Mathematics News

Minding My Math Business received a Small but Mighty $10,000 grant from the WKU Sisterhood on November 18, 2022, at its annual business luncheon. 

Minding My Math Business (MMMB) began in the summer of 2021. The program began as a four-day enrichment workshop for Black and Brown students to explore the beauty of mathematics and the use of meditation and mindfulness activities. 

In the summer of 2023, MMMB will be conducting its third successful endeavor. Robin Ayers (Math Dept.), Dr. Kanita DuCloux (Math Dept), Dr. Lacretia Dye (Counseling and Student Affairs), Michelle Jones (Math Dept.), and Aurelia Spaulding (Communications & Marketing, For a Real Change) will continue to serve as facilitators and role models to students from grades 6-12 from neighboring Warren County/Bowling Green area. 

Black and Brown students will engage in rigorous mathematical activities with the aid of meditation and mindfulness activities. In this program, Black and Brown students will come to WKU for five days in June to experience and learn mathematics, preparing them for further studies and future academic endeavors. Students have explored areas of mathematics that have included such concepts as problem solving, voting and gerrymandering, mathematical scavenger hunts, and platonic solids. 

A major component of the workshop is for learners to explore the relationship between “mindfulness" and the relevance of numerical elements as they gain knowledge about neuroscience and how mindfulness activities change the structure of the brain (structural, functional & neuroplasticity), specifically those areas that relate to mathematics. During the program, Dr. Lacretia Dye will engage the students in mindfulness and meditation activities designed to reduce their anxiety and improve their mindfulness thus giving them real-life skills they can use when entering the classroom. 

Research has shown that students commonly begin to experience math anxiety in 9th and 10th grades. Math anxiety impairs a student’s long term math success and working memory. Although this impairment affects students across cultures, local opportunities offered to develop young students’ mathematical abilities are often not focused or available to African American and Hispanic/Latinx communities, honoring their inherent giftedness and abilities. This program has the aim to change that perspective and to expose Black and Brown students to a college campus so that they can meet educators and professionals of color at WKU, in hopes of developing a vision of seeing themself as a college student and meet other students who have similar interests.

This program is organized by WKU professors from the Departments of Mathematics and Counseling & Student Affairs in partnership with For a Real Change, Inc. and The Kelly M. Burch Institute for Transformative Practices in Higher Education.