As Chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science Department of a small liberal arts college, I am responsible for coordinating all departmental matters. This entails counseling students as well as faculty. I plan all departmental schedules and participate in many campus governing bodies. I also teach a full load of mathematics classes and supervise prospective mathematics teachers in the public schools.

As chair of a department I have many problems to solve. My training in mathematics helps me analyze these problems and organize their solutions. My ability to work hard at a task and not stop until I have finished comes from my years of solving difficult mathematics problems to completion.

I thoroughly enjoy teaching mathematics and working with students and colleagues. By virtue of being in mathematics education, I have had the opportunity to travel abroad. In the fall of 1993, I was invited to attend the first US/Russia Joint Conference on Mathematics Education in Moscow. While the Russian White House was being attacked and burned, I was presenting a paper on how technology is used in our mathematics classes. What an experience! It was interesting to visit Russian schools and meet with Russian colleagues.

Through my experience in Russia, I realized that we face many of the same challenges and share many common goals. However there are differences. US mathematicians recently attempted to provide common criteria for evaluating content and pedagogy of mathematics curricula through three Standards—documents published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM).