Tape Nos. 31-33-2-99 & 31-34-2-99

ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEW

with

Ruth E.M. Wong (RW)

Manoa, O'ahu

June 21, 1999

BY: Holly Yamada (HY)

HY: This is a second session with Ruth [E.M.] Wong for the diversity project. We're at the Social Sciences Building. It's June 21, 1999. The interviewer is Holly Yamada.

So last time, we were talking about your involvement with teacher education, really. Maybe we can go back to your college days. I think you talked about that. Then after you graduated you got a job at your old high school.

RW: Yes. I was back at Hilo High. Particularly in those days, I guess it was very unusual for younger people to be back there. They happened to assign me nothing but seniors.

HY: Not much of an age difference.

RW: Yeah. I was dealing with people that were four or five years younger than I was. But it was just a lot of fun. I enjoyed those classes really because I happened (to have) the top physics class, the top chemistry class, and a great homeroom, where you were assigned to a group of people that you would serve as advisor for just general problems. But those were most enjoyable two years.

There was one other person who had just come back from school on the Mainland and so we were the chaperons for practically every out-of-school activity there was. We'd go camping with the kids, we'd go around the island, whatever they decided they needed to have a chaperon for they would come and ask us. So I got to know the other teacher very well, too.

HY: Who was the other teacher?

RW: The other teacher was Toshiko Ushijima (Shigekane), who is now living in (New Jersey).

We still keep in touch. Write to each other at least once a year at Christmastime. She would occasionally come back for a visit here with her family in Hilo. So I would get to see her. I

spent a couple of vacations with her, too. She lived on Long Island (then).

HY: Now, did you request ...

RW: Hilo High?

HY: ... going back ...

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RW: No.

HY: How did that happen then?

RW: At the time I was ready to go out to teach we were told, "Don't ask for Honolulu schools at all. You' 11 never be assigned to them. So ask for one of the neighbor island schools."

I just asked for the Big Island. I thought it would be nice to go back to the Big Island and I had no idea of going back to Hilo. My first assignment was Laupahoehoe School (it was K-

12 then), which is on the Hamakua Coast. Let's see, I was supposed to teach mathematics

and general science or something like that. I think the teacher who was supposed to have the program that I had was someone who had been at Hilo High for a while and if I recall correctly, she died suddenly. So when I arrived in Hilo and stopped at the district office to sign some papers, I found out that I was going to be at Hilo High and that I was going to have this great program.

HY: Why did you leave after two years?

RW: I wanted to get back to Honolulu, if possible. There was an opening at Waipahu High School so I took that for a year.

HY: Why did you want to come back ...

RW: Come back to Honolulu?

HY: ... to Honolulu?

RW: I guess partly because the person with whom I was staying in Hilo had other arrangements that she wanted to make. But I decided that I would really like to come back to Honolulu rather than asking for another Big Island appointment.

HY: Was that quite a change then? Going from Hilo High School to Waipahu?

RW: The student body was entirely different. I was really amazed because I think of Waipahu as being very close to Honolulu and it being fairly urban. But I think just the opposite was the case. The students in Hilo seemed far more sophisticated to me. In fact, I had a biology class at W aipahu and I found out that none of the students had been to the zoo. So I took them on quite a few excursions. And I know that one (laughs) was to the zoo.

(Laughter)

RW: So they could see some of these animals. I don't know how Waipahu is now, but it was certainly a (rural) town (at that time).

HY: Do you think that it was a function of them being more rural than Hilo or is it an economic

reason? Why do you think that is?

RW: It's probably both because I think in Hilo, the students that I was working with were children of business people perhaps, and teachers and other professionals. Whereas in Waipahu, I

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..

think a large number of them were children of people who worked on the plantation.

HY: What about your perception of the support for the public school there as opposed to, say, Hilo. Do you think they were as ...

RW: Supportive of ...

HY: Just in terms of, even things like building repairs and supplies and that sort of thing.

RW: I guess I didn't notice any difference at all.

HY: And where were you living then, when you were teaching at Waipahu?

RW: I came back and lived at home. So I would drive out in a car pool with some of the other teachers who also lived in Honolulu.

HY: What about their academic readiness?

RW: I think it varied. You had a whole range of students in both preparation and [with] any interest in learning anything. But I really can't compare because I think that the groups that I had at Waipahu were mixed, whereas at Hilo High I think I really had the cream of the crop. I mean all of these students went to Mainland college[s] and they are MDs and specialists in medicine, lawyers. So they were really the top groups that I had at Hilo High. But they were certainly far more articulate and interested and bright.

HY: So you were just there a short time?

RW: At Hilo High?

HY: At Waipahu?

RW: Oh, just for a year.

HY: Yeah. Then did you request to go to another school or how did that happen?

RW: No, then I got married and I went back to the Big Island. (Laughs)

HY: Oh, I see.

RW: Got married to my first husband [Arthur Wong] and he was a teacher at Honoka'a High [& Elementary School]. So I went back there and taught for a while until I had the children.

HY: At Honoka'a?

RW: The oldest one was born in Honoka'a. My older daughter was born there.

HY: Did you teach at that school as well?

