The GVSU Department of Mathematics has long supported its faculty writing textbooks, especially developing free, open-source texts. Recently, David Austin’s book, Understanding Linear Algebra, was recognized with GVSU’s second Daniel Solow Author's Award, a prize offered by the Mathematical Association of America for “the material's impact on undergraduate education in mathematics and/or the mathematical sciences”.  David’s book is the text most GVSU faculty use for its first two linear algebra courses, MTH 204 and MTH 205. First published in 2017, the text has been widely adopted and received considerable praise from faculty who use it.

As noted in the MAA’s announcement of the award, through clear exposition Understanding Linear Algebra introduces students to both the abstract ideas of linear algebra as well as their applications in the world around us, including the Google PageRank algorithm and image compression. One student who has used the book stated, “David Austin’s Understanding Linear Algebra has a way of making linear algebra appear so integrated into modern life that you start thinking of it as essential; something you would be foolish to ignore. It's everywhere, and the book shows you that quite well.” 

The GVSU Math Department congratulates David Austin on this well-deserved honor for his outstanding work.

In 2017, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics Ted Sundstrom won the inaugural Solow Award for his book Mathematical Reasoning: Writing and Proof, which is a text many faculty use for MTH 210: Communicating in Mathematics. Ted’s book was among the first mathematics texts published by GVSU faculty.  

As noted in our 2013 Mackinac Gazette article on GVSU MTH textbooks, other works by GVSU MTH faculty include Discovering Wavelets (by Ed Aboufadel and Steve Schlicker), The Mathematics of Voting and Elections (by Jon Hodge and a non-GVSU co-author), and Paul Fishback’s Linear and Nonlinear Programming with Maple.  Since 2013, department faculty have also produced three open-source textbooks on precalculus, single variable calculus, and multivariable calculus, all of which are available from the Active Calculus homepage, in addition to Professor Austin’s text on linear algebra. There are several other books developed by our faculty listed at the mathematics department website.