It Was Never Easy: Reflections on My Mother’s Mathematical Journey - Part 1

By Jamylle Carter, Professor of Mathematics, Diablo Valley College, @CarterJamylle

According to the book Sisters in Science: Conversations with Black Women Scientists on Race, Gender, and Their Passion for Science by Diann Jordan, PhD, my mother Jamye Pearl Witherspoon Carter, EdD, and I are one of the few mother-daughter doctoral teams in the United States, so I figured that I should interview my mom about her mathematical journey.

In 1993 my mother became the second African-American woman to earn an EdD in mathematics education from Auburn University. Her dissertation is titled “Personal Factors Influencing the Decision of Black Students To Participate in Optional Math Courses.” She is the co-author of a finite math textbook (Freeman, B.N., & Carter, J.W. (2002). Finite Mathematics: A Conceptual Approach. Kendall Hunt) and she also co-authored a chapter in the book Mathematics for Every Student: Responding to Diversity, Grades 9--12. She retired from Alabama State University (ASU) in 2013 as a professor of mathematics after 38 years of teaching there—only to return two years later to teach part-time. She claims she failed at retirement!

High School

Jamylle Carter [JC]: [You graduated from Central High School in 1964 in Mobile, Alabama, which was segregated at the time.] What were you like in high school?

Jamye Pearl Witherspoon Carter [JPWC]: In high school, I was very studious. I tried to make pretty much all As, certainly nothing but As and Bs. I was in a lot of clubs. We had a lot of social clubs. We had honors groups. We had just a lot of different activities for the high schoolers. I was also an officer my senior year. I think I was the secretary of the senior class, so I just was involved with a lot of things. I was in the choir, which I loved. So it was just a good time, a good fun time.

[JC]: Okay, lovely. And could you tell us about your transition into your career? So from high school, choosing college, what your major was, and how you got to be this retired math professor that you are now?

[JPWC]: Yeah, high school was the key. In elementary school, which I tell all of my students now, even though I am retired and I've come back teaching adjunct, but I always [on] that first day let them know that I was not a math genius. I didn't do well in math in elementary [school]. I, in fact, failed. I think I made a D or an F in math in one of the grades and my mother, who was a teacher also at that school, taught me in the fourth grade. But I was [a] poor [student]. I just could not understand. With subtraction, I [would] put the big number at the bottom. I didn't get it, and of course my mother was very strict and she would discipline me heavily with a ruler, paddle, whatever she could get her hands on.

So I managed to do okay. I [just] wasn't...excellent. But by the 10th grade, this was the pivot point for me. I had a teacher in trigonometry because I was in the college prep channel. And in trigonometry, a professor by the name of Mr. Foster—and it's ironic that now his niece [Dr. Michelle Foster] is my chairperson at Alabama State [interim chair of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science]—but Mr. Foster just made math fun and interesting. We learned; he joked. He would tease along the way as we were learning. And I got excited about math. It just really opened my eyes and I just was thrilled.

College

[JPWC]: And choosing to go to a college out of the state was a pivot point also because I didn't want to stay home. I'm an only child and I just needed to get away. So I got as far as Tallahassee, Florida, from Mobile, Alabama, and went to Florida A&M University, [which] we call FAMU. And there also, I had an excellent, excellent math teacher professor, who was my mentor, Mrs. Clark. And even though I had other good math professors, she was the one whom I just leaned into and she nurtured me, again, making the math work for me. It never was easy. It has never been easy, even when I went to University of Detroit [now the University of Detroit Mercy] for my master's [MA in Teaching Mathematics] or Auburn for my doctorate. I just never—the math was always a challenge. And quite frankly, that's what I liked about it. It kicked my butt. It made me do and think and be better than I thought I could be.

Then I taught in public school for about 10 years in Detroit. And then when we moved to Montgomery, I started teaching at Alabama State University. And I taught there 38 years until I retired, really eight years ago. But I'm now back as an adjunct, part-time at Alabama State University.

[JC]: Okay. I'm learning more about you now, and you're my mother. So just for context, you graduated from Central High School in Mobile, Alabama, in 1964. You graduated from Florida A&M University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1967. Can you say just a little bit about your teaching career in Mobile and then in Detroit?

Teaching

[JPWC]: Okay. Well, when I graduated from FAMU in 1967 and my husband and I, your father, he was a pharmacy major, so he had his degree in pharmacy and me in math. We married shortly after we graduated and I worked one year in Mobile in the public schools there. And I taught in junior high school. Then he got a job in Detroit and so we moved there [in 1968] and I taught in the public schools there in Detroit, junior high school. [It was called] Post Junior High School. And I liked that. They had a system, which I don't know if it even exists now. The grades were seventh, eighth and ninth. And I taught seventh, eighth and ninth grade math, but my homeroom remained the same group of students, all those three years. So that was really dynamic because even though the students were moving up in grade, they stayed with the same homeroom teacher.

And as a result, you got a chance to really learn those students in the three years. Learned their parents, interacted with them, and it became like a big family. And then after that threesome would move on, then you get another group at the beginning. And as I said, I taught there for eight years. So it was just very good. I made some good friends. Oh, another one of my best buddies, Dr. Norma Lewis, was one of my coworkers there and [it was] just a very good environment. And then from there, we came back to Montgomery because my husband wanted to open his own pharmacy [Carter’s Professional Pharmacy]. And that's what brought us to Montgomery, Alabama [in 1975]. And I got hired at ASU on the dance floor.

I was dancing at one of the Greek dances and a gentleman knew of my husband and knew that I had a degree in math. I had just gotten my master's from University of Detroit and, on the dance floor, he told me, "I hear you have a master's in math. You're a math teacher." And I said, "Yes." I kept dancing. And he said, "Well, come on over to ASU on Monday and talk, let's talk." And so I did and got hired right away. So it was a beautiful time there at ASU. I learned: it stretched me. Because working and teaching and schooling, as so many people have done and are doing, it's difficult. But I did it, being a wife, mother, we had the business, which meant I was [my husband’s] accountant. So I did that in addition to raising my beautiful daughter, who's also a math professor. I enjoyed the journey.