Educators From The United States

"I had to fill out an exit survey. They asked how many years spent on coursework (3), how many years spent on dissertation (10). TEN YEARS?! WHAT KIND OF PERSON SPENDS TEN YEARS ON ONE DOCUMENT AND STILL HAS TO BUILD UP COURAGE TO DISCUSS IT OPENLY?"

"For 7 years I called myself an escaped graduate student. I laughed and made light, but each passing month increased my shame burden. Having kids made it easier to throw my hands up like I was okay with things and not at all failing, but I was never okay. I’m still not okay. After my defense"

"When I entered graduate school, I was a sponge for external pressures. Please tell me the rules I must abide by in order to make no waves! Which jokes should I not find offensive? Oh, am I here because of Affirmative Action?"

"While I was in middle school, I went to Algebra with an adequate math foundation and without Pre-Algebra although I barely passed the entrance exam. Within a few weeks, I began to struggle. While I was trying to understand just how letters belonged in mathematics, my Algebra teacher Mrs. Gwendolyn Scott found a way to “motivate” me."

"My thesis is this thing that was initially going to be a grenade launched at my ex-prison, for better or for worse, and instead turned into some kind of positive seed bomb where flowers have sprouted beside the foundations I thought I wanted to crumble."

"My thesis is that thing I got sick of just when I should have been fine-tuning its organization. It’s where I find typos that have already gone to print. I am a writer; don’t ask me about my writing."

"She moved my seat, gave me extra work, and required a parental signature on all graded assessments. Since Cs were not acceptable grades and guaranteed at least 6 weeks of punishment, I was going to spend my entire eighth grade year punished because I was making Ds and Fs. Mrs. Scott’s “motivation” helped me discover my interest in math."

"I was awarded a National Physical Science Consortium fellowship to pursue graduate studies in mathematics and earned my M.S. and Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. After graduate school, I completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Environmental Protection Agency in the National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina."

"I always had an affinity for mathematics. As a child I was always interested in studying patterns, working on puzzles, and solving logic problems; and I was very intrigued by the various ways in which mathematics showed up in everyday life. While in junior high school"

"Personally, I am most proud of taking a leap of faith, leaving a tenured faculty position, to relocate to the DC-area to be near and help care for my aging parents. It has been the best decision of my life."

"I am most proud of being a mentor. Throughout my career, I have spent a great deal of time working with students who need additional supports outside of the classroom. I work with them to master good study habits; set goals and create action plans; manage time, stress, and life circumstances; and prepare for their future careers. It gives me great joy to know that I have mentees who have become successful teachers, doctors, and researchers; but more importantly have gone on to mentor others in need of support."

"Although I did not realize it, I did many things to build my mathematical abilities."

"All too often in the MATH community, because of its traditions, a common sentiment is one that unless you are tenure-track faculty, you’re not a good mathematician. It took time…but I got over that nonsense. I wanted to do something different with my mathematics. I went BIG."

"I still see colleges and universities hiring for these positions, but when comparing the number of open positions to the number of Ph.D. graduates annually…there are not enough academic jobs. So what to do? I recommend considering jobs outside academia."

"I had the opportunity to visit schools for the deaf, libraries for the blind, and art therapy centers. These visits afforded me a firsthand appreciation of how serious the inclusion of persons with disabilities mattered to the American people."

"My favorite academic experience occurred during our personality and leadership assessment session. As a Choleric with keen attention to details and work performance, I have thought to myself a few times that I was excessive, but learning about my strengths and confirming its significance to my work was empowering. I am now deliberate about my choice of support teammates."

"Now don’t get me wrong, I knew mathematicians did more than teach. But personally, I had not done a lot of applied mathematical work. Nothing wrong with it, I just hadn’t. (My area of research was a branch of Combinatorics called Matroid Theory.) However, when I started looking I found all kinds of employment opportunities."

"Until a few years ago, I was a “wayward” mathematician. I thought all I could do was teach and I wanted out. While teaching is noble and one of the highest callings, I wanted to do something other than my tenure-track position."

"Amongst us were persons with disabilities as well as persons with different personalities and sexual orientations. We all learned together and enjoyed equal opportunities in a fully inclusive environment that made learning interesting for all."

"When I finished my PhD, there didn’t seem to be a shortage of academic jobs. You might not get a position at Research I institution, but you could find a tenure-track position at a pretty decent institution and be happy."

"During the six weeks academic residency, I and 24 other Young Africans from 21 different countries were hosted by one of the top universities in the United States; Drexel University, located at the heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."

"My application to the Mandela Washington Fellowship was driven by my quest for an experiential learning program that would improve my capacity in providing educational services and opportunities to children with disabilities and adolescent girls."

"That was the one course that didn't come easily, let's put it that way."

