Chipola’s Dr. Cruz-White Promoted to Associate Professor

10/9/08

Dr. Irma Cruz-White was recently promoted to the position of Associate Professor of Mathematics in the Chipola College Mathematics and Natural Science division where she has taught for the past five years.
Dr. Cruz-White incorporates technology in the classroom to help students to visualize concepts that are difficult to explain in a traditional classroom. She uses computer software such as MAPLE and Geometer’s Sketchpad that facilitate graphical concepts in two and three dimensions.
Dr. Cruz-White directs Chipola Honors students on special projects. She says, "When I meet with honors students I ask them to think about something they really like and I guarantee that they can find mathematics behind it. From this meeting we work on a project involving their interest." Some of the Honors projects she has directed include: A Levee: A Mathematical Protection, Space Shuttle Landing, The Degrees of Racing, Spiral and Scroll Waves in Excitable Media: Cardiological Applications, White – Tailed Deer: History and Population Research.
Dr. Cruz-White recently developed two new courses: MAT 4905-Supervised Research in Mathematics and MAS 4301- Introduction to Abstract Algebra.
She was selected to participate in a workshop on RNA in Biology, Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the 2007 Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications Minneaopolis, and the Reconnect Program from the Center for Dynamic Data Analysis (DyDAn) at Rutgers University in 2007. In 2005, she attended NCTM training to become NCATE Program Reviewer.
She presented Topology of Spiral Waves in Excitable Media at the Sumners Fest in Tallahassee in 2007. She was co-organizer of the session: Calculus Tricks of the Trade at the Project Next Workshops Albuquerque in 2005, and a poster session on the same project at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Atlanta in 2005.
She was selected as a Project Next Fellow in 2004, a MAA (Mathematical Association of America) program for New Experiences in Teaching. She is a member of the National Council of Teacher of Mathematics (NCTM) and trained NCATE Program Reviewer NCATE - National Council for Accreditation in Teacher Education. Since 2006, she has reviewed more than a dozen Mathematics Education Programs from all over the United States for National Accreditation.
She served as a judge for the Undergraduate Student Poster Session at Joint Mathematics Meetings in 2005. She served on the Teacher Advisory Panel for the Mathematics Teacher Journal during 2004-05.
She has served as a Courtesy Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Florida State University offering graduate credit courses in Number Theory and Modern Geometry for in-service teachers in the Jackson County Area through Chipola College.
In addition to traditional math courses at the freshmen and sophomore level, Chipola also offers bachelor’s degrees in Secondary Mathematics Education and Middle Grades Math Education.