Sliffe Awards

We, the AMC 12 team of Minyuan Li, Nicholas Allendorf, Darren Look, and Stephanie Kim of Iowa City West High School, would like to nominate our math teacher, Mr. Jon Bach, for this year's Edyth May Sliffe Award. All four of us have been students in AP Calculus BC under Mr. Bach. He is a warm-hearted man who . . .

We believe that Mr. Barry deserves to win the Edyth May Sliffe Award because of his dedication to teaching mathematics and his commitment to our school's math team. During Math Club meetings, Mr. Barry does a superb job of introducing creative, insightful problems, and developing our problem solving abilities. He builds upon . . .

Our unanimous choice for the prestigious Edyth May Sliffe Award is Mr. Jamie Bassett. He is an outstanding teacher in every way, and we believe he deserves the utmost recognition for all he has done for us. Mr. Bassett warmly welcomes and includes everyone into his classes. Even years after, students fondly remember . . .

Mr. Benny has made many contributions to mathematics at St. George's School. Although we have not been in his classes, we have learned much from him in the few years we have been at this school. Mr. Benny has amazed the school by his ability to keep improving the excellent math curriculum already . . .

Mrs. Black has taught us all for several years in a wide range of courses including precalculus, calculus and linear algebra. She has an amazing ability to make classes interesting and fun, pushing us while keeping us from becoming frustrated. She's taken huge responsibility for the math club. She gets up early every Thursday to teach our 7:15 AM problem solving . . .

Ms. Lisa Borenstein has been Hunter math teacher since 2000 and math team coach for six (6) years. She has worked hard to prepare and train her math team students and lead them to win many team/individual championships and other honors in various local, state, and national math competitions, such as the AMC, AIME, New York Math League (NYML), . . .

For the past thirteen years, Mr. Butler has been dedicated to increasing students' love and appreciation of mathematics here at Mounds View High School. His devotion to students and mathematics alike, depth of knowledge, exceptional teaching abilities, leadership skills, and delightful personality truly distinguish him from others in his field. For these reasons . . .

When asked to describe Deanna Chute, the second thing that students at Palo Alto High School say is that her ability to explain difficult concepts with conciseness and clarity. The first thing is that "Ms. Chute is AWESOME!" With undeniable popularity, Ms. Chute instills a love of math in all her students. Students are attracted . . .

Ms. Tatyana Finkelstein is one of the unsung driving forces behind the Lexington High School math team. We can easily attribute our success as a team to the mathematical insight and inspiration she has given us during the most formative years of our lives. Ms. Finkelstein is a prominent math teacher at the William Diamond Middle School . . .

Mrs. Hardin, our math team coach, has led our team to many victories in the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics competitions. Specifically, due to her coaching, we have qualified for the state competition all three years that we have been at the high school. At last years state competition, our sophomore team placed third. This year . . .

Dr. Harrow is deeply involved in many levels of mathematics at The Westminster Schools. In addition to teaching calculus in the high school, he teaches algebra in the junior high school and spends time at the elementary school with talented students. Although he is not the official coach of our high school math team, he has also given time on weekends to . . .

The single teacher that was responsible for motivating our team is Peter Herreshoff. While other teachers invariably have "department meetings" and "time off", Mr. Herreshoff has never missed a day of school for as long as we can remember. He holds math club every Wednesday after school and Friday at lunch. During this past year, his enthusiasm and . . .

The School of Athens had Socrates. The Packers had Vince Lombardi. The AAST Math Team, however, has both of these legendary icons wrapped into one figure, Mr. Joe Holbrook. In innumerable ways, he is behind every single one of our team's successes, and truly merits recognition for his efforts. First of all, Mr. Holbrook is a great leader and . . .

Mrs. Jockusch is without a doubt the teacher that most contributed to our success in the AMC-12 math contest. In the past three years, Mrs. Jockusch has taught us our school's Algebra II and Calculus I, II, & III courses. Mrs. Jockusch has taught math at University Laboratory High School for 26 years. Her class is infamous for being the most rigorous and . . .

We, Erik Feng, Lauren Song, and Jack Li, would like to nominate Mrs. Doris Kottwitz for the Edyth May Sliffe Award for Distinguished High School Teaching. In the classroom, Mrs. Kottwitz motivates each and every one of her students to do his or her best. Her method of teaching is a two-way street. She successfully conveys . . .

Mr. Altair Maine is, without a doubt, one of the most dedicated and innovative teachers at North Hollywood High School. As our school is year-round, in which we have a long winter vacation that extends all the way until March, coordinating math and science competitions is extremely difficult and would not be possible without the devotion of Mr. Maine. He has . . .

From the moment she took control of the ECHHS math team early this year, Ms. McGinnis put forth tireless effort and infectious enthusiasm. One could not avoid the dozens of colored flyers promoting the math team, women in math, and mathematics education in general. The first club meeting was attended by an unprecedented number of . . .

Romanticist Wiliam Arthur Ward once said that "The mediocre teacher tells, the good teacher explains, the superior teacher demonstrates, the great teacher inspires." For the last 32 years, Mr. Morse has brought a rigorous and challenging mathematics environment into his classroom everyday, that has helped develop and inspire the minds of hundreds of . . .

Mrs. Reichmann is one of the advisors of our school's math club and has assissted to administer the AMC exams for the last two years. She teaches Pre-Calculus Honors, Accelerated and AP Calculus AB and BC classes. She always has high expectations for her students. In addition to urging her students to take the AMC exams and other math . . .

Let p be the proposition that Mr. Schmitt is deserving of the Edyth May Sliffe award. Though it would normally be acceptable to prove said proposition through only one avenue, there exist many different ways to demonstrate the validity and trueness of p. Mr. Schmitt is an enthusiastic supporter of . . .

Mr. Semus is overall the most competent math professor I have ever met in the history of my educational career. Not only does he teach my calculus AP class, but he also acts as one of the lead advisors for our school's math club. Every morning, his exceptional energy and congenial attitude helps me get through what is, for me, the toughest part of the day. At . . .

Mr. Sommer is a great teacher. He goes over all the problems we have trouble with and can answer questions about math outside the topic he teaches (Precalculus). He challenges his students with difficult problems, and we have learned a lot from his class. Mr. Sommer has acheived excellence in teaching mathematics to young minds. He is respected and . . .

Michael Stueben, a veteran teacher of Geometry, Pre-Calculus, and Accelerated Computer Science at Thomas Jefferson, has motivated numerous members of our school's math team in their mathematical success throughout all of the years of our school's existence. In addition to helping at Thursday night math team practices, Mr. Stueben has . . .

Mr. Weisswange is involved in teaching extra-curricular math in several ways. During the school day he teaches precalculus, calculus, and computer class. He also holds two after-school courses: Math Research, and a post-calculus math class that alternates between several advanced courses; he has covered abstract algebra, combinatorics, multivariate . . .