Department of Mathematical Sciences Alumna of the Semester

Sherry Scarborough

If the saying “You can take the gal out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the gal” ever applied, it certainly applies to Sherry Scarborough who graduated from IPFW with a master’s degree in 1994.

Sherry was born in Fort Worth, Texas, but moved to Arlington, Texas after a few months and lived there until she graduated from high school. She was an excellent student (naturally!), and even took a few courses at University of Texas, Arlington while still in high school. She went to Texas A&M for her undergraduate studies and earned a bachelor’s degree in plant and soil sciences in 1980. As an undergraduate she was on the water ski team, and competed in trick waterskiing events. She still enjoys water skiing, although she’s not quite as adventuresome as she was in college!

After graduation she worked as a seed technologist at Gustafson, Inc. in Dallas, and then at Gem Products in Irving. When the company was bought out, Sherry and the new owners parted ways. Soon after that Sherry moved with her family, including her one-year-old son, Ryan, to Fort Wayne. She spent several years as a full-time mom, and gave birth to her daughter, Natalie. When Natalie was two Sherry started thinking about going back to school for a graduate degree. Since she was always strong in math and had done some tutoring in math she looked into the graduate program in mathematics. She took some courses to prepare her for the master’s degree including a linear algebra course from Lowell Beineke. She was hooked! She received her master’s degree in mathematics in 1994, and earned all “A’s” in the process.

She wanted to work on a doctorate, and naturally her thoughts turned to Texas! She returned to Texas A&M. Her adventures there eventually lead her to the College of Education, where she earned a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction, specializing in College Mathematics Education. Even before she finished her doctorate, Sherry was hired by Texas A&M as a Lecturer in the Mathematics Department, and she still holds that position.

At Texas A&M she is part of a team that creates and edits algorithmic mathematics problems on the internet. Students take homework assignments and parts of exams on the web using these algorithmic problems. The students all have the same question but everyone’s numbers and thus, answers are different. Since the program knows the algorithmic answer, it also grades the assignments. Some of the problems Sherry has authored are Simplex problems, permutation and combination problems, matrix multiplication, and amortization problems. Since 2002 she has also worked for Educational Testing Services as a mathematics item writer and reviewer.

Sherry is happy with her life in Texas. She loves her job, is actively involved in a local church, and whenever possible indulges her passion for ballroom dancing. Some of her favorite dances are tango (Argentine and American), international rumba , waltz, society-tempo foxtrot, and swing. In fact, she was recently named an advisor to TAMBDA, Texas A&M Ballroom Dance Association. Her son, Ryan, just finished his first year at Purdue University, and her daughter, Natalie, just completed her first year of high school.

Of her time at IPFW, Sherry says, “It was the professors that made a difference. Before I started at IPFW, I kept talking with Townsend, who encouraged me and was so friendly, especially considering I was an unknown who did not even have a mathematics degree. The professors worked me hard, which enabled me to later accept the challenge of my doctoral work. I appreciated all the time they spent with me during their office hours. Beineke was such a caring and interested professor who was very patient, and when I think of him I think of graph theory and the mouse and cheese problem that I solved in my sleep. I often put math quotes on the front cover of my exams because Beineke did. Doug Weakley had such fun mathematics problems. Cindy Weakley was so understanding, and I knew when she wrote “good” on my paper I felt like I had really accomplished something. Legg had a great sense of humor and I know he knows Joe Ward here at Texas A&M. I learned a lot from Zubovic, and because of her, in some of my math problems I manufacture widgets and gadgets. Finco mentored me through my first teaching assignments at IPFW; thanks. The small class sizes at IPFW were wonderful because you could get individual help, you could really get to know the faculty, and they would know who you were and they cared!”

Here is a link to her web page.

http://www.math.tamu.edu/directory/formalpages/scarboro_formalpage.html