Every April the Mathematics Department hosts an awards banquet to recognize and honor exemplary students and their families.   In this article, we report on these students and their achievements.

Scholarships

The generous contributions of alumni and many past and present mathematics faculty has established the Mathematics Endowment Fund to provide funds to support annual Mathematics Department Scholarships for select mathematics majors.

The selection criteria include a personal essay, grade point average, letters of recommendation, and extra-curricular mathematical engagement.  The following outstanding students are receiving this scholarship for the 2024-25 academic year:

Kennedy Graham

Alaina Hogan

Rowan Kennedy

Kyle McKee

Marshall Nicholson

Lisa Shen

Justin Sciullo

Sarah Zaske

Congratulations to each of these excellent mathematics majors!

VanderJagt Mathematics and Athletics Scholarship

Prof. Don VanderJagt served the mathematics department and Grand Valley State University for more than 40 years, and for many of those years he was the GVSU faculty representative to the NCAA.  Don loved athletics and was passionate about Grand Valley athletes’ excellence on the field and in the classroom.

Before his retirement, Don and his wife, Barb, endowed a scholarship in their name to honor a student majoring in mathematics who demonstrates excellence in both mathematics and athletics.  A list of past recipients is kept on a plaque outside the math department office.

This year the Department is pleased to honor Sean Marquardt (men’s cross-country) as the recipient of the Vanderjagt Scholarship.

Other Awards

The Outstanding Sophomore Award recognizes the academic achievements of one or two students at the beginning of their academic careers.  The purpose of the award is to encourage continued success in the study of mathematics.  Students may only win this award by being nominated by one or more faculty.

The 2024 Outstanding Sophomores are Sydney Lipton and Peter Verstraete.

In addition, we present Department Senior Awards to honor graduating students for their accumulated excellence in the mathematics major and their overall contributions to the department.  These students make a positive difference in the life of the mathematics department as they have demonstrated exemplary work in their courses and often have demonstrated leadership and participation in extracurricular mathematical activities. The winners of department senior awards for 2024 are:

Leah Barber

Virginia Berger

Rowan Kennedy

Eli Kochanski

Josiah Kruithof

Jacob Ritsema

Paige McAloon

Logyn Miller

Ben Paulina

Dori Schlutt

Justin Sciullo

Grace Wilcox

Finally, the department’s Excellence in the Discipline Award for 2024 is Lauryn Davis.  You can read more about Lauryn in this article. 

Congratulations to all of these outstanding students.  We wish them the very best in all of their future endeavors.