Page 9 - Eureka! Spring 2010

Passion, High expectations By Kristelle Lapointe

and Math Phobia the highest expectations since the men-

tors are often their own worst critics:
An insight into the mind of mathematic mentors “No one likes to not know the answer.
When you are mentoring, you feel like
it’s your job to know and to explain it Student success
bout 20 years after the creation of to come to the Centre and get the help to the students”. “Another important
Athe Math Tutorial Centre (MTC) I they need! ” “Once they are here”, adds part of mentoring students”, says David,
sat down with David Thomson, Lidia David, “the key element resides in break- “is to know when you just don’t know the
Nikitina and Huda Masoud, three of ing down their math-phobia, since the answer; it’s to have the confidence to say:
the many mentors involved with the majority of students are often especially I don’t know, let me ask another tutor.”
Centre. David, Lidia and Huda are all afraid of starting the resolution of a When asked about their future
graduate students with the School of problem.” Lidia agrees: “We say, just projects, the three mentors’ faces light
Mathematics and Statistics and jointly, start the problem, you’ll see, you already up. While Huda would love to analyze
they have about nine years of experi- have all of the tools to solve it.” health data for industry, she definitely
ence tutoring students in mathematics. Another challenge the mentors face isn’t counting out teaching of the
When tutoring, it is important to be in the variety of topics students inquire equation. David and Lidia would both
passionate about the subject matter and about. “As they say, you never really love a career doing research and teach-
these three students are certainly pas- learn something until you teach it” ing in academia. Lidia adds excitedly
sionate. According to Lidia, while their says David. Huda quickly explains that that ”while teaching is different than
involvement with the MTC is considered “because each TA has a different field of tutoring, what I am doing now helps
a part of their TA charge, it certainly expertise, it sometimes makes it harder me put some perspective into what
isn’t a chore. “Through tutoring with to help a student. However, we can al- students have difficulty grasping dur-
the MTC, it is easier to form a close knit ways refer the student to another TA in ing lectures, and which concepts are
relationship with students,” Lidia says. the MTC, if we feel that our explanation easier to understand. I really feel that
“Really, the biggest challenge” inter- was incomplete”. She adds that the I will be able to use this experience
jects Huda, “is motivating the students students are rarely the ones who have when preparing lectures”.

Dr Fong Retires By Kristelle Lapointe

r Che-Kao Fong retired from the School of Mathematics and Statistics in July 2009. Dr Fong
Dreceived his Ph.D. in 1976 from the University of Toronto and joined Carleton’s School of Math-
ematics in 1987. Dr Fong was always a very dedicated researcher, his main area of expertise being
Mathematical Analysis and specifically Functional Analysis and Operator Theory, and he has made
significant contributions to the Faculty of Science during his career.
A vast number of School committees benefited immensely from his expertise and wisdom. Dr Fong
was also very involved in curriculum development and played an integral role in the creation of popu-
lar new courses such as MATH 3002. Thanks to his broad expertise, spanning across many mathematical disciplines, he has
taught a wide range of courses at all levels, and has been a tremendous graduate mentor during his industrious career.

Written with contribution from Dr Dave Amundsen, School of Mathematics and Statistics

Are you @alumni?

Show off your Carleton degree to friends, family and potential
employers with your own Carleton alumni email address. Sign
up for @alumni—offered in partnership with Google—and you’ll
receive a professional new email address that shows the world
you’re a Carleton graduate. Registration is easy—get started at
alumni.carleton.ca/alumni/email_faq.cfm.

EUREKA 9