Bernard Society Review - Davidson College

In Memoriam: R. Bruce Jackson, Jr.
R. Bruce Jackson Jr., a Davidsonian whose
integrity and good cheer in the classroom,
community, and home inspired all who knew
him, died peacefully at home on January 1,
2002, at age 72.
Jackson had a 49-year association with
Davidson College, first as a student and then
as a legendary mathematics department
faculty member. He enriched the lives of
countless students and colleagues with
infectious good humor, careful attention to
detail, and unabashed affection for the college.
His enthusiasm for mathematics and the rigor
of his courses were equaled only by his
unfeigned interest in his students and his
concern for their success. Some students were
intimidated by his habit of calling on many of
them during a class period to answer a
problem. But even when they responded
poorly, he was gentle and supportive, finding
something positive in whatever they had to
offer to guide them toward understanding.
Many sought further help in study sessions he
conducted almost every afternoon in his office.
He was born June 5, 1929, in Drakes
Branch, Va., to the late Robert Bruce Jackson, a
hardware merchant, and Ruby Aurelia
Broocks Jackson. He completed high school at
age 16, and spent a year at Randolph Macon
Academy before enrolling as a Davidson
freshman in 1946. He was a member of Sigma
Chi fraternity. He graduated cum laude, and
was selected into the Phi Beta Kappa academic
honor society. He taught for a year at Battle
Ground Academy in Franklin, Tenn., and
served in the Army for two years of active
duty.
He continued his service to the country
part-time from 1955-1962 as a civilian member
of UNC’s Operational Analysis Standby Unit,
conducting operations efficiency studies and
classified warfare research. He took a leave of
absence from Davidson in 1960-61 to spend a
year with an Air Force unit in Wiesbaden,
Germany, as part of that work.
He pursued graduate studies in math at
Duke, and took just three years to complete his
Ph.D.
degree in
1957. He
joined the
Davidson
faculty in
1956.
During 39
years of
collegiate
teaching, he
was
honored by Bruce Jackson at work
the college
and his
colleagues in many ways. He held two
endowed chairs, first as Richardson Professor
of Mathematics and later as Vail Professor of
Mathematics. He was departmental chair from
1978-1983, and from 1979-1982 he served as
vice-chair of the faculty pro tem, the highest
elected faculty position at Davidson.
He served on many important faculty
committees, and took his leadership role
seriously. In the mid-1980s the college
President picked him as co-chair of a Task
Force on Racial and Ethnic Minorities. A
colleague recalls that Jackson’s “moral stamina
in that assignment wouldn’t be thwarted by
anyone’s prejudice.” That group’s insistence
that the college pay attention to the needs of
underrepresented groups set a direction for a

great deal of college action in that regard.
Jackson also led colleagues in
implementing a $250,000 Sloan Foundation
grant, which was designed to
incorporate
technology and applied
mathematics into the liberal
arts curriculum. He worked to
extend Davidson’s
educational mission by
spearheading Project Excel,
which brought
promising students from the
Charlotte Mecklenburg
System to campus for classes.
His many college
responsibilities created
mounds of paperwork that
covered every horizontal surface of his office,
but Jackson kept them meticulously organized
and accessible.
In 1983 he received the college’s Thomas
Jefferson Award for exhibiting through
personal influence and teaching the highest
example of personal and scholarly integrity. At
the time he was cited as “A man of great
accomplishment… who has lived his life so
always to place the deed before the doer.”
His family was always the center of his
life, and from that base he extended his hands
and heart in service to the wider community.
He was an elder and choir member at
Davidson College Presbyterian Church,
president of the North Mecklenburg High
PTSA, assistant treasurer for Our Towns
Habitat for Humanity, and for several years
was a regular driver for Safe Drive, a program
which each weekend night provided
Charlotte-area teenagers with a safe ride home
when other means were not available. He was
also a member of a
longstanding group of
friends who played
contract bridge.
The more leisurely
pace, which followed his
retirement in 1995,
allowed him to pursue
various pleasures. He
enjoyed nurturing favorite
plants and flowers,
including the propagation
of several hundred English
boxwood plants whose
origin was his maternal grandmother’s home
in Drakes Branch. There was also time for
travel with his wife of 40 years, Jean Ann
Edwards Jackson, and friends. A highlight of
his trips abroad was the discovery of
moderately priced restaurants, and the meals
enjoyed there. He was an active grandfather
whose affectionate interest in his
grandchildren was returned in full measure.
