The average graduate student doesn’t generally make a profound impact within his or her department.

But Anita Lenges, winner of a 2003 Excellence in Teaching Award, isn’t the average graduate student. The College of Education Ph.D. candidate will finish her dissertation soon and leave the UW to pursue a career in education. But the legacy she leaves behind is an important one, according to faculty in the college.

“Anita’s several and substantial endeavors represent a significant contribution to the overall goals and mission of the College of Education,” said Dean Pat Wasley.

Perhaps most noteworthy is Lenges’ creation of a course on culturally responsive math and science teaching. Lenges and a friend designed the course two years ago. She’ll teach it again this summer for the third time.

“The course that Anita developed and taught directly contributes to our mission and fulfills a critical need in the college’s curriculum for preparing future teachers,” Wasley said. Elham Kazemi, an assistant professor who chairs Lenges’ dissertation committee, went one step further. The course, she said, “fills a gaping hole in our curriculum.”

Indeed, it’s one of the few math and science classrooms around where critical theory is the focus.

Lenges says students in the class are encouraged to think about how different cultures are affected by the traditional means of math and science instruction. The class then examines alternative means that might be more supportive for students from a variety of cultural groups.

“We think about the content of math and science instruction and who’s portrayed and how they’re portrayed,” Lenges said. “Because it really isn’t just a bunch of white guys who’ve created it. Math and science actually exist sort of everywhere and people use them all the time.”

Everything from story problems to how the room is decorated are up for discussion in the class. Lenges says she can provide few answers for the prospective teachers.

Instead, she encourages them to consider the classroom and the material from a variety of perspectives.

“We know that people’s identities, who they are and how they see themselves, influences how they’re going to learn in the classroom,” Lenges said. “If you’re from a dominant culture the classroom might be more characteristic of your values. But if I don’t see math as something that’s a part of me or my people, if I see it as part of what an oppressive class does to me, then I might be less engaged and more likely to think, ‘Well, this really isn’t something for me.’ ”

It’s not just theory and curriculum development where Lenges stands out. She knows a thing or two about running an effective classroom and consistently scores well on her teaching evaluations.

That’s no surprise, really. Before beginning her doctoral work Lenges spent eight years as a teacher at Canyon Park Junior High in Bothell. And she spent two years after earning her bachelor’s degree as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching mathematics, physics and chemistry to ninth- and tenth-grade students in Meru, Kenya.

It’s fairly common for her to run into a former Canyon Park student on the UW campus.
“I love seeing them,” she said. “It keeps me focused. The whole reason I’m here is because I want to support them. So it’s nice to have a visual reminder.”

The future teachers she’s helped train say they, too, will be better prepared to support students because they’ve worked with Lenges.

“She embodies all of the qualities of a teacher that I hope to cultivate,” wrote one student in support of Lenges’ nomination for the teaching award. “I feel blessed to have her as my teacher, and I will continue to consider her a mentor long after I have completed the Teacher Education Program.”

– Steve Hill

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It is difficult to make students enthusiastic about statistics.

Especially if the class meets at 8:30 in the morning.

So wrote Department of Statistics chair Peter Guttorp in a letter of nomination for Rebecca Nugent. “Rebecca has been an extremely impressive TA for our introductory class Stat 311: Elements of statistical methods,” he says. “In my 23 years in the department, I have never seen any teaching assistant surpassing Rebecca’s quality.”

“The challenge is in discovering the best way for each student to visualize the problem,” Nugent, the winner of a 2003 Excellence in Teaching Award, says about teaching. “Some work better with repetition, others with practical examples. Helping people determine what works best for them and helping them discover that, yes, they will use math again in their lives and that, yes, they are capable of it, is immensely satisfying. Helping anyone reach their potential is truly rewarding.”

Alison Johnston, a sophomore in economics and European studies, says “Rebecca’s upbeat personality and energy made Economic Statistics a very enjoyable as well as valuable course for me. Due to her amiability and vivacity, she has the rare ability to make any subject matter fascinating, even variables.”

“In a large class of about 200 students, which may seem impersonal and even intimidating for some, Rebecca was everything but,” says Tran Niki Chau, a senior in informatics. She said fun and statistics don’t usually go together in students’ minds but they do for Nugent’s students.

Nugent’s energies and organizational skills were instrumental in helping create the Statistics Tutoring and Study Center, which began trial operations just this quarter.

Staffed by statistics graduate students six hours each Monday and Wednesday and four hours Tuesdays and Thursdays, students can work together in groups or individually, and are able to ask questions without having to pay private tutoring fees.

Student housing representatives generously offered space in a popular dormitory, McCarty Hall, for the trial.

Since opening, the center has provided help to up to 50 students a day, Nugent says.

The occasional review sessions the evenings before exams also have proved popular.

“Our teaching assistants like the center because it streamlines their job,” Nugent says.

“The majority of TAs hold one of their office hours in the center, which allows them to work with more students in a larger space. We also have several graduate students who are just tutoring in their spare time and developing their teaching skills.”

Nugent earned her bachelor’s from Rice University in mathematics, statistics and Spanish. While at Rice she also competed in cross country, track and swimming. She earned her master’s in statistics from Stanford University before coming to the UW in the fall of 2001 to work on her doctorate.

Both Guttorp and June Morita, acting assistant professor of statistics, expressed appreciation for Nugent’s help following the death of professor David Brooks last November. Brooks’ health had been failing but he had been expected to complete fall quarter.

Nugent was Brooks’ teaching assistant for Statistics 311 from autumn quarter 2001 through summer quarter 2002 so, when a temporary faculty member was found to cover the lectures for the rest of the quarter, Nugent was there to provide insights about the vision, outline, level and philosophy of the course, says June Morita, acting assistant professor of statistics.

“Rebecca stepped in to organize the work of the teaching assistants for the next few weeks. In particular to ease the impact on the approximately 180 students in the course, Rebecca was generous with her time.

“Given the tragedy of professor Brooks’ death, the transition to professor Murua went remarkably smoothly. I credit the smoothness of the transition largely to Rebecca.”

– Sandra Hines

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