RW: Just for, I think it was a semester, I taught there. That was a surprisingly sophisticated group of students, too. That was a little interesting because they were certainly far enough from

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Hilo but a very interested [group] and pretty creative, I thought.

HY: So after you had your daughter?

RW: Then my husband became an elementary school principal at Kurtistown. So we moved there.

They needed someone to teach a math course at what was then the UH [University of

Hawai 'i] Extension [Division] in Hilo. They didn't have the University of Hawai 'i at Hilo

yet but they did have, I think they called it, UH Extension or something like that. Since they

needed someone to teach a math course, I would drive down to teach that one course three

times a week and take my older daughter with me. I certainly could not have done with her

what I did then if it were now. Because I just put her on the front seat, let her lie there while I

drove. I don't know what the distance is from Kurtistown, maybe twelve miles. I hired one of the students at UH to watch her while I taught my course. So I would take her with me.

My son was born while we were in Kurtistown. I think I went back and taught at Hilo High for a little while, too. Maybe that was about a semester before my son was born.

Would you believe there are still people who remember me? I was playing league tennis

several years ago, about ten years ago, and all of a sudden one of the women that was on the same team started talking about Hilo and mentioned her sister whom I had taught when I was

first there. So I asked her about her sister. Then she looked at me says, "I remember you.

You were the advisor to the Subdebs. Do you remember me?"

HY: The Subdebs?

RW: There was a group of girls, and I think it was strictly a social group but just a fun group of

girls and they had asked me whether I would serve as their advisor. I did and she happened to be the president of that group. Let's see, her name was Janet. But she now goes by Jan.

But it was interesting to find someone that many years later that remembered.

So I was there for just a little while again. Then we were back on O'ahu when my husband

was transferred to the Ko'olau [Hawai'i Youth] Correctional Center. I think the DOE

[Department of Education] runs a school there. That's when I taught at Kailua High School

for a year. Then I was asked to go to University High School to supervise the math teachers

there.

HY: Was that the beginning of when you started the second part of your career dealing mostly

with educating teachers?

RW: Right.

HY: Was at Lab[ oratory] School?

RW: Yes. Because at that time, late [19]50s and early [19]60s, they did all of the student teaching

at the Lab School. So before (high school teachers) went out to do their intern teaching

(they) had to do a semester of practice teaching there. Through that program, I guess I went

to the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana to get my master's [degree]. That was the

center for one of the very early reform programs in mathematics for secondary schools.

HY: Is that what's commonly referred to as the new math?

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RW: Yes. And it is really blamed for a lot of the ills, I guess. I think it probably swung too far.

But I think there were many aspects of those programs that were really good. So that was

how I got started in the mathematics department because when I came back, they asked

whether I would teach a course in mathematics, primarily for teachers. I did that for, I guess,

a couple of years and then shifted over completely into mathematics.

HY: So you had gone to Illinois prior to going to Lab School, then. Is that right?

RW: During the time I was there.

HY: I see, I see. What was your experience like in Illinois?

RW: I enjoyed that very thoroughly. This was a National Science Foundation program and it was

aimed particularly at people who were either teaching high school mathematics or were

involved in teacher education with mathematics teachers, trying to give them some help, I

guess, in seeing what might be done with mathematics education.

HY: Did you move your family or did you go by yourself to Illinois?

RW: When I went to graduate school?

HY: Mm hmm [yes].

RW: I moved my family. (Chuckles) It was an expensive proposition, but we were renting a place

here so we would just get rid of everything and take off for a year. Fortunately, they had

graduate student housing at Illinois so we were able to stay there. Then we'd be back and

look for housing again. It was a lot of traipsing around. The first time when I went to the

University of Illinois, I had just the first two [children].

But then when I went back to the University of Michigan in 1963, I had three kids then.

Francie, my youngest, was just a little over a year old. After that year, again supported by

National Science Foundation funding, I decided that it just wasn't sensible to try to go to

graduate school with kids, particularly with someone that young. But then, two years after

that, I got a Danforth Foundation fellowship, which was very generous. What they did was to

match my salary here and gave me allowances for travel and took care of my tuition. Also,

gave me dependence allowances. I had that for two years so I finished up in 1968.

I came back in between because I decided that maybe I could get rid of my foreign language

requirements here. The foreign language examiner was perfectly willing to allow that. She

asked whether I could provide some names from the foreign language departments here and

she contacted one person in each department and asked them to administer whatever they

thought would be an appropriate translation. That was what they were primarily interested in,

I guess, so that we could translate papers if necessary. But of course everything is translated

now so most of the things you can get in translated form. I'm very happy that at that time,

the University of Michigan still asked you to translate passages from something in your field

with a dictionary. That translation was sent back to the examiner and she decided whether it

was adequate or not. Most of the time you can sort through mathematics by following the mathematics. So I wasn't particularly worried about this at all. I knew ahead of time what

kinds of books they had selected because they had given the writers and these were all well-

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known mathematicians. I know of Riemann's (work). So I thought, well, that shouldn't be

bad. And guess what they did, in the German book, they selected these long, long footnotes.

