I was born to teenage parents, one of whom was in college, in 1963. The scene of the crime was Pella, Iowa, the home of Pella windows and Central College (my father's alma mater). When my dad finished his degree in Theater, we moved to upstate (way up) New York. I spent the next fifteen years in Granville, NY. A very, very small town. The town borders Vermont, so there is very little to do besides ski and I don't ski.
AND THEN A MIRACLE OCCURED...
My parents are both students of the arts. My mother in music, she studied only one year before she had me, and my father theater (he became an English teacher). Mathematics was not my favorite subject in high school or as an undergraduate. I love to read but, a more powerful force than literature was the challenges presented in mathematics. I was drawn to the subject because of the problems, the organization, an the sheer other worldly nature of the subject. I guess what really hooked me were the proofs. How neat to know that something would always be true and never ever change!
I made my way through my BA at Keene State College in Keene, NH. I also completed a teacher certification option. I was lucky enough to do my student teaching at Monadnock Regional High School, near Keene. Although student teaching was an interesting experience, I just was not sure that seconday school teaching was for me. Back to school I went, only this time on the advice of Joe Witkowski, I headed south to UGA.
Upon completing my MA in mathematics at UGA, I started a job at a wonderful institution in a state overrun with faculty development opportunities. I credit Dr. Leon Benefield with seeing the faculty member that I could be, through my green exterior. After eight short years, I am back at UGA. I came back because I had reached the end of my investigative knowledge. I have worked on a few course development ideas and have fooled around with assessment as part of the packages but, I kept running into brick walls. I really didn't have the know how to put together a study that could prove that the materials I was developing where any better than the text book and methods that other faculty were using. (Grade Distributions don't do it for me!) So here I am. I need to learn quite a bit more before I can do the "work" I dream of doing.