The Montana Tech Public Lecture Series brings speakers from a wide variety of disciplines to our campus. All lectures begin at 4 p.m. (mountain time) Wednesdays (unless otherwise noted) and are free and open to the public.

Contact Susie Anderson at SuAnderson@mtech.edu or 406-496-4311.

Fall 2022

Please watch our campus calendar weekly for upcoming presentations and schedule changes.

4:00 pm each Wednesday

Wednesday, October 5, 2022 

4:00 PM (MT-US)  |  Montana Tech Library Auditorium (Lectures will be in person.  Zoom is not available.

W.J. “Jim” Lewis, PhD, Professor of Mathematics and Chair, Department of Mathematics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

STEM Education & the Role of the Mathematics Department:  Nebraska’s Story & Opportunities Supported by the National Science Foundation

Over the past 30+ years, the Department of Mathematics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has made a major investment in mathematics education, emphasizing the mathematical education of teachers and active learning in the undergraduate mathematics classroom. Investments by the university in a STEM Education Center has played an important role both in supporting the work of the Mathematics Department and in broadening STEM Education work to include a vibrant DBER (Discipline-Based Education Research) community. We will discuss Nebraska’s story and discuss programs at the National Science Foundation that can support faculty at a university wanting to make a comparable investment in STEM Education.

Jim Lewis, PhD, is the Aaron Douglas Professor of Mathematics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he has served as chair of the Department of Mathematics and Director of the Center for Science, Mathematics and Computer Education and Director of STEM Education Research Initiatives. From 2015 to 2018 he worked at the National Science Foundation, serving first as Deputy Assistant Director and then as Acting Assistant Director for the Education and Human Resources Directorate. Lewis is an elected fellow of both the American Mathematical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2015, he received the MAA’s Gung and Hu Award for Distinguished Service and the AMS’s Award for Impact on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics. Lewis has received the University of Nebraska’s Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award and the Carnegie Foundation’s Nebraska Professor of the Year Award.  In addition, Lewis was chair of the writing team for The Mathematical Education of Teachers II, co-chair of the National Research Council committee that produced Educating Teachers of Science, Mathematics and Technology: New Practices for the new Millennium, and a member of the AMS Task Force that produced Towards Excellence: Leading a Doctoral Mathematics Department in the 21st Century.

For additional information, contact:  Angela Lueking, PhD, alueking@mtech.edu.