"Male faculty tend to be less sensitive to the ways in which women treat their studies."

"I don't know how much I helped but he gave me credit on the paper. That was a boost to my ego and really got me going in math."

"As the first African American female graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering in 1961, I did not have a role model,” she writes in part. “I understand that requests are not few, and her contacts must be very limited. If there is a way that a meeting can be arranged or a sighting, I am very interested. … Knowing of her has been an inspiration to me."

"Someone actually got what went on and how I felt"

"I could do a split, but another African American girl could do a flip,” she remembers. “There could only be one African American cheerleader, and I couldn’t do a flip, so that was that."

"During my time at AT&T I learned the importance of mentoring. I have mentored hundreds of people over my career, first at AT&T and, more recently, at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL), where I continued my career after leaving AT&T. I am very proud of the impact I have had on the careers of so many people."

"It was surreal watching the movie"

"Girls always come up here, but they never finish, and you won’t finish either.” Then he glanced at her hands and added: “Besides, you’re never going to be able to draw with those fingernails.”"

"There’s always been magic in complex math calculations,” she says. “I used to think about problems all day long. Sometimes I solved the problems in my sleep. But then I would wake up and couldn’t think of what I did. So I trained myself to write down the solution immediately"

"In 1980 I joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, NJ. Eventually I had a 25- year career at Bell Laboratories and, after the breakup of the Bell System, AT&T Laboratories."

"Some of it may have been racial prejudice,” she says, “but they didn’t even have to get to racial because being a girl in engineering, being female, was enough"

"I didn't know they lay of the land," quips Bozeman. They wanted her to go back to school to finish her Ph.D. She just looked at them thinking, I have a husband and two small children, how am I going to go back to Vanderbilt four hours away?"

"Ultimately,” he adds, “if we are to maximize human potential, having a safe, welcoming environment is absolutely vital for knowledge generation and for learning. I’m certainly committed to making sure that the Swanson School and the University of Pittsburgh are the best places for individuals to come and do their best work"

"Women make a B on an exam and they are crushed, they think it's terrible. Men make a B and they think it's great."

"My mother only finished the 12th grade but she was always excited about math."

"I grew up on a small farm in Camp Hill, Alabama, with my four siblings. My elementary school education took place in a one-room school house in my community. Although my love of mathematics was passed down from my mother, both of my parents instilled in me a love of learning and a concern for the education of others."

"I received a very strong public school education. For as long as I can remember, even before I started school, I had a love for mathematics. I think there was something about both the logic of math and the fact that in math there was a “right answer” that appealed to me (clearly before I knew about stochastic mathematics)."

"For a long time, I wanted to be a math teacher, but in high school I started to think about working in jobs where I could “apply” mathematics (though I only had a vague idea of what that meant)."

"I grew up in 1960’s in Winston Salem, NC. in a low-income, single parent household. At the time, the schools in Winston-Salem were segregated but, due primarily to the dedication of my teachers and my own motivation"

"My math teacher, Mr. Frank Holly, would not let me stop doing math."

"I am very proud of all the students that I have taught, supervised in research or summer programs, or mentored over my 35-plus years as a faculty member at Spelman College, a place that supported me through enough different roles and opportunities that I enjoyed going to work every day."

"But then we’d be back with our colleagues on the job. People are people. My father’s advice helped. He said, “You’re no better than anybody else, but nobody is better than you.”"

"In the cafeteria, we just ignored the sign [for segregated seating]. But at some point, we started eating at our desks. When we left work, our lives were definitely separate — separate communities, separate schools for our children, separate grocery stores and churches."

"But then you run the risk of not being able to provide for a family for a number of years. I do see what you mean in terms of how college is structured versus how high school is structured. Maybe, though, we need to rethink how high school is structured. If we start there, when they get here maybe they’ll be ready to start down a career path."

"My sister figured that out second semester, senior year — after student teaching. That’s why I think we need a restructuring of the entire program, so they’re getting teaching experience from the very beginning and can see if it’s something they really, truly want to do. Now, I went through four years as a political science major, thinking I wanted to go to law school. But my sorority started a tutoring center in Hendley Homes, and a fourth-grader told me after he passed his first multiplication test all year, “Didn’t you say you want to be a lawyer?” I said, “Yes! I’m going to law school in a couple months!” He said, “You shouldn’t do that. You’d be a better a teacher."

"We’re the profession that makes all others. If a parent tells me they don’t want their child to go into teaching, I have to ask, “Why?” They give excuses about the money, about how hard teachers work, and it’s true, it’s not glamorous. But the benefits outweigh all the negatives. Seeing a student from 20 years ago tell you all the great things in their life — I spent 25 years in the classroom, elementary school and middle school, before transitioning to the College of Education at USC, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything."

"Being able to experience what you think you want to do as early as possible is critical."