FACES OF THE FACULTY 1 OF 3

The BG News features a few faculty members and their contributions to the University in a three-part series that will come out each Wednesday.

University Professor Marcy Beaverson is a wife to one, a mother to two young boys, a professor to some and a friend to many more.

“She has been a very good friend not only to myself but to the other instructors as well,” said Mary Busdeker, secretary at the Mathematics and Statistics department.

Beaverson has been in Bowling Green in one way or another since the day she left home to study Math and Physics at the University.

She received her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University, married her husband here, had her first child here and taught here for four years.

Now as her fourth year comes to an end, Beaverson, who is one of the 30 faculty to be laid off this semester, will begin to pack her things and look for a new home to teach.

“I am going to miss just walking around on campus and seeing students that I have had,” Beaverson said. “I have been here four years and it’s hard to not run into a student that I have had, which amazes me.”

During her time at the University as a graduate student, Beaverson was forced to teach a class and that is when she found her love for teaching, she said.

“Part of our stipend was to teach a class as grad students, but I tutored on campus as well,” Beaverson said. “I enjoyed [talking] with a student who didn’t understand something and then getting them to have that lightbulb moment.”

She has taught many different classes for the Math and Statistics Department including Calculus, Algebra Two, Intro to Statistics and a Math education class. She did not even know what it took to teach a class until she became a teacher at the University.

“She is highly respected, and knowledgeable in different levels of math,” Busdeker said.

Her students and co-workers refer to her as a professor who has an open-door policy and is always there for any student. Sophomore Jessica Gregor, an applied science major, refers to Beaverson as one of her teachers that always came to class with a positive attitude and made class fun for all of her students.

“I was shocked to hear she was one the teachers being laid off,” Gregor said. “She was one of the best teachers I have ever had and it seemed like many other students felt the same way. She gave us all so many opportunities to get help if we needed it.”

The technique “Chalk and Talk” is something Beaverson talked about many times, but one she stays away from when teaching. The technique means that the professor lectures and gives homework.

Beaverson likes to get away from that technique and get her students involved in the class. In her Math 2130 class, for example, to get the students to understand the concepts better they use different colored blocks.

“Someone in the administration made a mistake by laying her off,” Gregor said. “Now not only do I and the other students have to suffer, but so does she.”

Beaverson is not sure what she is going to do next; she just wants to have a job. She joked that she will even push carts at Meijer, saying it will be a low stress job.

“Where ever she goes she will be a good asset,” Busdeker said.