(Laughter)

RW: That went on and on. That really didn't have any mathematics in it.

Then in the French, I think what he did was to select the introduction. This was pages long

with no mathematics at all.

HY: So that's how you fulfilled your language requirement?

RW: Yes, but I got done with the languages and I was happy that I decided to do that because some of the other people that I was on campus with would keep going back during the

summers, just to try to satisfy their language requirement. Then of course, a couple of years

after that they shifted completely to the standardized exams in the foreign languages. So I

think that would really have required some special course work.

HY: Just to backtrack a little bit, I was wondering how it was that you went to Lab School in the

first place.

RW: Oh, as a supervisor?

HY: Yeah, when you first went there, you were just teaching I assume.

RW: Yes.

HY: Was that just part of the moving around within DOE?

RW: No, the staffing there was done by faculty members in the School of Education. I knew that

Andrew Lind, who was then principal of the Lab School, probably had a selection

committee. If they needed a supervisor in a particular area, they would get suggestions from

a variety of people in the field and make their selection from there. So someone must have

suggested me to him and to his committee.

HY: So did you find that-I know you said later that you really felt the importance of teaching

teachers. Was that something you had thought of prior to that? Or you just sort of fell in to it that way?

RW: I probably was exposed to that aspect when I was at the Lab School. Because I didn't have anything to do with teacher education before that.

HY: Now, when you went to Illinois, then, that was your first time really living away from

Hawai 'i. Is that right?

RW: Yes, living away from Hawai'i, right.

HY: Was that a transition for you? How was that for you?

RW: I guess I was picking up the excitement from my two young kids because we thought it was a

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great year (chuckles) away. Because it was the first time we experienced all of the seasons. We had time-we had to go out and get winter clothes-to do things like ice skating. The

University of Illinois had an indoor rink which was great because they would have it

smoothed out well enough so that even beginners could do reasonably well. I think the

winter sports were something that we really enjoyed because we were invited one Saturday during winter to go to Detroit, because I had met, through a Mathematical Association of

America, committee, someone who was at a university there. In any case, they took us

tobogganing.

HY: Good fun.

RW: Quite an experience. I remember they had a son who would stand in the back and have his scarf flying and I would close my eyes and just scream all the way down. (Chuckles) But Donna and Kurt [RW's children] thought that was great.

And I was telling you about going ice skating. Even little children who were there at the rink

would recognize that you were very new. There was this little boy who came over and said,

"Is this the first time you're on ice?"

I said, "Yes."

He says, "Well, take my hand." (HY laughs.) He says, "I'll start you around." He just pulled

me around the rink several times. Kurt on the other hand, found two little girls who-and he was only three-(took) each of his hands and started him around and occasionally he'd fall

and they'd keep going so half of the time he'd be gliding along on his back and then half of

the time he'd be up. But we had a great time.

I was quite leery about starting graduate work that late. Because I think, particularly in

mathematics, you go straight out of school. But I found it very stimulating and I had no

problems at all. It was a really stimulating and interesting year.

HY: How do you think people responded to-it sounds like they responded to you very well-but

someone from Hawai'i, Japanese coming from Hawai'i, a woman in mathematics. I would

imagine that's not ...

RW: Common.

HY: ... very common.

RW: No, I guess not. But since this was aimed primarily at people who were already either in

teacher education or teaching, there were quite a few women in that program. All

Caucasians, of course. In fact, we had a little study group that was made up of, let's see,

about five of us, and when we could spare the time we would get together and do a lot of the

studying and questioning each other together. I don't know how we happened to fall into this

particular group but I used to take lunch and there was one fellow from California, one from

Pennsylvania, who also took lunch. We started meeting in one of the rooms and that was a

very congenial group. In fact, the fellow from Pennsylvania decided that he would move to California after that year.

I think that a lot of the faculty members sort of found me interesting because I was different

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and I got to know one of the analysis professors very well so that I kept in touch with him

after I left. Then I guess the tie became stronger because his daughter, who was also a

mathematician, happened to marry a Japanese fellow from Honolulu. So that was a nice

friendship.

HY: So you are saying that this was kind of the beginning of this new approach to teaching math.

Maybe you can talk a little bit about-what is it exactly?

(Laughter)

HY: In a way that a lay person can understand the philosophy behind what was going on then.

RW: Well, I guess one of the big ideas behind the University of Illinois program was that you could lead students into discovering a lot of the mathematical relationships by themselves so that the phrase that people would attach to a lot of these programs was "Discovery Method."

Of course, if carried to the extreme it makes absolutely no sense (HY laughs) because how

are you ever going to discover everything that has been done for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years and do it in a time period which would be efficient enough for you to learn

enough. But I think there are aspects of that that one can use that're very effective. I think that it also required a lot of verbalization on the part of the student and that was probably difficult for many students.

But the other thing that I know that program based a lot of its work on was non-verbal

· awareness. I think it takes an extremely clever teacher to be able to ask questions, to askstudents to give examples and to be able to recognize when the student was aware of the

notion whether he could tell you exactly what it was or not. So I think it required a lot ofthinking on both the students' part and the teachers' part. I guess trying to think through

everything was good.

