FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


Pitzer Mathematics Professor Receives Prestigious National Award

CLAREMONT, Calif. (Sept. 20, 2002) - Pitzer College mathematics Professor Judith V. 
Grabiner has won one of the most prestigious math awards in the country.

Grabiner, the Flora Sanborn Pitzer Professor of Mathematics, has been awarded the 
Mathematical Association of America's (MAA) Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award 
for Distinguished College of University Teaching of Mathematics. Grabiner shares the honor 
with two other professors, Paul Zeitz from the University of San Francisco and Ranjan Roy of 
Beloit College. The three educators will be presented the award in January at the MAA's 
national meeting in Baltimore.

"I thank the students in my classes at Pitzer, especially those from Math in Many Cultures 
and from Mathematics, Philosophy, and the 'Real World,' for the inspiration and ideas they 
have provided me," says Grabiner, who has been part of Pitzer's faculty since 1985. "They've 
sustained my faith that everybody can understand and appreciate mathematics and its infinite 
uses, and the honor belongs to them. I also thank Professor Emerita Barbara Beechler, my 
colleague Jim Hoste, and the Pitzer family for their support over so many years."

"This is a wonderful honor and richly deserved by an extraordinarily talented senior faculty 
member of Pitzer College," says President Laura Skandera Trombley.

Grabiner is only the second professor from The Claremont Colleges to receive the honor. 
In 2000 Arthur T. Benjamin of Harvey Mudd College received the award.

Earlier this year, Grabiner was chosen as one of 29 section winners when she received the 
MAA's Southern California Section Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching. 
She was nominated for the award by Beechler, who Grabiner says "broke her in" at Pitzer. 

"You have to be a truly distinguished professor to win this award," says Beechler. "The 
reason I nominated Judy is that I regard the courses she has designed for Pitzer as unique. Pitzer 
has the best curriculum for non-math students of any place in the world. I really believe that."

In the introduction to her nomination, Beechler wrote: "Professor Grabiner ... is universally 
praised for the depth and range of her knowledge of mathematical history and is famous for 
giving talks that are knowledgeable, witty, charming, beautifully organized and hold the interest 
of both the trained mathematician and the "I hate math" undergraduate simultaneously."

Grabiner, who has given talks internationally and has won numerous awards for her 
articles, received her B.S. in mathematics from the University of Chicago, and her M.A. and 
Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University. She also taught at Cal State 
University, Dominguez Hills from 1972-86.

In 1991 the MAA instituted awards for distinguished teaching of mathematics in order to 
honor college or university teachers who have been widely recognized as extraordinarily 
successful and whose teaching effectiveness has been shown to have had influence beyond their 
own institutions. In 1993 the MAA Board of Governors renamed the award to honor Deborah 
and Franklin Tepper Haimo.
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Founded in 1963, Pitzer College is a nationally ranked undergraduate college of the liberal arts 
and sciences.  A member of The Claremont Colleges, Pitzer offers a distinctive approach to a 
liberal education by linking intellectual inquiry with interdisciplinary studies, cultural immersion, 
social responsibility and community involvement. 

Media Contact:
Bridget Lewison, Office of Public Relations
Voice: (909) 621-8219
Fax: (909) 621-8798
Bridget_Lewison@pitzer.edu