The Simpson Math Club isn’t just for math majors anymore. With activities and competitions in the works, the math club is a fun time for all involved.

The Math Club meets every other Sunday at 6:15 p.m. in Carver 340.

“The Math club has existed on campus for over twenty years, but it hadn’t been active for several years,” Deb Czarneski, assistant professor of mathematics said. “When I came to Simpson, one of my priorities was to build a stronger math club.”

Czarneski re-established the Math Club by meeting with several of the math majors asking if they would like to reinstate the club.

“We had an informal meeting and sent out an e-mail saying that we were starting the Math Club,” Carneski said. “At the first meeting we discussed what we would like to accomplish and had elections.”

The Math Club has approximately 20 members who are mostly math majors and minors, but the club is open to anyone who has an interest in math.

“At every meeting we try to do something tied to math,” senior Jean Clipperton said. “We play math games and have snacks.”

In the two years the group has been active, they have done numerous activities, having guest speakers talk with a math majors after graduation, a game night and even a sudoku competition. The Math Club also decorated Carver Science Center in origami for Christmas.

“As a math major, you don’t really to get to know the other students in the department because the classes really aren’t discussion based,” junior Casie Schmitt said. “It’s fun to go to the meetings and talk to other students who are interested in the same things that you are interested in.”

The Math Club has two activities coming up. They are having a Super Bowl party and are entering an international math competition called Mathematical Contest in Modeling.

MCM is a competition put on by COMAP: Mathematics Instructional Resources for Innovative Educators, a non-profit organization whose mission is to improve mathematics education for students of all ages.

“MCM is a big event for us and we are really excited because we got five hundred dollars in funding from the student senate,” Clipperton said. “We are hoping for around seven teams and Math Club is covering the registration fee for anyone who is interested in participating.”

The MCM competition will take place on Feb. 8-12. Every team will have three members and can choose to answer one of two open-ended questions. The team has the full weekend to answer the question and there are no right answers, but just a chance for students to have some fun while thinking critically.

Last year, three teams participated. One team received an honorable mention and the other two were successful participants. In 2005 five teams entered the contest, one team gaining meritorious, which means the team was in the top five percent. Two of the teams also received honorable mentions.

Anyone interested in the MCM competition should contact Professor of Mathematics Murphy Waggoner. If interested in joining the Math Club one should contact Clipperton or Czarneski.

“Math club is a lot of fun,” Clipperton said. “I swear we are not a bunch of math geeks sitting around doing arithmetic problems.”