The following is our report on the Sonia Kovalevsky Day held at Towson University held on the 27th of October 2000.
The day began at 9:00 a.m. in the Potomac Lounge of the University Union. Upon their arrival the girls were asked to register and to sign up for two of the four workshops held later that morning. Each student and teacher received, as a memento for the day, an AWM tote bag containing a copy of Abbott's book Flatland, AWM post-it notes (courtesy of the AWM), a folder and a pencil (courtesy of Towson University), the program and an evaluation form for the day, a brief biography of Sonia Kovalevsky, and the AWM brochure. The participants had breakfast and talked informally.
At 9:40 a.m. our keynote speaker Dr. Doris Schattschneider of Moravian College began her talk "Marjorie Rice: Ingenious mathematical amateur".
The talk was very nicely delivered, with plenty of visual adds, and the audience followed it very closely. At about 10:45, we walked the students to Hawkins Hall for the workshops. From 10:55 to 11:35 there were two simultaneous workshops: "Circles, spheres, and symplectic packings" conducted by Dr. Jean Mastrangeli of Immaculata College, and "Soap films and bubbles" conducted by Dr. Tiziana Giorgi and Dr. Caryn Werner. They were followed from 11:40 to 12:10 by the next two workshops: "Tilings" conducted by Dr. Schattschneider, and "Instant Insanity: using graphs to solve puzzles" conducted by Dr. Katherine McGivney of Shippensberg University. At the same time, a workshop for teachers was led by Dr. Betsy McShea of Rowan University and Dr. Maureen Yarnevich of Towson University.
After the workshops, lunch was served by the Union Catering Service
at the Potomac Lounge from 12:15 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. The second part of the
day was centered on the career panel. Dr. B. Ann Cox of the National Security
Agency, Dr. Annalisa Crannell of Franklin & Marshall College, her mother
Dr. Carol Jo Crannell of Goddard Space Flight Center, and Dr. Kathleen
Hoffmann of the University of Maryland Baltimore County led a lively discussion
of careers in mathematics and their own experiences as mathematicians and
scientists. The day ended with the serving of a cake depicting the 1951
commemorative Russian stamp of Sonia Kovalevski.
We believe the day was a success, and the evaluation forms appear to confirm this. The girls liked the hands-on workshops, and asked many questions of the panelists. In general, they were all very interested and open to the opportunity of learning from the experiences of women in mathematics. The teachers were very happy as well, and many of them expressed their positive opinion regarding the day. They believed their students were gaining confidence and benefitted from the day. We must add that the teachers were very interested in and appreciative of the teacher's workshop as well.
We need to thank very warmly the workshop organizers and the panelists
for providing a very friendly and interesting environment for the girls;
special thanks to Doris Schattschneider for presenting both the keynote
address and the tilling workshop. Finally, we should express our appreciation
to all the teachers who found the time and encouraged their students to
attend, in the belief that encouraging female students in pursuing mathematics
is of high importance.
Our initial intention for the day was to bring several high school girls with one of their teachers from about 12 high schools in the area. With this in mind, at the beginning of September we sent 15 invitations to a group of schools selected on the basis of location and background. By the 17th of October we had about 6 schools registered for a total of 30 students, which was only short by about 20 of the number of girls we thought we would have liked from the beginning.
On Friday the 27th of October we had in fact an even better
attendance: 10 schools attended with a total of 40 students and 9 teachers.