On the other hand, I think the critics were just very, very negative about the fact that you

were expecting too much out of students. Even at the Lab School, I noticed that there were

faculty members who insisted that, well, if you take a nice bright student, of course that will

work all right but take the average student, he's not going to be able to do anything at all. I

guess it depends on the level that you expect them to operate at.

HY: Well, you had mentioned, too, that there seemed to resistance from teachers about being sortof trained in this way of-they want things spelled out for them.

RW: Right.

HY: So even at that level there was some difficulty.

RW: Right. I guess I'm still not convinced that one-let me put it another way. I think that it's not

asking too much of teachers for them to be intelligent enough and know enough so that they

can take the mathematics that they know, and take the psychology and philosophy of

education, whatever they have developed, and set up situations which will allow students tothink through ideas on their own. But somehow the feeling is-I'm not explaining this very

well. Maybe if I gave you an example.

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For example, take a very elementary level. I think what many teachers and teacher educators

want is a mathematics course for prospective elementary teachers (with) some kind of

activity that is at the second grade level and have the teachers go through this activity as if

they are second-graders. To me that destroys the whole notion of what teachers are supposed

to be doing. I'm perfectly happy to try to develop a course where they learn something new,

but I'd like them to learn something new [themselves] by going through some of these

processes that you have little children go through. Because I think it's silly to tell a second

grade teacher, "Now make believe you're a second grader. What do you see here?"

Well, the teacher knows that [response already] so what kind of exploration is that? So in the two courses that I wrote instructional materials for, for elementary teachers, I was taking

material that I don't think elementary teachers know, and setting it up in such a way that

(they would experience, for example, the) activity of observing and attempting to see what

similarities exist. When they get into the classroom, I want them to take the material that's

appropriate for second graders and set up something so that the second graders can say, "Oh

yeah, I see this and this and they look very much alike." Or, "These two are very different."

But that idea just doesn't seem acceptable to many teachers. I mean they want something

that you do and they can take directly into the classroom and use with children.

HY: Was that, perhaps, too threatening of an exercise for them to do? Because it's sort of asking

them to be a student ...

RW: Without being told.

HY: ... and it sort of-yeah. They're sort of being asked to perform again as a student.

RW: Oh, mm hmm [yes].

HY: I mean, I'm wondering why would they be resistant?

RW: To that?

HY: Yes.

RW: Well, the feedback is (frequently), "I want something that I can just take as is into the

classroom."

HY: They don't want to discover new things for themselves.

RW: No. But, it seems to me that that is how you (convince them of the value). Because the

challenge and the delight that you get when you see something that you never saw before is

something that I want them to experience so that they will see how valuable it is for every

learner to do. They weren't difficult things because, for example ...

HY: I'm going to run out of tape real quick. Let me stop.

END OF SIDE ONE

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SIDE TWO

HY: Okay, you were going to give an example.

RW: For example, some of the things that I had students working on were things like make as

many statements as you can about any of the numbers in this array. There was just this big

old array. For students who didn't know how to get started, I wouldn't just let them sit there and say, "I don't know what to do."

I would say, "For example, look at this row and add up those numbers. Look at the next row and add up those numbers." And they begin to pick up a pattern so then they go ahead and

finish that up.

Then if they stop there, someone might suggest. "How about going down on the diagonal." So they would look at that.

So it wasn't as if they had nothing to do if they didn't have an initial idea. Once they got going they usually kept it up. I think [that was] the part that was most difficult; usually that

took a bit of doing at the beginning. But after a while it was just an exciting challenge

(chuckles) for them to be able to do something. I didn't care how simple or how profound their conclusions were, but I expected them to write them up in concise terms and that's

always difficult, I think, for everyone.

But because I think that when you are teaching it's not as important for the student to be able to verbalize it immediately. I think it's more important for this teacher to recognize that they are catching on to certain ideas. But I think when the teacher makes a statement, defines

anything, explains anything, I think it needs to be very accurate and precise and concise.

HY: Okay, let's see, you returned to the Lab School and implemented some of these things you had learned. Then after Lab School, did you go right to Michigan then?

RW: No. I transferred completely to the mathematics department first and then I went to

Michigan.

HY: Oh, at UH? Oh, okay.

RW: Yes.

HY: Now, how did that happen, that you went to UH, then?

RW: Well, the Lab School ...

HY: The Lab School is affiliated with it, yeah.

RW: Is affiliated with the [College] of Education at the University. When I came back from

Illinois, I was asked to teach a course in the mathematics department for teachers. Then I just

moved over there when they asked whether I would.

HY: What were the students like, from the time you had been in school?

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-

RW: Oh, at UH?

HY: Yeah. Is there a different that you noticed?

RW: I didn't notice anything when I started. In fact, they were well-prepared students and

generally very interested in learning. I think the change has taken place in more recent years.

Where I think we-most of us agree that the preparation has been very poor. The interest

level is very (chuckles) low. I don't know what accounts for it. Except that, I guess, society

is changing a lot and there are signs all over. For example, grade inflations, so that students

coming in will have very high GPAs [grade point averages] but really have no solid

background to back that up.

