Courses taught:
Courses taught:
Committees:
Other Service:
Library liaison, colloquium organizer, advisor to math and discovery majors, maintain math career information, talk with high school students at department open houses, accompany majors to regional professional meetings, help with registration, chaired department search committees, assisted with high school math contests, coordinated design and implementation of department computer lab.
| Summer in Minnesota is delightful, if a little chilly for a Florida fan. For four weeks I lived on campus and shared meals with eighteen talented college women, all of us having a love of mathematics. I was one of two instructors in the nationally known Summer Math Program for Women sponsored by Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges in Northfield, MN. My chosen topic was fuzzy logic, but my students were anything but fuzzy in their grasp of the subject. They happily calculated fuzzy numbers and fuzzy sets, and proved interesting properties about them. |
 |
Ithaca is where I learned to teach with computers. Several faculty members had obtained an NSF grant and agreed to support my development of a differential equations course to be taught in a computer-equipped classroom. It changed my teaching life. Instead of lecturing, I provided discovery routes for students to learn the material on their own, in small groups, and with help from me. Since then, with suggestions from Jim Conklin, I have developed a course in chaos & fractals using the same method. Later, Sandy Skidmore and I built further on this idea and wrote A Guided Tour of Differential Equations Using Computer Technology (Prentice Hall, 1998), a workbook which can accompany any technologically aware text. I finally got cold enough to head south. |
Cornell University, 1988 - 1989
 |
I took an unofficial sabbatical at Cornell in what was then the Pew Program for Visiting Faculty. I taught two sections of calculus each semester and rediscovered my inner student. I sat in on "Applicable Math" from John Hubbard, an experience no one should miss! I froze. Tom Rishel and I puzzled our way through Devaney's Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems. I taught myself Mathematica. I froze. Cornell's web site does not seem to have a picture of the campus covered in a foot of ice, which is its usual state. But come winter, visit their live view. |
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, 1984 - 1988
 |
Rose is where I learned to teach. That's the number one priority for faculty there, and I had come from a research institution. I also learned to love applied math here, whereas my previous experience was in theoretical math. I learned differential equations by teaching it (repeatedly) and through conversations with knowledgeable faculty; I learned the history of math by creating a course. I was lucky to be the Putnam team coach the year three really bright students won 9th place nationwide. I tried to learn to play bridge, and advised the (much better) student bridge club. |
University of Alabama, 1981 - 1984
 |
This was my first job after graduate school. I taught differential equations for the first time. I developed the course "Foundations of Mathematics" which has turned into "Introduction to Logic and Proof" at Stetson and which will soon turn into a book. I learned that I enjoyed teaching more than research. |