Mary DeYoung

I'd like to take a brief time-out from Thailand to share with you about one of my favorite college professors.  Mary DeYoung passed away yesterday after battling cancer.  She taught Math for Elementary Teachers at Hope College, and is a large part of the reason that I decided to minor in math (it wasn't offered as a major at that time) and am a math teacher today.  I distinctly remember our first assignment for her class: write your  math history.  After reading mine, Mary spent time with me after class mapping out why I should minor in math, how easy it would be to do so, and how much it would benefit my career.  She convinced me that day, and was right about all those things.  I went on to take two more courses from her and learned so much about mathematical thinking through her teaching.  At the end of one of those courses she invited our entire class over to her home for dinner and kareoke.  When I graduated from Hope, Mary wrote a reference for me.  Later, when I applied for a scholarship at WSU to study librarianship (I never did get around to actually studying it) she wrote another reference for me.  And I was not alone in this.  It would not surprise me if she wrote more references than any other Hope professor.  She will be missed.