Bob Rubel of Parkland College retired at the end of the spring semester. He was presented with a rocker engraved with the Parkland crest by his colleagues.

LaVerne McFadden has stepped down as department chair at Parkland and will be succeeded by James Hall effective July 1. Two new faculty have been hired at Parkland. Kim Nigl in mathematics and Scott Badman in computer science.

Jerry Becker of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale has been appointed to the International Program Committee (IPC) for the ninth International Congress on Mathematics Education (ICME-9) to be held in Tokyo, Japan, July and August, 2000.

John Thomas of the College of Lake County recently completed his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois - Chicago.

Prairie State College and Illinois Benedictine University will host the 10th Annual Conference on Technology in Collegiate Mathematics at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Chicago, November 6-9, 1997. If you have questions regarding the program contact Judy Marwick at the address given on the IMACC mailing list.

The ConneXion editor received the following letter from Jim Brunner, recipient of this year's Distinguished Service Award.

Dear Members of IMACC,

No one was more surprised and pleased than I when I heard Jim Trefzger inform you at Allerton and me over the telephone that I was the 1997 winner of the IMACC Distinguished Service Award. I know that the name of the recipient is kept secret until the award is presented and I suppose that the awards chairperson (Pat Ward) assumed that I would be present as usual, but I was unable to attend the conference for the first time in many years.

As I related through Jim on the phone, I am certainly pleased to be honored by this award. When I think of all the other IMACC members who have received the award, I am certainly surrounded by a wonderful group of individuals. IMACC has meant a lot to me over these many years and will continue to be special. We have accomplished so many things that other state community college organizations have not yet done. I am proud to have been a part of the progress that IMACC has made since those early days in the 1970's when we became a viable entity.

I hope to be in attendance at the 1998 Allerton Conference, so until then have a great summer break and a successful 1997-98 school year.

Sincerely, Jim Brunner