HY: Now, were you one of the few women in the math department at that time, then?

RW: When I first went over?

HY: Yes.

RW: When I was first there, let's see-no, when I first went there were ....

HY: I mean as a professor.

RW: Yes.

HY: I mean as a teacher.

RW: Mm hmm. There were three other women. Let's see, three other women, then one went to

Leeward Community College when that opened. Then there was a new assistant professor,

who was a woman, for a few years.

HY: Were they people from Hawai'i or were they from elsewhere?

RW: No. They were all from the Mainland. So let's see, so there were three then. One left very

soon after I joined the department to go back to the Mainland. So for a good many years

there were just two of us. Once the other person retired I was the only woman.

I guess I mentioned this when I first talked to you, but we always had a push from everybody

to hire women but it really is difficult to hire women because there aren't that many women

in mathematics to begin with. Frequently, when we offered positions to women, they would

have been offered positions at some of the best schools on the Mainland. Every school was

looking for a woman mathematician.

HY: Now, UH being a research university, were you expected to do research in mathematics,

then?

RW: Mmhmm.

HY: I know earlier, when I first met you, you had some feelings about raising family and doing

research.

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RW: Right, right.

HY: Maybe you could talk about that.

RW: Okay. Let's see, in 1968 the University of Hawai'i brought in Paul Halmos. He is a very

well-known mathematician and the main purpose was to build up the research in the

department. Because prior to that it had-its main purpose was teaching mathematics

courses. I guess it started off as part of the [College] of Engineering. I would not have been

able to get a job after it had been established as a research department because they brought in very good research mathematicians at that time. My present husband [H.S. Bear] was

chairman from '69 to '74. He built up the department to the point where it was really (very strong).I'm afraid it's not doing very well anymore with all of the budget cuts and position cuts and so on.

I guess the comment that I made to you earlier about research and women mathematicians is

that I don't think it's a matter of women not being encouraged to become mathematicians as much as the fact that women who want to get married and have families find it conflicts with

the very period of time when they need to be spending all of (their) time and energy on research. I think men do that. They go from undergraduate work into graduate work and then they spend the next ten years establishing themselves as research mathematicians. So I made

the comment then that most of the good research mathematicians who are women are either single or married late to another mathematician.

(Laughter)

RW: I mentioned then Mary Ellen Rudin, who is at the University of Wisconsin. She is one of the very few women, I think, who has a family. She's got five kids, and was able to do her work

with kids running all over. I think most people can't.

HY: True for most disciplines, probably.

RW: Right.

HY: Well, so you weren't under any particular pressure to do research until after you came back,

then, from Michigan.

RW: But I did not finish up with a research degree. When I went back the second time I decided it was just totally unrealistic and that's why I shifted over and got my Ph.D. in the teaching of

geometry. So it was that I worked with a geometer, Kenneth Leisenring, who was at the

University of Michigan. But I also had a co-chairman who was in mathematics education,

Joseph Payne.

HY: So you stayed with education all through your academic career then.

RW: Right. Yes.

HY: What was your experience at Michigan like? Actually, first of all, why did you feel it was necessary to go?

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RW: Oh, back to finish up my degree?

HY: Mm hmm.

RW: I think there was pressure to have a graduate degree if you were going to be at the university. I've never had any problems with academic work at all. The University of Illinois program

was stimulating and interesting. I really felt like I hit my limit in the Ph.D. program at Michigan. Because I was in the research program to begin with, for the first two years.

When you saw these really bright twenty-two year olds, and you're ten years older because

you've been out of school for ten years-twenty-two year olds spending all of their time on mathematics, it really was-not threatening but ....

HY: Sobering.

RW: Yes, sobering certainly.

(Laughter)

HY: Do you feel it was difficult, then, to spend the time that you wanted to with your kids? I know you had your kids with you. That was part of the conflict?

RW: Yeah, that was part of the conflict, but I also felt like, ifl wanted to do it I should have done it when I was younger. I think in mathematics you go on and do it while you're young. That's been supported by so many mathematicians who are really good. They will say that you do your best work before you're thirty-five. I think that's true so I think that if you want to go on in mathematics you should head to graduate school immediately.

But I really liked Michigan very much. I found certain things completely baffling. Never figured them out fully. (Chuckles)

HY: This is within the field of mathematics?

RW: Yeah. Even ifl could get by, but it just never really made sense to me. It's something like

electricity and me.

(Laughter)

RW: It just never made sense.

HY: Well, after two years, then, you shifted. You got out of research.

RW: Yeah. I really liked the fact that at Michigan one could do that. Because I still could work with Kenneth Leisenring and I had to take all of these basic graduate courses in mathematics.

But then I did get to work with Joseph Payne in mathematics education.

HY: Was there a continuation of this philosophy about discovery in mathematics?

RW: Not so much discovery but just, I guess, attempting to teach mathematics for understanding rather than rote. Because I think that the thing that nudged people into trying to do something

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was the feeling that everything was taught by rote before that. I guess it swung too far. I

certainly don't take the view of many of the critics of the reform programs who said that was

absolutely valueless. I think that things evolve. You don't just drop everything, because I

think there were some very good aspects.