Jackson was diagnosed with cancer in
November 2000, and faced his fate and
treatments with quiet valor. In their final
months together, he and Jean made two
vacation trips to Europe with friends, and
celebrated their 40th anniversary at the beach
with their children and grandchildren.
(Thanks to Bill Giduz and the College Communications Office
for this article.)
Martha Key Bernard: 1920-2002
Martha Key Brewer Bernard, 81, died January 20, 2002. Educated in the public schools of Clarksdale,
MS, Stephens College in St. Louis, MO, and Randolph-Macon Women’s College in Lynchburg, VA, she
married Richard Bernard in 1943. Living in Charlottesville, VA, and New Haven, CT, while Richard finished
his Ph.D. and took up a post at Yale University, she came to Davidson in 1955. A loving wife, devoted mother,
and friend, Mrs. Bernard was a member of DCPC, where she served as a Sunday School teacher and was
active in many committees. A charter member of the Tuesday Book Club, she was also a member of Colonial
Dames and the DAR. A memorial service was held Saturday, January 26, at DCPC.
2

Bernard Lecture
By Robert McLean ’03
On October 3, 2001, the Department of
Mathematics recognized mathematics majors,
minors, and other students interested in
mathematics at its annual Bernard Lecture. The
keynote speaker was Dr. Carl Pomerance of Bell
Laboratories, professor emeritus of the University
of Georgia.
The Bernard Lecture honors Dr. Richard
Bernard, Professor of Mathematics at Davidson
from 1955 to 1983. Each year students, faculty
and community members gather together for the
Lecture as well as the reception and dinner
preceding the talk.
Chair Stephen Davis and Bernard Society
President Andy Schultz ’02 presided over a
ceremony inducting Pomerance and members of
the classes of 2002 and 2003 into the Bernard
Society. After a dinner honoring the new
inductees, Pomerance presented his lecture, “Babe
Ruth, Hank Aaron, Paul Erdös, and Me.”
As with any good math talk, Pomerance
opened with pictures and anecdotes. The pictures
and anecdotes involved the life and
accomplishments of the famous number theorist
Paul Erdös. Pomerance next related several stories
and accomplishments regarding Erdös that
demonstrated the uniqueness and genius of the
famous number theorist.
Arguably Erdös’ most famous result
involved the prime number theorem originally
proved by Hadamard and de la Vallee Poussin.
The proof involved complex analysis and it was
later conjectured that any proof of the prime
number theorem must involve complex analysis.
That is, it was believed that there existed no
elementary proof of the prime number theorem.
However, Erdös and Selberg proved this
conjecture false by providing an elementary proof.
Pomerance next told a story involving a
lecture given by the Polish mathematician Mark
(l-r) Chair Stephen Davis, Bernard Society President
Andy Schultz ’02, Bernard Lecturer Carl Pomerance,
and Society inductee Cindy Moore ’03
Kac. In his lecture, Kac made a conjecture
regarding the density of a set of numbers with
bounded prime divisors. Erdös was in the
audience, and amazingly, before Kac had even
completed his lecture, Erdös had discovered and
written a proof of Kac’s conjecture.
Next, Pomerance spoke about his
relationship with Erdös. Pomerance recounted his
first contact with Erdös—a letter in which Erdös
claimed he could prove a conjecture posed by
Pomerance and several colleagues. The conjecture
involved the density of Ruth-Aaron Pairs.
A Ruth-Aaron pair (a term coined by
Pomerance and coauthors) refers to two
consecutive positive integers with the peculiar
property that the sum the prime factors of the
consecutive positive integers is the same. That is,
n and n+1 are a Ruth-Aaron pair if the sum of the
prime factors of n is equal to the sum of the prime
factors of n+1.
Pomerance encountered the first Ruth-
Aaron pair while watching a baseball game. In
fact, it was the famous game in which Hank Aaron
hit his 715 th homerun to surpass what was thought
to be Babe Ruth’s unbreakable record of 714
career homeruns. Watching the game, Pomerance
noticed an unusual property of the numbers 714
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and 715, the property that the product of 714 and
715 was the product of the first seven prime
numbers. Pomerance challenged a colleague to
find an unusual property of the two numbers 714
and 715. His colleague discovered the same
property of the two numbers, but not before posing
the challenge to one of his classes.
