Letting Go: The Final Vertical Asymptote

Shortly (like 2 months), I will be putting my professional work into the function which produces no output at all — retirement. Perhaps a better metaphor is that the function has a final vertical asymptote at the end point of the domain.

My career has actually had several points of discontinuity, where the next function value substantially differs from the prior value.

The first 5 years were focused on support for my college’s large and successful self-paced “Math Lab” — which initially had 13 courses in the same room with two instructors. One of my duties was to hire and train student workers; of these workers, one of them would eventually come back to my College as an adjunct faculty.
The longest period without a discontinuity (19 years) came next … I provided part of the faculty leadership for the courses and instruction in that Math Lab. One of our students started in beginning algebra, and eventually came back to my College as a full-time faculty.
The largest gap occurred next — I was loaned to the College’s registrar’s office to help implement our student software system (“Banner”), and eventually I functioned as an associate registrar. Instead of AMATYC conferences, I attended the “Banner Summits” each year.
After 5 years, I returned to ‘faculty’ duties though not exactly as the earlier time. The College’s Math Lab was no longer an option seen with pride, as the administrators did not provide support and our own faculty made decisions which contributed to the downfall. This unhappy period lasted 8 years.
In 2010, the Math Lab officially closed. This was the first year where all of my teaching was in ‘regular’ classrooms with larger groups of students; my initiating work with teaching was all one-on-one or pairs in the Math Lab.
Although relatively small, another point of discontinuity occurred two years later as the department chair asked me to take over our quantitative reasoning class. This class was the most fun to teach of any class I’ve done. Within 5 years, this class went from 60 students per year to 400 students per semester.
The last point of discontinuity occurred when I was declared not qualified to teach that QR class. My final 4 years have been focused on dev math — though I spent two separate periods serving as an ‘acting academic coordinator’ for the department (planning, staffing, enrollment, etc).

{image is NOT a perfect match for the metaphor 🙂 }

This is my final semester of teaching mathematics. On the other side of the last vertical asymptote, awaits other type of activities — family and (hopefully) volunteer work.

Throughout my work in AMATYC and MichMATYC as well as the Dana Center and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, I have appreciated the help and support of MANY people. For that, I thank each of you.

For the curious, this blog (DevMathRevival) will continue for another few weeks. Some posts are likely to be reflections on my career, while other posts will be the type of commentary previously seen here.

Developmental Mathematics Revival!

Bringing a new vitality to college mathematics 2011 to 2019