HY: What about your experience, say culturally, there? You had already experienced the

Mainland living there in Illinois and then came back here briefly and now you're in

Michigan. Plus you were there during the [19]60s, which was sometimes kind of a politically

active time for university campuses, I guess.

RW: Yes, it was. But I don't think Michigan was anything like [University of California,]

Berkeley or some of the other campuses that you hear about. I guess I wasn't aware of

anything at all. What I do remember is I think that there were quite a few blacks in and around Ann Arbor [Michigan], and (our) apartment (was located near many of their homes).

Kurt was in the first grade (then and) he thought it would be fun to play softball so he joined

the neighborhood softball group and it was a black group. He was sort of the only non-black.

That was really one of my first experiences, I guess, with blacks. They were just very

friendly. I remember that many of their games would be very late, after parents came back

from work. There were bleachers and we'd go and watch the games. Francie was just very

tiny then and I'd take her with me (after picking) her up at the baby-sitter's. This family

would say it's cold on the bleachers and stick her right between their two little children and

put a blanket around her. But I don't remember that anybody ever said anything or did

anything that made me feel like I was different from the others.

In fact, I remember one of the fellows saying once to me, "Why don't you take advantage of

the fact that you're a woman and go and see whether so-and-so would give some extra help."

I didn't say anything but I'm so sure that mathematicians sometimes don't even recognize

that you're a woman.

(Laughter)

RW: I think they were just so involved in their own abstract notions that. ...

HY: So they really are wired differently.

(Laughter)

RW: At Michigan, (I was one of the few women) in so many of my classes. That wasn't the case

at the University of Illinois. You would hear these horrendous tales. One fellow who was

very good (in courses we took together) was taking another course and he said they started

off with about thirty [students] and about two weeks later there were maybe fifteen and he

said, "The other day I counted only ten." And he said, "I have a feeling, I am at the tail end

of those ten."

I thought, good heavens. (Laughs) I think it can be very intimidating.

(Laughter)

HY: So it sounds like you had a fairly positive experience then, in Michigan.

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RW: Oh yes. Oh yes.

HY: Then you moved your family back to Hawai 'i.

RW: Yes.

HY: This is just to get grounded in time. This is 1968?

RW: Yes.

HY: Okay. So what were your-I guess, how did you function when you came back to the math

department? Did you just resume?

RW: Yes, I resumed teaching and let's see-I was back in '68. In '72, I think Jake [H.S. Bear]

appointed me associate chairman, which was a half-time administrative post. I think in many

ways that was something that kept me very much in the middle of departmental activities.

Whereas if I just taught, since I wouldn't go to (seminars, I would be out of the mainstream

of the department). I would go to the weekly colloquia, because these were supposed to be

more general lectures, but then all of the other research mathematicians had their own

seminars. As associate chairman, I took care of the curriculum for the department, (teaching

schedules,) liaison with curriculum committees outside the department, and did the advising

of math majors. So I had a lot of interaction with everybody in the department. I did that

every year that I was here since then until I retired.

HY: Oh, you were involved in administration ...

RW: Half-time, yes.

HY: ... from that point on. Oh, I see.

RW: So that I taught a course or two every semester.

HY: So you've experienced a lot of different administrations at the university.

RW: Yes.

HY: Maybe you can comment on the various administrators that you've-I don't know how

directly you may have to deal with it but. ...

RW: I think the last good president that we had was Tom [Thomas] Hamilton [1963-69]. And that

was ...

HY: Mmm, gotta go way back.

RW: ... ages and ages and ages ago.

HY: What was your frustrations with ...

RW: The rest who came in?

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HY: Let's see, there was [Harlan] Cleveland [1969-74], and then [Fujio] Matsuda [1974-84], then

[Albert] Simone [1984-91]. Were you here for [Kenneth] Mortimer [1993-present]? You

retired-I'm sorry I forgot [what year].

RW: At the end of '93. (From roughly the early [19]70s,) the appointments of the regents became

very political and the president became very political and I think everything has gone

downhill since.

HY: What was it that you liked about Hamilton? Why is it that you think he was a good

president?

RW: Well, first of all, (I think he knew what a university should be). I don't think that he felt that

he had this position to do favors for his friends. I think that (most) politicians view their

position that way. Do you know that I got a call from [the office of one of the other

presidents]-! handled placement exams in mathematics-a call from his office asking that I

allow a student who had failed the placement test to take the course. I mean that's the sort of

interference that I think we started seeing.

But Hamilton just had great rapport with the faculty. I remember that he would have maybe a

couple of meetings with the faculty. Everybody would show up. The East-West Center

Theater would be overflowing. He would make a statement, which told us something about

the university or what he thought. Then he would answer questions. He was very direct, very

open. He (also) knew how to deal with the legislature. He would go there and he'd have all

the information that was necessary. He really had the backing of the faculty and he backed

up the faculty, too, I think. I think it's very characteristic of good universities that faculty is

very strong. I noticed that at the University of Michigan. The faculty is very strong.

HY: When you say they're very strong you mean they're academically very sound?

