#MATH4HF

By: Michael Pearson, Executive Director of the Mathematical Association of America

Fifteen years ago, when I was still relatively new at MAA and responsible for the MAA PREP program, Bob Megginson recommended that I reach out to Francis Su about the possibility of running a PREP workshop at MSRI. I did, and Francis held a very well-received workshop on geometric combinatorics.

While Francis had been an MAA Project NExT Fellow in 1996, a decade later he was not particularly engaged with the MAA. He has since told me that my reaching out to him was a key step towards his serving as MAA President in 2015 and 2016.

During Francis’s tenure as president, the MAA was reconsidering the ways in which we frame our work to better align with the dramatically changing environments we all experience in our professional lives. Francis delivered his retiring presidential address in January 2017 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta. The theme of his talk is now reflected in his new book, Mathematics for Human Flourishing, recently published by Yale University Press.

I am pleased for Francis that his book, and his call for our community to recognize the ways in which our practice impacts our fellow human beings, is garnering positive feedback. You can see some of this, for example, by searching #Math4HF on Twitter.

Shortly after Francis’s talk in Atlanta, we engaged in the development of MAA’s vision statement. At the time, I asked Francis if he objected to our use of his flourishing message for that purpose and he gladly agreed. Thus, the creation of MAA’s vision of “a society that values the power and beauty of mathematics and fully realizes its potential to promote human flourishing” was born.

As Francis notes, we have the potential to exercise both coercive and creative power. We can use language to signal that we will use our position to retain and strengthen our privilege, and to exclude those we don’t think fit within our community. Or, we can use language to welcome and invite others to see mathematics in new ways. 

One of MAA’s core values is community. I write this in Denver while attending the 2020 Joint Mathematics Meetings. These meetings are an opportunity to celebrate our community. I have already had, and expect further discussions, with many of you to explore the ways in which we can strengthen our community through shared efforts to be more inclusive and welcoming.

Whether or not you attend the Denver meetings, I hope that you’ll take some time as we enter a new year to reflect on our community. Can you see the mathematical potential that lives in all members of our society? How can we act in ways that invite others to join us? How can we use our status as mathematicians to broaden society’s views of what it means to be a mathematician and how many ways there are to lay claim to that moniker?

In short, I ask you to hear Francis’s call to use your power creatively, to advance human flourishing through our mathematical practice.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m very glad that I reached out to Francis those many years ago? I hope you’ll look for opportunities to reach out and engage those who may not be as visible in our community. The impacts and results will almost certainly exceed the effort required!