What We Do

It has been an honor, not to mention enlightening and edifying, to have served as editor of the Monthly. My goal when I became editor was to continue the Monthly’s best traditions: bringing interesting mathematics presented in accessible and compelling ways. In this regard, I will always be grateful to the authors, and my Editorial Board, for helping to achieve this goal. While being the first woman to edit the American Mathematical Monthly may be of some historic significance, I am happy to say that working with the many contributors has seemed very “normal,” just as it should be.

In 2021 the Editorial Board reviewed a total of 936 submissions, from 76 different countries. This process relied on an assessment of both the mathematical content and the expository presentation of those ideas. Scholars in every corner of the world weighed in on submissions via careful referee reports of manuscripts. These reviews helped the Board in the decision-making process and helped authors shape submissions into better papers. By the time a manuscript is printed on the pages of the journal, at least five colleagues have contributed to advancing the paper on the editorial side. These figures testify to the broad reach of the American Mathematical Monthly.

In 2021, Mathematics Magazine worked hard to remove barriers to publication in the mathematical community.  Between our articles and problems section, we published items from 22 countries.  This includes items from every continent except Antarctica.  We make every effort to work with authors for whom English is a second language, helping them to polish their writing for publication.  We believe that language should not be a barrier to publishing in American journals, and that it is worth the time commitment to ensure that this is the case.

Submissions to The College Math Journal seem to be picking up as the pandemic ebbs, and the editors have been gratified to see a similar increase in the willingness of reviewers to take on assignments. The editor is working to reduce decision times for submissions, and to prepare for a transition to a new editor in 2023 – the search is now underway!  We are also pleased to note the successful launch of the “Student Choice article” – this new feature of each issue will be publicized more widely in coming months, and we anticipate a continuing increase in student engagement with CMJ in the future.

During the 2021 Calendar year, Math Horizons had 113 submissions, and we accepted 42 of those submissions, while eight are still under consideration. The magazine had three articles from 2020 chosen for The Best Writing on Mathematics 2021 (Princeton University Press). Some of our featured articles included a fun twist on a known magic trick (In Tetracycles: a SET deck magic trick), an intergalactic hyper-intelligent being with an intriguing collection (The Marble Collection of Mrz. Omega), and a tour of interesting mathematical constants (Beyond Pi and e: a collection of constants). The most downloaded article was Crafting Conic Sections (open-access). We featured interviews with mathematical artist Bronna Butler and mathematician Tai-Danae Bradley.

After seven full years involving hurricanes, a pandemic, and significant restructuring of MAA, this is my last issue of MAA FOCUS. Being editor of MAA FOCUS has allowed me to interact with amazing authors, grow my network of friends and colleagues, and to be more involved with MAA than I could have imagined.

Thanks to all of you who have been on this journey with me as we redesigned the magazine, embraced updated core values for the association, and moved the needle towards greater diversity, equity, and inclusion.

I’m honored to have been a part of this publication and am excited to find new ways to contribute to MAA (after taking a minute to catch my breath).  I’m very much looking forward to seeing the next steps in the magazine’s progression, under the leadership of editor Allison Henrich and her editorial board.

Seventy-nine MAA member volunteers serve on book editorial boards. They pore over the manuscripts and provide thoughtful, detailed criticism and advice that makes a dramatic improvement in the quality of our books. MAA authors are always deeply grateful for this valuable feedback. These editorial volunteers provide an extraordinary service to the Association and the profession.

MAA Press continues to serve the MAA mission by producing well-written, carefully edited volumes that serve the needs of MAA members and reflect the values of the Association. The fourteen books published in 2021 appeared in six of our eight series and demonstrate the diversity of our goals. Our primary mission is to help our members deliver high-quality instruction at the undergraduate level. We have, in recent years, put our focus in this direction on producing extraordinary textbooks and we have built a strong and growing catalog of titles.  MAA Press, in conjunction with our AMS partners, are committed to providing college instructors with affordable, readable textbooks for the entire undergraduate mathematics curriculum. Non-textbook titles such as Teaching Mathematics Through Games, Mathematics for Social Justice, and Mathematical Themes for a First-Year Seminar are designed to assist instructors in infusing new ideas and new pedagogies into their courses. Keith Kendig’s Gateway to Number Theory and David Covert’s The Finite Field Distance Problem compellingly display the Association’s continuing commitment to exquisite exposition. Testimonios contributes dually to our commitments to Inclusivity and to Community and is available for free download to MAA members in their Member Libraries. Finally, it wouldn’t be the MAA if somebody didn’t bring the fun, we urge you to take a peek at Tadao Kitazawa’s Arithmetical, Geometrical, and Combinatorial Puzzles from Japan.

Math Values in 2021 averaged a little more than eleven posts per month, nearly doubling the previous years’ activity. Regular activity included the monthly columns Launchings by David Bressoud; Devlin’s Angle by Keith Devlin; the NSF Division of Undergraduate Education DUE Point by Audrey Malagon, Jana Talley, and Erin Moss; the National Association of Mathematicians by Jacqueline Brannon-Giles, Jamylle Laurice Carter, Nadia Monrose Mills, Zerotti Woods, Anisah Nu’man, and Omayra Ortega; and a new column highlighting the personal stories from Testimonios: Stories of Latinx and Hispanic Mathematicians, edited by Pamela Harris, Alicia Prieto-Langarica, Vanessa Rivera Quiñones, Luis Sordo Vieiera, Rosaura Uscanga, and Andrés R. Vindas Meléndez. Some quick numbers from the year: of the 180 authors in 2021, we estimate that 24% are people who identify as BIPOC (including Asian American) and 61% are women or people who identify as non-binary. Also, 9% of our authors were students. We also published our first two blogs in Spanish in 2021.

MAA Reviews is the MAA's website for reviews of books in mathematics ranging from popular books on mathematics for the general reader to textbooks and research monographs.  There are over 13,000 reviews in our database, and new reviews are constantly being added.  The MAA Reviews editorial board also maintains the Basic Library List of books recommended for purchase by college libraries. Our reviews are written and edited by volunteers.

MAA Convergence is the MAA's refereed, open-access, online journal that features articles and resources on the history of mathematics and its use in teaching. Working with a team of 14 associate editors, co-editors Janet Heine Barnett and Amy Ackerberg-Hastings published 18 articles in 2021, along with 99 “Mathematical Treasures” (images and descriptions of rare mathematical books and objects) and three new indexes for the journal’s features such as “Problems from Another Time.” For the first time, Convergence presented an article in both English and Spanish, “Mathematical Mysteries of Rapa Nui with Classroom Activities,” by Ximena Catepillán, Cynthia Huffman, and Scott Thuong. Peggy Aldrich Kidwell inaugurated a new series that introduces online museum collections of particular mathematical instruments to students and instructors, “Keys to Mathematical Treasure Chests.” In another highlighted article, Adrian Rice showed how even famous figures can fall prey to common confusions with “Helping Ada Lovelace with her Homework: Classroom Exercises from a Victorian Calculus Course.”