Kilpatrick Elected to Board of Governors of Mathematical Association of America
University of Georgia Regents Professor Jeremy Kilpatrick has been elected to a three-year term on the Board of Governors of the Mathematical Association of America effective in January 2006.
Kilpatrick will be a Governor-at-Large representing Teacher Education in the nation's largest professional society that focuses on advancing the mathematical sciences, especially at the collegiate level. He will serve on the 50-person board that governs the society, whose members include more than 27,000 university, college, and high school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure and applied mathematicians; computer scientists; statisticians; and many others in academia, government, business, and industry.
Based in Washington, D.C., the MAA focuses on:
- encouraging effective curriculum, teaching and assessment;
- supporting scholarship at all appropriate levels and venues, including research by undergraduates.
- providing resources and activities that foster scholarship, professional growth and cooperation among teachers and students.
- influencing institutional policy through advocacy for the importance, uses and needs of the mathematical sciences.
- promoting the general understanding and appreciation of mathematics. The MAA encourages students of all ages, particularly those from underrepresented groups, to pursue careers in the mathematical sciences.
The group pursues these interests through extensive programs, meetings and publications, more than 100 national committees and 29 regional sections.
Kilpatrick is recognized around the world as one of the top experts in mathematics education. Two years ago, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics Education from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).
In fall 2002, he became the first UGA faculty member named as a National Associate by the National Academy of Sciences. The National Associate designation is a lifetime title to recognize people who have contributed pro bono service on committees of the National Academies, a group comprising the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, National Research Council the National Academies and the Institute of Medicine.
Two years ago, Kilpatrick chaired a National Research Council committee which studied how to improve children's learning of mathematics that garnered national attention. The report, titled Taking it Through: Cross-National Conversation About Secondary Mathematics Curriculum, recommended a major overhaul of mathematics instruction, curricula and assessment in the nation's schools.
Kilpatrick's contributions have included serving as chair of the Mathematics Learning Study, a member of the Board on International Comparative Studies in Education, chair of the Study Group on Guidelines for Mathematics Assessment, and a charter member of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board.
Kilpatrick is the College of Education's second faculty member to receive the NCTM's Lifetime Achievement Award. Mathematics education colleague James Wilson, preceded him in that honor in 2001.
Kilpatrick and Wilson, are currently co-principal investigators in a $10.3 million project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create a national Center for Proficiency in Teaching Mathematics. Another colleague, Pat Wilson, a professor of mathematics education, is the principal investigator and director of the project.
Before joining the UGA faculty in 1975, Kilpatrick taught at Teachers College, Columbia University . He holds an A.B. and an M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. and a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. He was appointed Regents Professor at UGA in 1993.
He has taught courses in mathematics education at several European and Latin American universities and has received Fulbright awards for work in New Zealand, Spain, Colombia and Sweden. He was a charter member of the U.S. Mathematical Sciences Education Board and served two terms as Vice President of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction.
His publications include a chapter on the history of research in mathematics education in the 1992 Handbook of Research on Mathematics Teaching and Learning and a co-authored research report on an innovative precalculus course in the 1996 Volume 3 of Bold Ventures: Case Studies of U.S. Innovations in Mathematics Education.
Monday, October 24, 2005
WRITER: Michael Childs, 706/542-5889, mchilds@uga.edu
CONTACT: Jeremy Kilpatrick, 706/542-4163, jkilpat@uga.edu