A student in his class discovered a
different property of the two numbers: the
property that the prime factors of 714 and 715 both
summed to 29. Pomerance and his colleagues
found other examples of consecutive numbers with
this property and they named them Ruth-Aaron
pairs.
In their paper, Pomerance et al conjectured
that the density of these Ruth-Aaron pairs is 0. In
his letter to Pomerance, Erdös claimed that he
could prove this conjecture, and this letter began a
collaboration between Pomerance and Erdös that
resulted in a life long friendship and several joint
papers.
Pomerance concluded his talk with several
of the conjectures and results that appeared in
these papers. He gave several justifications of
why there should be infinitely many Ruth-Aaron
pairs. In addition, he and Erdös established an
upper bound on the number of Ruth-Aaron pairs
occurring before a given number—a new result.
As a corollary to this result, the two were able to
determine that the series of reciprocals of numbers
with Ruth-Aaron pairs converges.
Next year’s Bernard Lecture will be given
by Underwood “Woody” Dudley of Depauw
University, author of five books, including
Mathematical Cranks (1992) and Numerology
(1997), and winner of several awards including
the 1996 Trevor Evans Award (for expository
writing) from the MAA.
For more information, consult
http://www.davidson.edu/math/
Front row: Andra Whitt ’01, Gretchen Hamm ’02, Martha Peed ’03, Lesley Bowman ’80, Bernard Lecturer Carl
Pomerance, Ashley Moore ’02; Back rows: Melanie Albert ’02, Rich Joiner ’03, Martin Turner ’04, Cindy Moore ’03,
Katie Osbolt ’02, Mark Medendorp ’00, Megan Shafer ’03, Randy Skattum ’01, Ian Nelson ’02, Ashley Alderman ’03,
Will Jordan ’02, Adriel Cornman ’03, Mike Harney ’02, Lang Robertson ’02, Alex Pow ’02, Matt Phillips ’02, Mary
Hunter Wylie ’02, Bernard Society President-Elect Robert McLean ’03, Stanley Prybe ’02, James Daniel ’02, Ben
Sargent ’02, Bernard Society President Andy Schultz ’02, Will Herring ’02, Carlos Carreras ’02
4

Faculty News
Professor Irl Bivens and Professor
and Chair Stephen Davis are pleased that
their work with Howard Anton has come to
fruition—no less than five versions of the
now Anton-Bivens-Davis Calculus, 7 th ed.,
published by Wiley. Now they’re hard at
work on the next iteration!
Professor Davis also finished up a
second three-year term as Secretary-Treasurer
of the Southeastern Section of the MAA and
helped organize the joint MAA-SE/AMS-SE
meeting in Atlanta. This spring he became
Chair-Elect of the Section.
Stephen traveled to Cincinnati for the
annual meeting of SIGCSE (Special Interest
Group on Computer Science Education, of the
Association for Computing Machinery). He and
several others in the Department also participated
in workshops last summer on Blackboard, a new
program for class management over the web, and
used it for his MAT 135 course.
Professor Irl Bivens continues to edit the
Problems and Solutions section of the College
Mathematics Journal with Richie King, Ben
Klein, and Todd Will.
Assistant Professor Laurie Heyer is
working with Davidson biology professor
Malcolm Campbell to put the finishing touches on
their textbook, Discovering Genomics, Proteomics
and Bioinformatics, to be published in August.
Other activities related to her interests in
computational biology include teaching a seminar
course, doing summer research with Adam Abele
'03, and speaking at the Duke University
mathematics seminar.
Laurie is thrilled that the Patterson Court
Council voted this spring to adopt the solution to
assigning women to eating houses that her
operations research class developed last spring.
Students Anthony Albert ’01, Tim Valdes ’01, and
Mary Hunter Wylie ’02 worked on this project,
and Laurie met with PCC representatives this year
to explain how the method would work.
Laurie and husband Bill stay busy rooting
for the Wildcats and keeping up with their new
The usual suspects (l-r): Laurie Heyer, Irl Bivens, Donna Molinek, Rich
Neidinger, Stephen Davis, John Swallow, Ben Klein, Bernard Lecturer Carl
Pomerance, Rob Whitton ‘66, Todd Will, and Richie King ‘59.
Border Collie puppy Addie. They have also begun
to explore North Carolina, including the Smokies
and the Outer Banks.
