together.
Dr. Hager also knows math. He received B.S/M.A. degrees in Mathematics in 1975 from The Pennsylvania State University and his PhD in Mathematics from Stanford University in 1980. To quote from his bio (because this is hard to paraphrase!), “His areas of expertise/current research include optimization strategies for scheduling of severely constrained resources, mathematics-based, formal theorem proving approaches, basic research/science related to data fusion approaches within human, social, cultural, and behavior models.” (Dr. Hager's simplification note: [my] research focuses on mathematically finding the best way to do something when there aren’t many good options to choose from, and strategies for finding a needle in a very information-rich haystack.)
Where did you grow up? If you couldn’t live in PA, where would you want to live?
I grew up in the very Amish and not mathematically friendly area of Lancaster, Pa. My father was raised in an orphanage in NYC but married into a very loving Italian family who arrived from Calabria, Italy via Ellis Island. We were always surrounded by great food, an extended family of immigrants who spoiled us at every opportunity, and large herds of noisy children roaming from household to household. Most of those families still live exactly where they did when I was growing up.
Since I love to travel, I hope to evolve into a migrant mathematician, or at least a migrant something in retirement. I would like to touch down lightly everywhere and be able to call everywhere home.
Mathematics has a rich and varied history populated with many strange characters. One of my favorite mathematicians was Paul Erdos. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians of the 20th century, and was well-known both for his social practice of mathematics and for his eccentric lifestyle. He would show up unannounced on the doorsteps of mathematicians anywhere in the world, and spend two or more weeks mentoring and working unsolved problems before moving on to his next victim. He was a true citizen of the world, calling nowhere home, and everywhere home.
Who was your favorite math teacher, and why?
I have had many wonderful math teachers who have mentored me at critical stages in my development but my favorite math teacher was my differential geometry teacher from my first year of graduate school. He taught the subject using the Moore method of instruction. Loosely speaking, in the Moore method students learn mathematics by tackling a carefully chosen sequence of problems provided by the instructor without the aid of any supplemental materials. They then teach each other the content by presenting their solutions to each other. It is a terrifying experience, comparing favorably with a mathematics version of the Lord of the Flies, and not for the weak of heart. The process exposes every strength and every weakness in a student’s understanding of a mathematical concept. We all loved the terror of it all! Differential Geometry was, ultimately, the area that I pursued in my thesis research, and I credit this experience with cultivating my initial strong interests in this area of research.
What did you like about math when you were young, and what do you like about it now?
Everything, and still to this day, everything! I have never regretted spending a lifetime with it. Looking to the future, when my mind turns to mush, and I find myself incapable of doing any serious math, I will still like everything about it. In the interim, I may have to tattoo all the most beautiful mathematical results to my forearm so that when I no longer understand what kept me busy in a lifetime, I can look down and wonder what all this gibberish on my arm means.
What do you enjoy besides math?
Throwing paint on canvas, fly fishing anywhere, tennis on the all-so-forgiving PSU clay courts, post modern fiction, late night grade-B movies, cooking impossible meals, smoking good cigars and drinking good bourbon. Needless to say, I am easily amused.
What do you most enjoy about working with Penn State Learning?
I am excited that my PSL responsibilities often take me out of my normal comfort zone. Math has always been easy for me – my brain just seems to be wired that way. Working with the wonderful group of people who inhabit planet PSL requires a different set of synapses to fire to resolve the uniquely different set of never-the-same issues that surface every day. Without this grounding experience, it would be too easy to just return to conversing with the many comfortable voices in my head.
What are 3 things about you that might surprise us?
1) I may be a better oil painter than mathematician but painting seemed like an awfully difficult way to pay off a mortgage when I was younger, 2) I suffer from, or am blessed to suffer from synesthesia – I think math in colors. Over the years, the colors have dulled somewhat and I take that as direct evidence that my mathematical skills are also diminishing, 3) I have the metabolism of a gerbil on a double espresso; I really should weigh 200 pounds more than I do based on my caloric input philosophy of if it slows up , knock it down and eat it.
Dr. Hager also knows math. He received B.S/M.A. degrees in Mathematics in 1975 from The Pennsylvania State University and his PhD in Mathematics from Stanford University in 1980. To quote from his bio (because this is hard to paraphrase!), “His areas of expertise/current research include optimization strategies for scheduling of severely constrained resources, mathematics-based, formal theorem proving approaches, basic research/science related to data fusion approaches within human, social, cultural, and behavior models.” (Dr. Hager's simplification note: [my] research focuses on mathematically finding the best way to do something when there aren’t many good options to choose from, and strategies for finding a needle in a very information-rich haystack.)
