minorities

BAMM and the AAASCEC

The Department of African American and African Studies has a Community Extension Center (CEC) located on the Near Eastside of Columbus. The CEC strives to provide academic and community education opportunities for its Near Eastside neighbors and the greater Central Ohio community. We were lucky to have come in contact with the AAAS Departament and are now joining their efforts offering math programming at the CEC.

On three consecutive Fridays in February and March, we offered a Mathmagic workshop there. Every session we taught one or two different magic tricks, so people who wanted to come to all would not be seeing repeated content. The workshop was addressed to middle school students, but some parents and other accompanying adults joined to. We were really happy to see adults and children alike very engaged in discovering the math behind the magic tricks.

That is not all, because we will be offering a math exhibit every month on the second Saturday. On those days, which we have called Math Day, from 12:30 to 3 pm everybody is welcomed to stop at the CEC and explore the beauty and richness of mathematics through numerous games, puzzles and crafts.

We also plan to keep on bringing more workshops for the K-12 students in the community, as well as other math programming.

Inspiring Women of Color to Do Math

AWOW, Advocates for Women of the World, is a student organization at Ohio State that advocates for international women’s rights. One of their goals is to promote access to education for everyone. As such, on November 16 they held an event in which around 30 young girls visited the Columbus Campus. For this, they partnered up with Proyecto MarProyecto Mariposas girls and AWOW members posing in the Department's lobbyiposas, a non-profit Columbus based organization that provides an environment of learning, sharing, and support to Latina girls and their mothers.

During the event, AWOW members led the girls on a tour around campus. The visitors also met with Office of Diversity and Inclusion Assistant Vice Provost, Yolanda Zepeda, to talk about the Latinx experience on a college campus.

Buckeye Aha! Math Moments was happy to join their efforts by welcoming the girls in the Mathematics Tower. During their short visit to our Department, they listened to Assistant Professor Liz Vivas‘ experience. Originally from Peru, Liz is a living example of how women of color can succeed in college and in mathematics. Girls also peaked into a Girls Exploring Math Monthly workshop that was being held that same day and were invited to join for those workshops as well as BAMM’s other activities.

The Department of Mathematics is a big one, and it welcomes all people regardless of race and gender. However, certain groups, such as women of color, are still underrepresented. With small actions like this one, BAMM hopes to contribute to create a more diverse environment.