The Department of Mathematics has been recognized with the Tim McKay Departmental Honors Award for our "long-standing efforts to create opportunities for students to challenge themselves, excel in our discipline, find research and teaching opportunities, and to graduate with Honors from LSA."  

In four of the last five years, more Math students have graduated with Honors than any other department. Honors Math graduates' accomplishments are frequently recognized with highly competitive Goldstein Prizes such as the Stephen Smale and Sidney Fine Award for excellence in STEM fields and teaching, respectively. Many folks have contributed to the success in this space: Sarah Koch and Stephen Debacker, for their long-time involvement in Math 295-296;  David Barrett (current Honors committee chair), Jinho Baik, Zaher Hani, Ralf Spatzier and Alex Wright, who have recently taught Math 395-396;  Kartik Prasanna, Andrew Snowden, David Speyer, and Michael Zieve, who recently taught Math 493-494;  Stephen Debacker for developing and Scott Schneider and Paul Kessenich for their work teaching Math 297; several other colleagues in other honors courses of other types. These are are extraordinarily demanding courses to teach!

The award also cited the Math Major Declaration Party, the brainchild of Hanna Bennett, as an example of how the department creates a welcoming and supportive environment for students, as well as our advocacy for  transfer students' integration into the Honors major and for Honors Math students' matriculation into CUGS programs.