It Was Never Easy: Reflections on My Mother’s Mathematical Journey - Part 2

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. This blog post is the final portion of an interview, in two-parts, that I conducted with my mother.

To read part 1 go to https://www.mathvalues.org/masterblog/it-was-never-easy-reflections-on-my-mothers-mathematical-journey-part-1 .

Graduate School

Jamylle Carter [JC]: [You were in grad school for pretty much my entire childhood. You started graduate school at Auburn University in 1977—when I was six—and you finished with your EdD in math education in 1993, after I had earned my master’s degree.] So it was 16 years. I just always saw you in school, always. And like you said, you were balancing it all, being a wife, being a mother, being a full-time employee, math professor, and being a part-time student at an institution that really didn't want you and did not support you, which led really to the 16 years that it took for you to finish. So can you say a little bit about that?

Jamye Pearl Witherspoon Carter [JPWC]: [My department chair], when I was employed at ASU (Alabama State University) was Dr. Wallace Maryland. Excellent mathematician. He finished from the University of Alabama, and recommended that I go there for graduate work. I was required to continue my schooling because, in order to get promoted and tenured, I had to have at least 45 hours beyond the master's. So I applied to Alabama and was accepted.... [I also] applied to Auburn. With the business and with you being so young and all, I didn't have the money to take years off to go to school full time. It wasn't possible. Auburn was closer, just an hour away. ...[Let’s] go back to why I was able to stay there 16 years, because that doesn't happen anymore. Auburn's clock, in terms of the doctorate work, didn't start until after you'd taken your prelims. Then from the time you did your prelims, you had four years beyond that to actually graduate. So that's why my clock didn't start ticking until I got right at the end.

Auburn is, was, very, very segregated. And certainly in the math department, there was not another person there, another student that looked like me. I was older and I did not feel... they did not, I don't want to say frightened me, but their prejudices were theirs. It had nothing to do with me. So all of the ugly looks and N-word, there were jokes. One statistics professor made a joke about people picking cotton. It was certainly directed at me. I thought it was sad. I just thought if that's what you think it takes to get me out of here, you got to do more than that. I was a Black woman growing up, Black all my life. I've heard a whole lot. So that did not phase me at all.

My major professor was not that interested in working with me at the beginning. He wasn't that helpful, but I don't know if his health caused him to change his mind. I have a feeling that had something to do with it….But through it all, ...he came around: he was very supportive eventually. And even now, we have a beautiful relationship. And so it just was a journey that I think I was meant to take.

I had decided after getting the 45 hours credit that ASU required, that I was too far gone to turn around. So it meant just keeping at it. After I could no longer take courses in the summer, because that had run out, there was nothing else left for me to take. Then fortunately, I had excellent [department] chairs, and I would teach a class, like maybe eight o'clock at ASU in the morning. I would hit the highway because Auburn's math classes met every day, five days a week for one hour. So I would hit the highway, go up, take at least [one class], hopefully try to take two classes back to back. And then I'd come back and teach evening and night classes. I did that for about five years in order to get those other classes out. I [also] took a couple of classes [at Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM)]. So I just did what I needed to do. That's kind of the way it was.

[JC]:... and just for reference, you did this without any graduate support?

[JPWC]: Exactly. No. There was no funding, no money.

The Moore Method

[JC]: People have been discussing the controversial nature of the R. L. Moore teaching method. Would you just summarize what that teaching experience was for you?

[JPWC]: The R. L. Moore method was designed where the professor did not lecture. They introduced the topic and students were left on their own. You were given a list of proofs, and you just had to work out the axioms, the postulates, whatever it took to build that theory up in order to do that proof. The professor would throw a proof out and individual students, if they thought they had it, would go to the board. Sometimes you were right. Sometimes you were wrong....A couple of times I thought I had something, I just knew I had it, and the classmates will put you down. The professors sometimes didn't even have to say anything. [The students] would find fault with your proof. So it was a very, very strenuous way of teaching, and that was the way.

To the point that, while I was at Auburn, the math department split, because there were so many of the professors who were not in agreement with this Moore method and others that were. So the combinatorics people and the analysis people, they split. I remember once being there, learning that they had had [an] all-night session and it almost came to blows, I understand, between the professors. You could tell they were all weary the next day. And the buzz was out. Of course, students find out stuff. But eventually the departments actually split. They had...their own chairs and their own totally separate departments. [The departments eventually reunited to form the Department of Mathematics and Statistics.] But yeah, that method was horrific, but I had to do it. I just had to do it. And you were not supposed to use any outside sources, no student help, no classmate help, nothing. It was just all supposed to come from you.

[JC]: So no books.

[JPWC]: No books, no books, no books. So what saved me was the library here at [AUM], because I felt safe in the sense that if I went to the AUM library, hopefully nobody in Auburn main campus would know it. And I would just stay. I couldn't even check out a book, of course, so I would just stay in the stacks and just look at stuff and try to relate it and pull stuff out in my mind and build my proofs that way, because you had no outside sources. You couldn't use anything, human or literary.

Motivation

[JC]: I guess as we wrap this up, is there anything that you might want to say about what kept you going, or maybe what still keeps you going?

[JPWC]: I think it was simply enjoying and loving what I did. There were challenging days throughout my career, but I truly loved working with young people. They give me energy. No two days are the same. And I just ... I missed that after I retired. And now that I'm back, part-time, I'm still enjoying seeing them, seeing their growth, just working with young people…I think it's necessary to love what you do….I've had an excellent journey in my career. I couldn't have asked for any more. It just pays to enjoy, through the craziness, but enjoy what you do.

[JC]: All right. Thanks, Mama. I know that NAM and the MAA [and the rest of our audience] will enjoy learning more about your experience and your journey.

[JPWC]: Thank you.

[JC]: Love you.

[JPWC]: Bye-bye. Love you. Thank you.