Richardson Professor Richie King ’59
retired at the end of this academic year. He offers
the following response to the question, “What are
you going to do in retirement?”:
The short version is NOTHING. Beyond
nothing: we are moving back into town from the
lake, so there is a new garden spot to be worked. I
do have a couple of projects with mathematical
content I will work on. Lots of pleasure reading,
most of it low brow stuff. Did I mention our
grandson James? A nice prospect, retirement.
Congratulations, Richie!
Dolan Professor Ben Klein continues to
serve on the Advanced Placement Calculus
Committee of the College Board. The Committee
is now charged with preparing seven different free
response examinations—AB and BC exams for
Europe, AB and BC (operational) exams for the
continental United States, AB and BC (alternate)
exams for the continental United States, and an
AB exam for Alaska-Hawaii.
He also gave an invited presentation
entitled “Probabilistic Paradoxes” during the
Virginia Episcopal School’s Paideia Program on
April 15.
5

The 2001-2002 school year has been an
interesting one for Associate Professor Donna
Molinek. Last fall, she taught the department’s
Finite Math class, commenting on more than one
occasion, “Wow!” She says it was a special
challenge to teach such interesting mathematics to
students who were inclined toward other
disciplines. She’ll try again next spring.
After living in Davidson for almost 10
years, Donna and her family finally made it to
Charleston! Donna gave a talk about Stephen
Smale and his Horseshoe at the College of
Charleston; afterwards, the Molineks enjoyed a
fun weekend.
Donna also helped coordinate the
congregational retreat April 12-14 for Davidson
College Presbyterian Church. During that weekend
in Montreat, daughter Sullivan turned 5. Sullivan
and her 8.5-year-old brother Rudy celebrated by
rock hopping and building dams in the creek.
For fun, Donna is taking pottery lessons
with a local artist and elementary school teacher
and is working on making Möbius bands, knot and
link sculptures, and wheel-thrown pots. Donna
reports that she and Laurie Heyer again put in
respectable finishes in the Town Day 5K,
improving their times over last year.
Professor Richard Neidinger took full
advantage of a year on sabbatical for research,
travel, and even some Spanish study. His research
in numerical methods developed improvements in
the most efficient way to compute multivariable
Taylor series. His travels took him to central
England, San Diego, Atlanta, Toronto, and the
Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.
In England, Rich gave the opening talk for
the Joint Symposia in Automatic Differentiation.
The Symposia is organized by Cranfield
University at the Royal Military College of
Science and the University of Hertfordshire. He
visited both schools, working with Applied
Mathematics and Computer Science faculty for
much of the month of November. His family was
able to join him for Thanksgiving in London. San
Diego, Atlanta and Toronto were conference sites
where he gave presentations on his work.
Rich was in the Yucatan for the
groundbreaking of a boarding school that will
make secondary education accessible for children
in the local Mayan villages. At the ceremony,
attended by around a thousand villagers, he had
the honor of representing the American churches
that are supporting the project. (Contact Rich if
you want to know more.)
The trip motivated Rich to audit a SPA
101 class at Davidson this year, and he learned just
how hard students work in such an intensive firstyear
class! In the fall, he felt just like a Calculus I
student that comes in with no previous study of the
subject. Since he couldn’t complete the course
due to his travels, he started over in the spring and
felt like the more experienced Calculus I students.
From either perspective, learning is a great
opportunity!
Kimbrough Associate Professor John
Swallow participated in the 2001 AP Calculus BC
reading in June and then promptly left for two
weeks in France, attending the XXII Journées
Arithmétiques and then a more specialized
conference, Modules Galoisiens en Géométrie
Arithmétique, in Lille.
Two of John’s papers saw publication, in
the Transactions of the AMS and in
Communications in Algebra. He was named an
Associated Colleges of the South Technology
Fellow, for work on Mathematica and Maple
packages to support an undergraduate course in
Galois theory. At the end of this academic year he
was gratified to learn of the award of a Young
Investigator Grant from the National Security
Agency, which will support his research during
2002 and 2003.
Associate Professor Todd Will has taken a
one-year leave from Davidson in order to begin
teaching at the University of Wisconsin at La
Crosse. Todd and his wife, Heather Hulett,
accepted two positions in the Department of
Mathematics at UW-L. We wish Todd and
Heather all the best as they return to the Midwest.
Faculty and first-year students continue to
value the service of Visiting Assistant Professor
Rob Whitton ’66 as a calculus instructor. This
fall Rob has also enjoyed teaching a course in
differential equations.
