Thank you for asking, and thanks for this post. I will take you up on your request to name a few influential women that helped me in my career. I will give you three (but there are plenty of others). In 1977, my family moved from New Jersey to the panhandle of Florida. I was in second grade, and as far as I recall, my brother and I were two of four African-American children in all of K-6 grades at my elementary school. My teacher, Ms. Bullock, who likely had not had an African-American student in her class, realized my aptitude for mathematics and rather than skip me to the next grade (I was already young for my grade) or stereotype my energy as bad behavior, she challenged me to work in the same classroom, but at a faster pace. This is quite clearly, an added burden for her, but her belief in me set me on a path.
When I got to high school, I had a very similar experience with Ms. Scruggs. In this case, she had me sit in her classes a year before I was of age. This started in Trigonometry (where I had to walk from the middle school to the high school) and proceeded beyond Calculus to Numerical Methods (yes, my PUBLIC high school used to have a numerical methods course).
Third, throughout all of this, my mother was there as a champion to ensure the school supported me technically and socially by letting me stay with my cohort.
I will conclude by saying that I have had a long list of mentors from graduate school to where I am today, many of whom are women. I will not try to list them for fear of accidentally leaving someone out.
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Mark Lewis
Professor
Cornell University
Ithaca NY
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Original Message:
Sent: 03-29-2023 16:53
From: Kathryn Walter
Subject: Celebrating Women's History Month
In the most recent issue of ORMS Today, Polly Mitchell-Guthrie wrote a fabulous article called "A Tale of Two Paulines: ABCs for Women in the Workplace" about lessons we can learn from Pauli Murray's life (if you haven't read it, I encourage you to go check it out). To celebrate Women's History Month, I'd like to hear about the women who have blazed trails for you. I'll start with a story of a Polly in my own life.
My Grandma Polly was born in 1910. When she was a senior in high school, someone thought that girls might – just might – be smart enough to take trigonometry and gathered a group of girls to test this idea. Grandma Polly was one of them. Even into her 90's, her successfully taking trig in high school remained one of her top life achievements and a story she told every chance she got. Because of girls like her, no one has ever used my gender to doubt any math class I could take.
Grandma Polly died the same week I reported to the US Coast Guard Academy. I graduated four years later having earned a degree in Operations Research and knowing that I wanted to pursue a career in it. I was commissioned as a USCG officer and later earned my MS in OR from Columbia University. None of these achievements would have been possible without the women before me: the first women who were allowed to attend the USCG Academy starting in 1976, Alice T. Jefferson who in 1973 became the first female Coast Guard officer commissioned into regular service, and the first women who graduated from Columbia in 1987.
Who are some of the women who paved the way for you?
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Kathryn Walter
Senior Operations Research Analyst
Avista Corp
Alexandria VA
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