PSU Magazine Winter 1992

tarting, with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics. Immed iately after graduation , with a war-time economy hitt ing full -tilt, Bennett and "400 young men" were hired as engineer by Westinghouse. Th last time the company had hired a female engineer, Bennett says, wa in 1918 during World War I. Bennett was ass igned to an electronic enginee ring job at a plant in New Jersey, where he remained fo r three years. At the time she was also pursuing a graduate degree in electrical engineering at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. She eventually took a job in a research lab at the insti tute and taught mathematics there before returning to O regon with a husband and two daughters in 1948. In the seven years fo llowing her return, three more daughters were added to Bennett's family, and like many women of her era, Bennett stayed at home with her young fam ily. But in 1955, she dec ided to return to work . Portland State Un iversity was in its fo rmative stages at that time, Bennett says, and she initially took a part-time pos ition in the mathematics depart– ment. Most of the departmen t's full– time teachers were men . But a year later, a sa lary dispute caused some of the department's instructors to resign, and Bennett and several other women were offered full -time teaching posi– tions. "Our salaries were around $3 ,600 a year," Bennett says. And because there were suddenly so many women in the department, they took some flack from the fo rmerly male bastion. "Behind our backs-bu t it really was to our faces– they ca lled us the 'housewife fac ulty,"' she says. Bennett discovered that her par– ticular ta lent lay in teaching people with math anxiety, which coupled well with her be lief that people from all seg– ments of ociety need more complex math skills than just personal budget– ing. "The upper-end jobs in our culture– the better paying ones-require math and science experti e," Bennett says. "And when you look at the groups who have traditionally not been encouraged Bennett watches two students mastering a math problem using one of the many tools available in the PSU Math Resource Lab. to excel in math, you see women and minorities. "I would go into the elementary and middle schoo ls in Portland's poverty neighborhoods," Bennett says. "The sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grader were operating at the second-grade level of math ." What doe the future hold fo r these children , Bennett asked. Jobs filling shelves in department stores? O n her own time, a a volunteer, she began tutoring children in minority-population elementary schools. Bu t one pe rson can only ac– complish so much. Yet Bennett had overflowing classes of math students back at Portland State. The idea was a natura l. She arranged for university cred it in ex– change fo r tu to ring elemen tary and middle school children in math. In the late '60s and ea rly '70s, PSU set up an education center in the Albina distri ct-a primarily African– American minority community-to act as a bridge between the community and the University. Bennett was responsible fo r the cen te r's math pro– gram which included tutoring children after school, helping high school dropouts earn their GED certi ficates, and offering six d iffe rent P U mathe– matics cour e for credi t. Working with Portland State tu tors, more than 100 people, mostly minority women working as aides in the Portland Schoo l d istrict, passed the mathematic courses to become certified a elementary teachers. "We were able to set up a tremen – dou support sy tem with the number of student tutors who came in to help," Bennett says. Many of the peop le who went through those original, in -com– munity certification math classes are till working in Portland schools today, Bennett says. And when Bennett shows up, with her math games and her cad re of stu– dent tu tors, they remember her. "I get hugged from one end of the halls to the other," she says. Tutoring sites have changed through the years, mov ing to where the need is. Right now, studen ts are tutor– ing fo r credi t under Bennett's super– vision at Martin Lu ther King Junior Elementary School, Tubman Midd le School, the down town YWCA's school fo r homeless children, and at the G reenhouse, a day shelte r fo r street kids operated by the Salvation Army. Over the years, part of the math cur– riculum for elementary schoo l teachers under Bennett's tutelage, has been the development of materials fo r mastering various levels of math. This co llection PSU 17