TFBCON2003 (Students)

Dan Margalit '98 I am in my office at the University of Utah, where I am a new postdoc. It's 1:15 AM on Monday, I've just returned from a weekend conference in Albany, and I'm grading topology exams. There's only one explanation for this. And that, of course, is the example set by Professor Banchoff. I worked with Professor Banchoff, mostly during my senior year, on a variety of projects. Probably the most exciting thing we did was to create our version of the paperless course, which was still a new idea at the time. I spent countless hours in Professor Banchoff's office, typing away, making interactive web pages where students could submit homeworks online, and get feedback. I'll never forget Professor Banchoff's exuberance over the fact that the Internet allowed him to have unlimited interactions with students between class meetings. One section of the online classroom was a table of assignments (a row for each student, and a column for each assignment). Nary a night went by that Professor Banchoff wasn't in the office late hitting the "expatiate" button, turning little Krusty the Clowns , which represented new submissions, into little Professor Banchoffs which represented papers that had been commented on. Mostly, I was just amused that words like "Krusty" and "expatiate" had become technical teaching terms. I owe my enthusiasm for math and for the teaching of math to Professor Banchoff. My experiences as a student, and later as a TA, in his "Beyond the Third Dimension" class provided me with an excitement that has not begun to wane. I also know way too much about Flatland. Thanks, Professor Banchoff, and may you never stop expatiating Krustys. Dan was a student in the first interactive, internet-based Math 8 course that Banchoff taught. As a student assistant, he developed the Perl scripts for the original discussion software used in Banchoff's multivariable calculus and differential geometry classes. After leaving Brown, Dan received a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 2003 from the University of Chicago, and is now an Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Utah. His web home page lists his recent publications and course materials.

TFBCON2003 Web Pages Created: 26 Oct 2003 Last modified: Nov 2, 2003 7:11:29 PM Comments to: dpvc@union.edu

Ezra Miller '95 Student Assistants of TFB David Margolis, ScM '82