Louise Hay Award

2019 Winner: Jacqueline Dewar

The Association for Women in Mathematics will present the 29th Annual Louise Hay Award to Jacqueline Dewar of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles (LMU) in recognition of her many achievements as a professor, a leader in outreach, and a contributor to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Her peers and students praise her as a teacher, mentor, and scholar.

Citation:

With a PhD in mathematics, Dewar served LMU for 40 years. She advocated for active learning, initiated a biomathematics program, and developed courses in computer literacy, the history of women in mathematics, and mathematics in civic engagement. Her mentoring continues past graduation: in one notable case she guided a career that moved from classroom teaching into grants management, then to doctoral study and a post-secondary faculty position.

Dewar shares her expertise in mathematics and teaching with students and teachers widely. In 1978 she was a co-founder of the Math Science Interchange in Los Angeles, which still provides an annual career day, “Expanding Your Horizons-LA,” for K-12 students and teachers. Thousands of girls and their teachers have attended these events. Dewar still leads workshops and trains other leaders. She was a major contributor to an NSF-funded collaboration among five four-year colleges and five community colleges to enhance preparation of mathematics and science teachers. This project’s initiatives persist and have been replicated.

Dewar received the LMU President’s Award for distinguished teaching and the Mathematical Association of America’s Haimo Award. One indicator, among many, of scholarly leadership is her selection as co- editor of Mathematics Education: A Spectrum of Work in Mathematical Sciences Departments, published by Springer in 2016.

Established in 1991, the Hay Award recognizes outstanding achievements in any area of mathematics education. Louise Hay was widely recognized for her contributions to mathematical logic, for her strong leadership as Head of the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago, for her devotion to students, and for her lifelong commitment to nurturing the talent of young women and men. The annual presentation of this award is intended to highlight the importance of mathematics education and to evoke the memory of all that Hay exemplified as a teacher, scholar, administrator, and human being.

Response:

I feel very honored to receive the Louise Hay Award for Contributions to Mathematics Education. I never had the good fortune to meet Louise Hay in person, but I definitely recall reading her autobiographical essay—“How I became a mathematician (or how it was in the bad old days)”—when it first appeared in the September–October 1989 issue of The Association for Women in Mathematics Newsletter. Her life story and bravery touched and encouraged me then and did so again recently when I re-read her essay. No one makes a contribution to something as complex as mathematics education all alone. Over my career I have benefitted from the collaboration and support of colleagues in many locations: at my home institution Loyola Marymount University and at nearby institutions, in the Association for Women in Mathematics, the Carnegie Scholars Program, and the Mathematical Association of America, and throughout the larger mathematics community. I want to thank my colleagues and my former students for the many things I learned from them. It has been a privilege to do work in mathematics education in their company.