RW: And they do have a say about the university.

HY: Policy.

HY: Other than this one incident that you mentioned, were there other things that happened that

you feel affected the math department? You know, this incident of letting a student in. Were

there specific things that affected that department?

RW: Oh, I guess administrations who didn't recognize that the department was a very strong,

well-recognized department, and would not support it in terms of funding and positions.

HY: So you were frustrated as an administrator to some extent because of the various

administrations at UH. Maybe you could talk about what were some of the things that you

wanted to get done. What were some of the agendas that you had as an administrator?

RW: Mmm, let's see ....

HY: That's a long period of time.

(Laughter)

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RW: Yes. (Pause) I guess I was very involved in teacher education at the time that I was

developing these courses and succeeded at one point in having prospective elementary teachers take two courses, one in number (systems) and one in geometry. Then having the

[College] of Education delete them as requirements because students were not happy about

the grades. They would say, "I would have had a straight 4.0 [grade point average] except for that grade in the math course." That was very frustrating to find people who would just listen to a student without looking at the course at all or looking at some of the other feedback. We regularly asked them for anonymous comments and I would send all of them over. It was

very clear to us that you always found a few people who were disgruntled because they couldn't figure out what they were supposed to do, or they got a lower grade than they really

thought they should get, and things of this sort, but there were equally favorable comments

from excited students. But it became a running battle after a while. I think that perhaps they've lowered the requirements to the extent that they can take the course at the community college level, and if so, then they're just getting a textbook course.

We had many (chuckles) interesting but pretty frustrating times with people from other programs who wanted certain kinds of courses for their students. For example, business wanted a certain type of course, and I think we do still teach a business calculus course. Agriculture ...

HY: There's one now for-I'm sorry.

RW: Let's see, agriculture-not agriculture, what is the school that has nursing in it?

HY: Isn't that [College of] Tropical Ag[riculture] and Human Resources.

RW: Okay, yeah. And requests from, say, oceanography and engineering. It was interesting to find out what it was that they were looking for as far as preparation for work in their field. But it

was also very difficult to understand sometimes how they expected a student who had a

minimum of one or two calculus courses to be able to pick up a book in their field and recognize that they were supposed to be using, maybe partial differentiation. Because we

wouldn't even expect that of math majors unless they had taken a lot more (mathematics).

But many of the programs had very minimal requirements in mathematics. One or two

semesters of calculus and then all of a sudden they are supposed to be able to look at an applied problem and say, ah ha, you're supposed to do this and this. It was difficult to explain to them that you couldn't take a student, even straight out of a second semester

calculus course, expect him to do something like that without a little more background.

HY: So what is your feeling then, about some of these courses?

RW: You mean these special courses?

HY: Yeah.

RW: I think that they work very well, provided students are willing to go back and redo something

if they change their minds. There is so much shifting from one program to another and it's always a lost semester for them, I think, when you have too many sequences. If a student

finishes the first course in one sequence he can't go into the second course in the other

sequence easily. I think that causes all kinds of problems. But if it's a single course, I think

34

that's fine. Or a two-course sequence where (the same students would take) those two

courses.

HY: Were there other things you wanted to accomplish as an administrator?

RW: Oh, I guess I had some interest, because I was on the Program and Curriculum Committee

[PCC] of the university, of trying to uphold standards of a certain type. This wasn't just in

mathematics but in any area where, I think if a student comes to the university then he or she

should be expected to be able to do certain things. I don't think they should receive

university credit for some of things that they should have learned way, way back.

HY: Is that why the university-I know the math department doesn't have-I believe doesn't have courses that are ...

RW: Non-credit?

HY: I guess they're-what am I trying to say? I don't know what their numbering is but

there's ...

RW: Oh, remedial?

HY: Yeah, like algebra, you don't have.

RW: Oh, no because of the community college systems. So that I guess we feel that they should start there or go there just to take that course if they need to do that.

HY: So to continue with that feeling of not getting university credit for something that's

essentially a non-university course or it should have been a high school course.

RW: Yeah, but that was true of a lot of courses that were being proposed, at least the last semester

that I was on the PCC [Program and Curriculum Committee], there were a lot of courses that

were being proposed on the basis that here are students who have been accepted to the

University of Hawai 'i, but have never (learned certain) library (and study) skills. It was a

course that went through all of these little things that I think you should expect a university

student to pick up on his own if he hadn't had it before, but they had put together a lot of

little things and wanted to give credit for that. There are proponents of that.

HY: I think we're running out of tape on this one, too.

END OF SIDE TWO

TAPE NO. 31-34-2-99; SIDE ONE

HY: So, this is not an area that you-these are not courses that you would support. Right? Okay.

Anything else as an administrator that you had wanted to accomplish?

RW: (Generally, I wanted academic programs and decisions to be based on sound academic

criteria and also worked to maintain high standards of academic performance.)

35

HY: Okay. You talked earlier about the hiring of women, and there was a push to hire women but it was just very difficult. Throughout the years, then, did you find that the department was able to hire more women or did it kind of stay that way?

RW: I don't think that we were any more successful than many other schools because there just

aren't that many women mathematicians who are applying for jobs. The good ones certainly have a pick.