Where did you grow up? If you couldn’t live in PA, where would you want to live?
I grew up in the very Amish and not mathematically friendly area of Lancaster, Pa. My father was raised in an orphanage in NYC but married into a very loving Italian family who arrived from Calabria, Italy via Ellis Island. We were always surrounded by great food, an extended family of immigrants who spoiled us at every opportunity, and large herds of noisy children roaming from household to household. Most of those families still live exactly where they did when I was growing up.
Since I love to travel, I hope to evolve into a migrant mathematician, or at least a migrant something in retirement. I would like to touch down lightly everywhere and be able to call everywhere home.
Mathematics has a rich and varied history populated with many strange characters. One of my favorite mathematicians was Paul Erdos. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians of the 20th century, and was well-known both for his social practice of mathematics and for his eccentric lifestyle. He would show up unannounced on the doorsteps of mathematicians anywhere in the world, and spend two or more weeks mentoring and working unsolved problems before moving on to his next victim. He was a true citizen of the world, calling nowhere home, and everywhere home.
Who was your favorite math teacher, and why?
I have had many wonderful math teachers who have mentored me at critical stages in my development but my favorite math teacher was my differential geometry teacher from my first year of graduate school. He taught the subject using the Moore method of instruction. Loosely speaking, in the Moore method students learn mathematics by tackling a carefully chosen sequence of problems provided by the instructor without the aid of any supplemental materials. They then teach each other the content by presenting their solutions to each other. It is a terrifying experience, comparing favorably with a mathematics version of the Lord of the Flies, and not for the weak of heart. The process exposes every strength and every weakness in a student’s understanding of a mathematical concept. We all loved the terror of it all! Differential Geometry was, ultimately, the area that I pursued in my thesis research, and I credit this experience with cultivating my initial strong interests in this area of research.
What did you like about math when you were young, and what do you like about it now?
Everything, and still to this day, everything! I have never regretted spending a lifetime with it. Looking to the future, when my mind turns to mush, and I find myself incapable of doing any serious math, I will still like everything about it. In the interim, I may have to tattoo all the most beautiful mathematical results to my forearm so that when I no longer understand what kept me busy in a lifetime, I can look down and wonder what all this gibberish on my arm means.
What do you enjoy besides math?
Throwing paint on canvas, fly fishing anywhere, tennis on the all-so-forgiving PSU clay courts, post modern fiction, late night grade-B movies, cooking impossible meals, smoking good cigars and drinking good bourbon. Needless to say, I am easily amused.
What do you most enjoy about working with Penn State Learning?
I am excited that my PSL responsibilities often take me out of my normal comfort zone. Math has always been easy for me – my brain just seems to be wired that way. Working with the wonderful group of people who inhabit planet PSL requires a different set of synapses to fire to resolve the uniquely different set of never-the-same issues that surface every day. Without this grounding experience, it would be too easy to just return to conversing with the many comfortable voices in my head.
What are 3 things about you that might surprise us?
1) I may be a better oil painter than mathematician but painting seemed like an awfully difficult way to pay off a mortgage when I was younger, 2) I suffer from, or am blessed to suffer from synesthesia – I think math in colors. Over the years, the colors have dulled somewhat and I take that as direct evidence that my mathematical skills are also diminishing, 3) I have the metabolism of a gerbil on a double espresso; I really should weigh 200 pounds more than I do based on my caloric input philosophy of if it slows up , knock it down and eat it.
A Gallery of Dr. Hager's Oil Paintings, per the editor's request (Note: Click on the first image and look for the unsolved math problems.)
November Birthdays
Shubham Kapadiya, Math Tutor & Coordinator, November 1
A senior Architectural Engineering major who hopes to graduate in Spring 2018, Shubham is a devoted older brother (you may recognize him from his picture in an earlier issue that features his younger brother sitting in a box). When asked what he does that most annoys his brother (who is 12 years his junior), Shubham said, "One of the things that annoys my brother is when I start putting together his LEGO pieces and leave nothing for him to play with." Nice, Shubham, real nice. |
Pooja Arya, Spanish Tutor, November 5
Pooja is a junior Management Information Systems Major who hopes to work in the data analytics after she graduates in May 2018. Pooja can speak four languages: English, Hindi, Punjabi, and Spanish. Two fun facts about data from Forbes.com: 1. "...more data has been created in the past two years than in the entire previous history of the human race." 2. "...by the year 2020, about 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created every second for every human being on the planet." Good luck with that, Pooja. |