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GREAT WOMAN OF MATHEMATICS: DR. EVELYN BOYD GRANVILLE, born 1924. Dr. Granville was the second black woman to earn a PhD in mathematics. Born in 1924, she grew up during the Great Depression. Her father worked as a janitor and the family struggled with poverty. She attended a 1/9
segregated high school, but one with a reputation for sending its best students to the Ivy League. She lived up to the high expectations of her teachers when she graduated as valedictorian and went on to attend Smith, a private women's college. Her family struggled to afford 2/9
the $1,100 per year in costs, but she worked during summers and earned scholarships. After Smith, she went on to Yale, earning both master's and PhD degrees in mathematics. Her dissertation was on "Laguerre Series in the Complex Domain." From 1950 to 1952, she taught at Fisk 3/9
University in Nashville, then held several positions in the private sector doing research into the then-new field of computer programming. She worked in the Apollo space program for 7 years, work she loved and found both challenging and interesting. Returning to academia, she 4/9
taught for the rest of her career, at CA State University, Texas College, and @UTTyler. She developed a keen interest in mathematics education. She taught 2 hours a day in local elementary schools for years, gaining experience to go with her insight into maths theory, and 5/9
leading to the 1975 publication of a textbook for mathematics teachers. Dr. Granville was not a member of any faction during this era's educational "math wars," believing that flexible approaches and creative ways of looking at problems were helpful, but only with a solid 6/9
foundation of memorization and "basic algorithms" underpinning these approaches. She overcame many obstacles during her career, including a 1951 incident where she and two black colleagues were denied entrance to a Mathematical Association of America meeting, because it was 7/9
being held at a whites-only hotel. (The MAA changed its policies to prevent such incidents from happening again.) Her legacy as a mathematician and teacher includes direct mentoring of several other notable names among black women mathematicians, including having taught Dr. 8/9
Vivienne Malone-Mayes. She retired in 1997, but remains active, teaching "Math for Fun with Evelyn" classes in her living facility and regularly playing scrabble with other residents--among whom she seeks out the toughest competition, to keep her brain as active as she can. /end
