Julie Barnes has been a dedicated member of the ÄûÃʵ¼º½ (MAA) and an enthusiastic contributor to her section. Recently, she was honored with the Meritorious Service Award. Here, she shares her journey, experiences, and thoughts on service and community within the MAA.
Julie Barnes: I love my section and am incredibly honored to have been chosen for this award. To be honest, though, most of what I have done hasn’t felt like service—it has been more about opportunities to connect with people and engage in meaningful work.
When I first started teaching at Western Carolina University, I was a newly minted ÄûÃʵ¼º½Project NExT Fellow, eager to get involved in my section. In those early years, I collaborated with several other Project NExT Fellows to organize our Section NExT. Those meetings became annual reunions, fostering great friendships and encouraging each other along the way.
Perhaps my biggest contribution to the section has been a bit unconventional. Like many other faculty members, I was bringing students to our section meetings. My students expressed interest in connecting with students from other universities, and at the same time, the section was exploring ways to make the meetings more student-friendly. The timing was perfect. I started organizing a non-competitive student event where participants engaged in two hours of creative problem-solving to collect clues and uncover a "treasure." Teams were randomized to encourage interaction among students from different universities—connections that often lasted throughout the rest of the meeting.
To make the event successful, many club advisors stayed to help. Over the years, we built a strong planning team of dedicated faculty, and together, we’ve had a blast organizing these events. Beyond that, we’ve become close friends—so much so that a few of them have supported me in navigating care for my mother, who now lives with me, has dementia, and is in hospice. In fact, one member of the team even took my mom to a doctor’s appointment for me, despite never having met her before.
On a national level, my biggest contribution was serving on the Project NExT leadership team. I was the first person to join after Chris Stevens stepped down, and it felt like a significant responsibility, even though I was the newest member. That team had been working together for years, and I felt like I was being welcomed into a close-knit family.
For the next ten years, I had the incredible opportunity to engage with energetic and creative new mathematicians in the program, as well as more experienced mentors who had so much wisdom to share. If you’ve ever been a Project NExT Fellow, you know how energizing those workshops can be—and as a leader, they were just as invigorating for me. Every summer, those sessions provided a much-needed boost heading into the fall semester.
These are just a few of the things I’ve been involved in, and I’ve truly enjoyed the chance to connect with colleagues in such meaningful ways.
MAA: Can you tell us about the award you received and what it means to you?
Julie Barnes: I received the Meritorious Service Award, which is given to one individual from each section every five years. It was an incredible honor to be chosen by people I have worked with and consider to be friends.
MAA: What inspired you to pursue the work that earned you this recognition?
Julie Barnes: I touched on this a bit earlier—I started the student event because I saw a need and thought it would be a fun way to engage students. I helped launch Section NExT because the national Project NExT program was transformative for me, and I wanted others in our section, who couldn’t attend the national program, to have a similar experience. As for joining the national Project NExT team, the opportunity arose, and I jumped at the chance. The program had been so valuable to me as a new faculty member, and I was thrilled to give back.
MAA: How did you feel when you found out you were selected for this award?
Julie Barnes: Honestly, I was surprised. I didn’t even know the award existed—which is ironic, considering I had served on our section’s service award committee for three years and even chaired it. However, those years didn’t coincide with the five-year cycle for the Meritorious Service Award, so I had never encountered it.
When I was first told I was being nominated, I thought that meant my name was simply being submitted along with nominees from the other 29 sections. I assumed my chances of actually receiving it were slim to none. It wasn’t until I looked it up online that I realized I had already won—it was a complete shock!
MAA: What advice would you give to others aspiring to achieve similar success?
Julie Barnes: To be honest, I never set out to win a service award—and I don’t think that should be the goal. My goal was always to find creative ways to support my community and then follow through with those ideas. I pursued work that I genuinely enjoyed and that aligned with my skill set.
My advice to others is to find something they love doing that also benefits their community—whether that’s within their university, their section, or the broader MAA. If it’s a good fit, recognition may come, but the real reward is knowing that your contributions are meaningful and making a difference.