Faculty and staff from departments at the
College also celebrated the marriage of Frances
Alexander, our departmental assistant, and Gerald
Scott at a ceremony on December 8, 2001,
expressing congratulations and hearty good wishes
to both.
6

Mossinghoff Joins
Department
The
Department of
Mathematics is
pleased to
announce that
Michael
Mossinghoff, a
mathematician
with extensive
experience in
computer
science, has
accepted our
offer to join the
Department as an
Assistant Professor in the fall of 2002.
Michael Mossinghoff
Mossinghoff’s research expertise lies in
the area of number theory and computational
number theory, especially in the mathematics
surrounding Lehmer’s Conjecture. After
completing a master’s degree in computer science
at Stanford in 1988 and a doctorate in mathematics
at the University of Texas in 1995, he taught at
Appalachian State University and then in the
Program in Computing at UCLA. The recipient of
teaching awards at Texas and Stanford and an
occasional visitor at the Centre for Experimental
and Constructive Mathematics at Simon Fraser
University and the University of British Columbia,
Michael will increase our offerings in computer
science while supporting our core mathematics
courses.
For the coming year Michael is slated to
teach linear algebra, object-oriented programming,
data structures and algorithms, and a seminar in
cryptography. For additional information, see
Michael’s home page at UCLA this summer:
http://www.math.ucla.edu/~mjm/
The Bernard Society was
active this year, hosting
numerous math coffees as well
as gathering for a fall picnic at
Rob Whitton’s house and for a
spring picnic at the Lake
Campus.
We heard several talks from
mathematicians outside the department, including
Tom McGintee ’01 and Tim Valdes ’01 who
(along with current student Will Herring ’02)
presented “Tales from the Job Front”; Bruce
Bacon ’90 and Stephanie Eichenbrenner ’99,
who described a career in teaching; and Joe
Rusinko ’01, who discussed elliptic curves and
coding theory. Crista Coles of Elon University
spoke about reducing noise in images and
functions with applications to heat conduction
problems.
We were delighted to hear about the
summer research experiences of students Andy
Schultz ’02, who studied graph theory at the
University of Idaho, and Melanie Albert ’02, who
studied Platonic solids and Cayley graphs at
Lafayette College. Students of Professor King’s
geometry class described “A Strange New
Universe” in the fall. Andy Schultz ’02 and
Robert McLean ’03 followed up in the spring
with details of their independent study in
projective geometry with Richie. Professor Will’s
Theory of Computation class, consisting of Mike
Harney ’02, Will Jordan ’02, and Ian Nelson
’02, showed us how to analyze the Top-Spin
puzzle.
Several students, faculty, and Professor
emeritus J.B. Stroud, took a road trip to hear
Professor Swallow speak at the North Carolina
State Dinner at Greensboro College.
Finally, the faculty did their part.
Professor Davis guided us in computing with a
compass; Professor Heyer discussed mathematical
problems in genomics; Professor Neidinger
described the breakthroughs he has made in his
7

esearch in numerical analysis; Professor Molinek
discussed the behavior of the Smale horseshoe
map; and Professor Klein challenged our intuition
with probabilistic paradoxes. We also heard from
Professor Ulrich Meyer of the Department of
Philosophy on “Philosophy of Mathematics,” and
Professor Wolfgang Christian of the Physics
Department, who demonstrated the usefulness of
Java for math and science students.
College Receives
Gift in King’s
Honor
On the eve of Richie King ’59’s retirement
from active teaching, the Kimbrough family has
established a professorship in his name. The L.
Richardson King Professorship will be accorded to
an exceptional pre-tenured faculty member. This
professorship will aid Davidson College in
attracting and retaining the finest faculty.
Alumni Notes
This year we surveyed
odd-year graduates. We’ll start
with graduates from the 30’s:
Richard N. Aycock, Jr.
’39 now rents small business
properties after a career including
teaching in Rowan County,
working in insurance and for the
Weather Service, and 30 years in
the propane gas business.
English Walker ’39, a
retired pediatrician, lives at the Pines at Davidson.
Forties: William R. Merritt ’47, formerly
Vice-President of Roanoke Iron & Bridge Works, Inc.,
enjoys tennis and working on property improvement
projects. He spends time at the beach, watching
grandchildren play ball, and visiting the Davidson
College campus at least once a year.
