More than a decade ago, a late April snowstorm led to the founding of the Northfield Undergraduate Mathematics Symposium (NUMS). Kristina Garrett, a professor of Mathematics at St. Olaf, had to delay her plans to take students to a conference in St. Cloud due to the extreme weather conditions. Still wanting to give students a platform to present, she and Professor Eric Egge at Carleton College thought, “why don’t we just do a joint thing?”

Last Tuesday, Sept. 30, the annual NUMS event was hosted at St. Olaf College. Seven students and research groups from Carleton presented their summer research at the event, along with three St. Olaf students. 

According to Egge, the Carleton co-founder of the NUMS symposium, the first event was enjoyed by students and faculty from both colleges’ math and statistics departments. 

“It was a lot of fun for the students at Carleton to see the St. Olaf students and what they’re doing, because they don’t often get together,” Egge said. “And there are close connections between the faculty and the two departments as well. So it was a nice opportunity for those folks to get together.” 

The great success of the first symposium led the founding faculty to turn NUMS into a recurring event.

“The next year we thought, well, why don’t we just make it a regular thing?
We can go back and forth between the two institutions,’” Egge said. 

The event experimented with a couple of different formats, said Egge, including a keynote speaker, a retired faculty member who built mathematically themed wooden puzzles. As it turned out, however, “the real draw of the conference is the student talks, so for a long time, [NUMS organizers] just focused on those.”

While Egge and Garrett founded the symposium, Egge said there is not a “departmental investment” in NUMS. “Which is sort of gratifying… it’s really the whole department saying, ‘this is something that’s super cool and we should try to keep it going,’” he continued. 

NUMS is an opportunity for students and faculty of both institutions to connect. “The two departments are always looking for ways to collaborate because we have a lot in common,” said Egge. 

Carleton professor Deanna Haunsperger, who was involved in organizing the 2025 NUMS event, echoed this sentiment. “I think it’s really sad that because of our calendars, we just don’t get together very much,” Haunsperger said. “I mean, we should be making much more use of the opportunity of getting together across the campuses. And we don’t. But this is one opportunity where we can, where we can get the students from both schools together, get them to meet each other.”

Creating connections between mathematics students of the two colleges has always been a focus of the NUMS event. “There have been years where we basically stood up and said, ‘okay, if it’s all students of the same school at a table, then y’all need to move around,’” said Egge.

“Sometimes we have a game night or something with St Olaf students, but we don’t do that enough. And I think this is a great opportunity,” Haunsperger said. “It’s also really nice to just get an experience presenting in a math conference.” 

“In our classes, we don’t have enough opportunities for students to “talk” mathematics,” continued Haunsperger. Being able to present your ideas to someone else [means they are] clear in your head.”

Adriana Wiggins ’26, a Carleton student who presented at NUMS, said, “I think any opportunity to present research, especially in a lower-stakes environment, is worth taking. At first, it was odd to give a lecture to my peers and my professors/advisors, but it was fulfilling to show them what I’m passionate about and how I’ve taken what I’ve learned into another setting.”

Carmen Li ’28, another Carleton student who presented her research at NUMS, said, “[her experience presenting at NUMS] was good. It’s my first time presenting anything. It was also my first research experience.
While I wasn’t able to get anything out of the other speakers, when I was talking, it was a really great experience.”

“When you were talking, there were professors in the audience who were nodding when you [were] talking about concepts that they might have taught in classes before,” said Li. “For example, I saw Rafe sitting in the audience and when I was talking about something he taught in abstract algebra, he was nodding.
And that’s really affirmative.” 

Li got involved in Mathematics research by applying through the Carleton Math department. 

“I applied and I was lucky and then I got in.” Li also said that research groups differ from each other. In her group, “We first had two weeks of math, like just to get enough math to barely know what we were doing.”

Students then apply to a faculty coordinator at their institution. This year, Haunsperger handled student applications from Carleton. Haunsperger said that she “[balances] things out and encourages as many students and types of mathematics and statistics to be presented.”

“You know, we don’t want it to be all Carleton students and or all St Olaf students. So we want to make sure that there’s a balance in that way and that there’s a balance of topics. But everyone who applied this year was accepted and it was a great conference. [NUMS] was well attended, too,” Haunsperger said. 

“[NUMS] has been going on long enough now that there are people who spoke at NUMS as students who then became math faculty members here or elsewhere… And it’s just really cool to be at the joint math meetings or some other kind of general math venue and just see a name and say ‘that name sounds familiar, where do I know that name from?’” Egge said. Past NUMS presenters have even come up as job applicants from time to time. 

According to Haunsperger, “It’s really good to really understand what you’re talking about, to have to say it to someone else.” Experiences like this can be beneficial to students who “are going to talk more mathematics or go to grad school… All these things are helped by having that experience of discussing something difficult with someone else.”

“Research is very collaborative, so learning about what’s happening down the street is a great way to find connections in shared interests–either with other students or professors,” said Wiggins.

Haunsperger spoke about her experience on the organizing side of the event, saying, “I think it’s just really important for us to make some connections with St. Olaf and make use of that resource in this town. I’m really happy to do it.”