Harrelson News–2000
The Honors Program
The Mathematics Department Honors Program is designed to provide a more challenging curriculum for our strongest upper level students. Students in the program must have a 3.5 GPA overall and in their math courses and are expected to complete MA 426, three graduate level math courses and do a research/independent study project. Over the last twenty years the Math Honors Program has grown from an average of 6-7 participants to about 25 participants, while the number of students completing the program has grown from 1-2 per year to between 5 and 10 each year. In the last 9 years, 4 students have received the prestigious Goldwater Scholarship and 7 have been awarded NSF Fellowships for Graduate School. About 70% of honors program graduates go to graduate school or professional school, while the other 30% get excellent jobs. The graduate schools attended by these students include Princeton, Stanford, Cornell, NYU, Wisconsin, Rutgers, Northwestern and Ohio State.
Five students graduated in the Math Honors Program last May: Michael Binger, now a grad student in physics at Stanford, Alec Clevenger, now a grad student in math at Penn State, Owen Eslinger, now a grad student in math at the University of Texas at Austin, Lisa McCool, now completing her math education degree at NC State and Jesus Rodriguez, now a grad student in math at Cornell. Jesus received a Ford Foundation Fellowship as well as a Sloan Fellowship from Cornell.
Two students, Andrew Jones and Dargan Frierson, have returned from study abroad. Andrew spent Fall '98 at the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics and Spring '99 studying in Germany. Dargan spent last spring in Tuscany, Italy studying art. Nathan George and Leif Johnson are studying in France this year. Marty Smith and Laura Weston both did NSF sponsored REU's (Research Experience for Undergraduates) at the Colorado School of Mines last summer. Laura also did another REU at the Penn State-Behrend College Biology REU last summer.
The Math Honors Program is directed by Dr. Sandra Paur. Students in the program are advised by the members of the Honors Program Committee consisting of Dr. Kailash Misra, Dr. Larry Norris, Dr. Michael Shearer, Dr. Hien Tran and Dr. Paur. More information about the program is available on the web : www.math.ncsu.edu/honors or can be obtained from
Dr. Paur sopaur@math.ncsu.edu (919) 515-3350).