Fifties: Richard E. Hodel ’59 continues to
teach mathematics at Duke University and pursue
research interests in set-theoretic topology. He enjoys
racquetball, hiking, gardening, and reading, especially
Trollope.
Sixties: Jerry Vaughan ’61 was invited to
address the Ninth Prague Topological Symposium, in
the Czech Republic. Director of graduate studies for the
Department of Mathematical Sciences at UNC-
Greensboro since 1995, Jerry is Editor-in-Chief of
Topology and its Applications and has edited the
Handbook of Set-theoretic Topology.
Paul Duvall ’63, Professor of Mathematical
Sciences at UNCG, is a consultant for the Department of
Defense.
Robert R. Llewellyn ’63 is the Dean of the
College and Associate Professor of Philosophy at
Rhodes College.
Barry A. Teague ’65 continues work as a
financial planner.
Thomas C. Leslie ’67, Executive Director of
American Council of Engineering Companies of
Georgia, is happily living in an old Victorian home in
downtown Atlanta.
Seventies: Narayanan Ramachandran ’71 is
one of the principals of TYX Corporation, which
develops software to diagnose safety-critical systems on
aerospace and military equipment. He travels the world
in search of new markets.
Robert A. Potter ’73 is a Life Insurance
Actuary with the North Carolina Department of
Insurance.
George Thomas ’73 is principal architect with
Melville Thomas Architects. A Virginia Tech Master’s
of Architecture graduate in 1979, he loves watching
baseball and playing tennis, and has even started to play
golf. He and Laura have two boys, Josh (14) and Willie
(11), and live in Baltimore, MD.
Bob Lautensack ’75 has worked as an actuary
with the Phoenix Life Insurance Company for over 26
years, having completed actuarial exams in 1980. He
reports his most recent major activity as spearheading
the company’s change from a mutual life insurance
company to a stockholder-owned company.
Cathy Ramos ’77 is currently working in
training and education, particularly SAP
implementation, at the Coca-Cola Company.
Katherine Whitney ’79 is owner of Warren
Whitney and Sherwood, a business management firm in
Richmond, Virginia. Her main interests include 4- and
6-year-olds, Ross and Elizabeth. Sam Abrosh, her
husband, teaches physical chemistry at the University of
Richmond.
Eighties: Peter W. Jones ’83 reports teaching
AP Calculus (AB and BC), International Baccalaureate
Higher Mathematics, as well as Theory of Knowledge,
8

at the IB School at North Miami Senior High. He is
married to Magda and has a 3-year-old son Angel. Peter
models his lectures after Richard Bernard, Bruce
Jackson ’50, and Richie King ’59, and he cites Stephen
Davis for inspiration in helping him stick with it!
Mickey McDonald ’87,
Associate Professor of Mathematics
at Occidental College, served as
Interim Dean of Students in 2000-
2002. He also worked with
President Mark Collier at Baldwin-
Wallace in Cleveland, Ohio, as an
American Council on Education
Fellow in 2001-2002. His partner
of 10 years, Tim Aaron, works for Blackboard, Inc.
They jointly own a home in Los Angeles.
Early nineties: Hayler Osborn ’93 trades
options on the Pacific Stock Exchange. After college,
he spent 3 years as a professional blackjack player and a
year as a poker player!
Tighe Crovetti ’95 recently took a new
position as Senior Actuarial Analyst with PMA
Insurance Group in Blue Bell, PA. Tisha and Tighe
welcomed Ethan Francis, born May 11, 2001. They are
now in a newly-built house in Skippack, PA.
Mindy Davis ’95 lives in Charlotte, working as
a Java programmer for an Internet startup and loving it!
Rebecca Hardin ’95 is Controller for the law
offices of Alan S. Gordon, P. A., in Philadelphia. She is
also the happy owner/mother of four Siberian Huskies
and, more importantly, will be celebrating her third
wedding anniversary in April.
Dhruv Mubayi ’95 finished a one-year
research postdoc at Microsoft Research and begins in a
tenure-track position at the University of Illinois at
Chicago in the fall.
Henry Neale ’95 teaches mathematics at
Country Day in Charlotte. He obtained a master’s in
mathematics education and is currently pursuing his
Ph.D. in the same subject.
Jalyn Parsley Wells ’95 teaches Algebra II,
Geometry and Pre-Calculus, grades 9-12, at the
Greenhill School in Addison, Texas, near Dallas. She
and Chris Wells ’95 celebrated four years of marriage.
