President's Message

I hope that you have had a happy holiday season and that your new academic term is off to a good start!

The fall IMACC Board meeting was held on Oct. 5 at Illinois Central College in East Peoria. All committees have been active in carrying out their regular duties and coming up with interesting new ideas. The Membership Committee has produced an updated IMACC brochure which you may use to let your colleagues know more about IMACC. The brochure also includes a membership application form. If you have colleagues in your department who are not yet members or who need to renew their memberships, I encourage you to get some copies of this brochure from Sandra Cox, Membership Chair, at Rend Lake College.

An idea in the works for some time and now close to becoming a reality is the production of an IMACC pin to be made available to people who contribute $5 or more to the IMACC Scholarship Fund. Wearing the pin is another way members can promote awareness of and membership in IMACC.

Board members also had several new ideas for breakout sessions at the Allerton meeting. Several sessions at our upcoming Allerton meeting will reflect a theme repeated at the AMATYC Annual Meeting, putting the AMATYC Standards into use in the classroom in ways that really work. We will look at materials and approaches to teaching which encourage our students to become long-term owners of the mathematical concepts they learn rather than merely renting these ideas long enough to pass our tests. A registration form for Allerton is later in this issue and more details about the meeting will be in the next issue of the ConneXion.

Speaking of the AMATYC meeting in Long Beach, I was pleased to see so many IMACC members in attendance. Some made presentations and others did excellent work as members of AMATYC committees. Still others were involved in early preparations for the AMATYC 2000 annual meeting to be held in Chicago. It is very encouraging to see this level of IMACC involvement in AMATYC and to know that IMACC is highly regarded nationally as an active state affiliate with many talented people.

Karl M. Zilm, President