HY: Do you feel that's the nature of the field?

RW: I think so.

HY: Do you have any theories other than child rearing and time constraints of why that's so? I mean, there is the notion that women are less good in math than men and women are-I suppose it's a stereotype-and women are more verbal. What is your feeling about that?

RW: I think they're good because there are certainly enough instances of couples who are both mathematicians where the woman is a better mathematician than the man. So I think there are enough examples of women who are certainly capable. But I think it's their choice.

I had a woman mathematician at Michigan as a TA [teaching assistant]. I got to know her well enough so that I kept in touch with her for a while, but she and her husband both got

their Ph.D.s from the University of Michigan at the same time. As far as I know, they moved to the East Coast, where her husband got a job and she has been a full-time mother ever since. But she was definitely the better of the two.

HY: So she made this choice, then?

RW: Yeah. So I think it's a matter of the choice that they're making.

HY: So it's not something inherent or anything like that?

RW: I don't think so. I guess I can't get very excited about there being fewer women than men. I

think they should be able to make their choice. There must be instances of real discrimination, but I haven't run into it so I don't know.

HY: What about in terms of ethnicity?

RW: In schooling?

HY: Yeah. Well, I guessl, because of the field you're in, I don't know. But most of the faculty at

UH has been from outside of Hawai 'i.

RW: Hmm, let's see. So they might not have been encouraging enough?

HY: Well, I don't know. I'm wondering if you've noticed any reason for that. You're unusual in that you're a woman in math and also that you're local Japanese.

RW: I guess I haven't thought about that at all. I don't know. I guess I haven't noticed anything. I

36

think that my experience at both Illinois and Michigan would make me say that they really don't care. They really don't notice. But I don't know whether they do.

HY: So you retired in 1993.

RW: Yes.

HY: And you just had enough or is there a particular reason?

RW: That I retired?

(Laughter)

HY: Well, you had a very long career.

RW: Yeah, I certainly worked a long time. I've got this koa bowl that says forty years. But one of the things that I really wanted to do was make sure that I had time to go and visit my children on the Mainland. All three of them live on the Mainland. I wanted to be able to go

to meetings. I would always get stuck during registration or orientation and our mathematical meetings, the annual meetings are always in January. So I'd missed a lot of those and I occasionally could get to the summer meetings but they were in August, right when I was

busy with the orientation, registration for our department, too. So I wouldn't be able to go.

There were a couple of times when I wished that I could have dropped everything and gone to see one of my daughters. But I was either teaching or in the throes of registration or advising. So I decided, well, when I felt like traveling I guess I really should quit so that I

could go to the meetings when I wanted to and go to see my kids when I wanted to. But what was a surprise to me (was that) I retired on December 31 of 1993, went to the annual meetings in January and visited all my kids, and by June of (1994), I thought, okay, now

what do I do?

HY: And?

RW: And that's when I decided (that since) I've always been a planner and have scheduled myself

because I had worked full time all the way through, I really need something to do more

regularly. So that's when I started volunteering at the Lyon Arboretum one day of the week and at the [Honolulu] Academy of Arts one day of the week. That still left me time to do

other things (that I enjoy, such as Japanese flower arranging and tennis). I guess I need that

kind of schedule. I've never, never been able to get to the point where I felt good about

getting up in the morning and saying, "Well now, what do I feel like doing today?" That's

supposed to be the beauty of retired people, I understand.

(Laughter)

RW: But I don't enjoy that.

HY: Anything else, looking at your career, you want to say about it? Or, the university in

particular or your students or the administration?

RW: I've had some really good students. I'm happy to have had a chance to teach. We have one

upper division-well, two upper division geometry courses and we'd have to take turns for

37

upper division and graduate courses. (Laughs) We've got tons of pre-calculus and calculus

so everybody teaches those but every once in a while I'd have a chance to teach the

geometry courses and those I really enjoyed and found some very, very good prospective

teachers in those courses so I think they'd be good for the schools.

HY: Did a lot of the students, then, get hired at the schools in Hawai 'i? Do they get placed?

RW: I don't know. I'm afraid I don't know where these people have ended up.

HY: Anything else?

RW: (Yes. I was fortunate in having the support of my family and financial assistance throughout.

It could not have been easy for the children to be uprooted and have to adjust to an entirely

new environment three different times over the eight-year period that I did my graduate work. The National Science Foundation and the Danforth Foundation provided generous

support. When I joined the Department of Mathematics, I had the support and assistance of

my colleagues in all of my work, and again was able to get financial support from various sources.)

HY: That's it?

RW: (I am proud of my three children. The oldest is Donna who has an MFA in painting and

printmaking. She is married to Kurt von Nieda and they have three children-Tij, Claire,

Jonathan. The second is Kurtis who has a BA in mathematics and is a pilot with United

Airlines. My youngest is Frances, with a BA in German area studies and mathematics, and is

a business technology consultant at Nationwide Insurance. She is married to James Burch

and they have a son, Trevor.)

HY: Okay. Thank you so much.

RW: You're welcome.

END OF INTERVIEW

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