Late nineties: Greg Garrison ’96 works for
Bank of America in Charlotte. He and Dannon
welcomed son Augustus to the world in July, 2001.
Chloe Bracis ’97 is engaged to be married in
Seattle, with Maria Moré ’97 as maid of honor. Maria
continues her work in equity derivatives research with
Goldman Sachs in NYC.
Amy Scalcucci ’97 finished dental school at
the University of Kentucky. In spare moments she’s
helped with the dental needs of the working poor and
has mentored high school kids.
Meredith Strong ’97, an Army
Communication Officer for a helicopter battalion in
Germany, is leaving the military as a Captain. She is
pursuing a M.S. degree and has secured a position in the
State Department in the Foreign Service.
Tanner Thompson ’97 is Senior Analyst for
Petroleum Market & Trading at El Paso Energy in
Houston.
Scott Young ’97 finished his Ph.D. in
mathematics at Chapel Hill and was married in June.
Laura Barron ’99 teaches at Jordan High
School in Durham, having completed an M.A.T. at
Duke.
Amanda Fleck ’99 reports applying to
graduate school to get her master’s in accounting or in
business administration with an accounting
concentration. She ran her first marathon, the Baltimore
Marathon, on October 20, 2001, and hopes for others
less hilly. Congratulations Amanda!
Lisa Green ’99 is studying law at Harvard
University after two years in the banking industry.
“After the real world,” she writes, “it’s nice to be back
in school!”
Adrienne Jones ’99 is pursuing a master’s in
International Affairs at Georgia Tech. When not
working as a research assistant, she is having a great
time living in Midtown Atlanta and volunteering with
Hands On Atlanta as a tutor for a children's home, not to
mention drinking lots of coffee!
Emily Katzfey ’99 is in her second year of a
two-year commitment for Jesuit Volunteers
International, teaching English in a public school in
Tacna, Peru. She has also tutored students in math,
sponsored a women’s soccer team, and helped rebuild
homes destroyed by the earthquake in June 2000.
Jennifer Kazmarek ’99 is studying towards a
master’s in mathematics education at
Georgia Sate University in Atlanta.
Erin Sabrinsky ’99 works
for McGladrey & Pullen, LLP, a
public accounting firm, in Charlotte.
The New Millennium:
Brian Cooke ’01 is enjoying his first year at
the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
Maryann Loman ’01 is working for William
M. Mercer in Birmingham, Alabama, as an actuarial
analyst.
Clark Scalera ’01 serves as a Youth Leader
Intern at White Memorial Presbyterian Church, in
Raleigh.
Aaron Sundstrom '01 teaches mathematics at
Episcopal High School in Alexandria, VA.
Jonah L. Swann ’01 is a teaching assistant in
mathematics at the University of Virginia. He writes,
“Still just doing lots of math.”
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Puzzle Corner
In an increasing sequence of positive
integers, each integer, beginning with
the 2002 nd one, divides the sum of all the
previous integers. Prove that all the
integers in the sequence, beginning from
a certain place in the sequence, are
actually equal to the sum of all of the
previous ones.
(From the A-level Tournament of Towns
competition, Spring 2002.)
Thank you for your continuing support
of the Richard R. Bernard Society for
Mathematics at Davidson College. Your gifts
support outside speakers and math coffees, and
also help support students and faculty to travel
together to local and regional conferences and
other mathematical events.
To make a contribution, please specify
“Bernard Society” on your check and mail c/o
Office of Development, Davidson College, Box
7173, Davidson, NC 28035-7173. Please note
that gifts to the Bernard Society are separate
from the Annual Fund.
A Picture Good Enough to Run Again: 2000-2001 Bernard Society President
Randy Skattum ‘01, Department Chair Stephen Davis, and 2001-2002 Bernard
Society President Andy Schultz ‘02
The Bernard Society Review welcomes news from all mathematically inclined
Davidson alumni, whether they took courses in mathematics at Davidson or developed an
interest in mathematics following graduation. Please keep in touch, share this newsletter with
those high school students who might be interested in Davidson College, and send your news
to Frances Scott, Departmental Assistant for Anthropology, Mathematics, Philosophy, and
Sociology, Davidson College, Box 7129, Davidson, NC 28035-7129; frscott@davidson.edu.
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