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| Formation | 1915 |
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| Headquarters | 11 Dupont Cir NW Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036 |
| Members | 25,000+ |
President | Hortensia Soto |
Key people | Michael Pearson, Executive Director |
| Website | www |
TheMathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses onmathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members includeuniversity,college, andhigh school teachers; graduate and undergraduate students; pure and appliedmathematicians;computer scientists;statisticians; and many others in academia, government, business, and industry.
The MAA was founded in 1915 and is headquartered at 11 Dupont in theDupont Circle neighborhood ofWashington, D.C. The organization publishes mathematics journals and books, including theAmerican Mathematical Monthly (established in 1894 byBenjamin Finkel), the most widely read mathematics journal in the world according to records onJSTOR.[1]
The MAA sponsors the annual summerMathFest and cosponsors with theAmerican Mathematical Society theJoint Mathematics Meeting, held in early January of each year. On occasion theSociety for Industrial and Applied Mathematics joins in these meetings. Twenty-nine regional sections also hold regular meetings.
The association publishes multiple journals in partnership withTaylor & Francis:[2]
MAA FOCUS is the association member newsletter. The Association publishes an online resource, Mathematical Sciences Digital Library (Math DL). The service launched in 2001 with the online-onlyJournal of Online Mathematics and its Applications (JOMA) and a set of classroom tools,Digital Classroom Resources. These were followed in 2004 byConvergence, an online-only history magazine, and in 2005 byMAA Reviews, an online book review service, andClassroom Capsules and Notes, a set of classroom notes.[3]
The MAA publishes several book series, aimed at a broad audience, but primarily for undergraduates majoring in mathematics. The series are:Anneli Lax New Mathematical Library,Carus Mathematical Monographs,Classroom Resource Materials,Dolciani Mathematical Expositions,MAA Notes,MAA Textbooks,Problem Books, andSpectrum.[4]
The MAA sponsors numerous competitions for students, including theWilliam Lowell Putnam Competition for undergraduate students, the online competition series, and theAmerican Mathematics Competitions (AMC) for middle- and high-school students. This series of competitions is as follows:
Through this program, outstanding students are identified and invited to participate in theMathematical Olympiad Program. Ultimately, six high school students are chosen to represent the U.S. at theInternational Mathematics Olympiad.
The MAA is composed of the following twenty-nine regional sections:
Allegheny Mountain, EPADEL, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Intermountain, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana/Mississippi, MD-DC-VA, Metro New York, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska – SE SD, New Jersey, North Central, Northeastern, Northern CA – NV-HI, Ohio, Oklahoma-Arkansas, Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountain, Seaway, Southeastern, Southern CA – NV, Southwestern, Texas, Wisconsin
There are seventeen Special Interest Groups of the Mathematical Association of America (SIGMAAs). These SIGMAAs were established to advance the MAA mission by supporting groups with a common mathematical interest, and facilitating interaction between such groups and the greater mathematics community.[5]
The MAA distributes many prizes, including theChauvenet Prize[7] and theCarl B. Allendoerfer Award,[8]Trevor Evans Award,[9]Lester R. Ford Award,George Pólya Award,[10]Merten M. Hasse Prize,[11]Henry L. Alder Award,[12]Euler Book Prize awards, theYueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics, andBeckenbach Book Prize.
The MAA is one of four partners in theJoint Policy Board for Mathematics (JPBM), and participates in theConference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS), an umbrella organization of sixteen professional societies.
A detailed history of the first fifty years of the MAA appears inMay (1972). A report on activities prior toWorld War II appears inBennett (1967). Further details of its history can be found inCase (1996). In addition numerous regional sections of the MAA have published accounts of their local history.The MAA was established in 1915. But the roots of the Association can be traced to the 1894 founding of theAmerican Mathematical Monthly byBenjamin Finkel, who wrote "Most of our existing journals deal almost exclusively with subjects beyond the reach of the average student or teacher of mathematics or at least with subjects with which they are familiar, and little, if any, space, is devoted to the solution of problems…No pains will be spared on the part of the Editors to make this the most interesting and most popular journal published in America."
The MAA records are preserved as part of theArchives of American Mathematics.
The MAA has for a long time followed a strict policy of inclusivity and non-discrimination.
In previous periods it was subject to the same problems of discrimination that were widespread across the United States. One notorious incident at a south-eastern sectional meeting inNashville in 1951 has been documented[13] by the American mathematician and equal rights activistLee Lorch, who in 2007received the most prestigious award given by the MAA (the Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics).[14][15] The citation delivered at the 2007 MAA awards presentation, where Lorch received a standing ovation, recorded that:
The Association's first woman president wasDorothy Lewis Bernstein (1979–1980).[16]
The presidents of the MAA:[17]
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