mathematics

Patricia Clark Kenschaft

Patricia Clark Kenschaft is a mathematics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Patricia Clark Kenschaft rather than just read about it. In short: Patricia Clark Kenschaft (March 25, 1940 – November 20, 2022) was an American mathematician. She was a professor of mathematics at Montclair State University.

Key takeaways

Patricia Clark Kenschaft belongs to mathematics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Patricia Clark Kenschaft to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Patricia Clark Kenschaft from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Patricia Clark Kenschaft (March 25, 1940 – November 20, 2022) was an American mathematician. She was a professor of mathematics at Montclair State University. She is known as an author of books on mathematics, as a founder of PRIMES, the Project for Resourceful Instruction of Mathematics in the Elementary School, and for her work for equity and diversity in mathematics.

Early life, education and career Kenschaft was born in 1940 to political activist and history teacher Bertha Francis Clark and organic chemist John Randolph Clark. The family lived in Nutley.[1] The eldest of four children, Kenschaft took on a nurturing in the household. Her brother, Bruce, was born with cognitive disabilities. This led to her mother and family becoming advocates for special education and state income taxes to better support school systems.[2] Kenschaft graduated from Swarthmore College in 1961, earning a bachelor's degree with honors in mathematics and with minors in English, philosophy, and education. She earned a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1963, and then returned to the University of Pennsylvania for doctoral studies, completing a Ph.D. in 1973, while in the same period raising a child and founding a nursery school in Concord, Massachusetts. Her dissertation, in functional analysis, was Homogeneous C ∗ {\displaystyle C^{*}} -Algebras over S n {\displaystyle S^{n}} , and was supervised by Edward Effros. After working in adjunct positions at St. Elizabeth's College and Bloomfield College, she joined the Montclair State faculty in 1973, and was promoted to full professor in 1988. She retired in 2005 and died in 2022.

Service to the profession Kenschaft became the founding president of the New Jersey Association for Women in Mathematics in 1981 and of the New Jersey Faculty Forum in 1988. She chaired the Committee on Participation of Women of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) from 1987 to 1993, the Committee on Mathematics and the Environment of the MAA from 2000 to 2004, and the Equity and Diversity Integration Task Force of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in 2003. She served as director of several projects to improve mathematics education in public schools, including PRIMES (Project for Resourceful Instruction of Mathematics in the Elementary School). Kenschaft hosted a live weekly radio talk show called "Math Medley" from 1998 - 2004.

Books Kenschaft was the author of:

Calculus: A Practical Approach (with Kenneth Kalmanson, Worth, 1975) Childbirth, Cooperative Style: Family Experience with Prepared Childbirth and Prenatal Classes (Exposition Press, 1977) Linear Mathematics: A Practical Approach (Worth, 1978) Mathematics: A Practical Approach (with Kenneth Kalmanson, Worth, 1978) Math Power: How to Help Your Child Love Math Even If You Don’t (Addison-Wesley, 1997; Dover, 2014) Mathematics for Human Survival (Whitter, 2002) Change Is Possible: Stories of Women and Minorities in Mathematics (American Mathematical Society, 2005) Additionally, she edited

Winning Women into Mathematics (Mathematical Association of America, 1991) Environmental Mathematics in the Classroom (with Ben Fusaro, Mathematical Association of America, 2003)

Recognition Kenschaft was the 2006 winner of the Louise Hay Award of the Association for Women in Mathematics "in recognition of her long career of dedicated service to mathematics and mathematics education" and for her work "writing about, speaking about, and working for mathematics and mathematics education in the areas of K–12 education, the environment, affirmative action and equity, and public awareness of the importance of mathematics in society". In 2012, she received the Sr. Stephanie Sloyan Distinguished Service Award from the New Jersey section of the Mathematical Association of America. She was the 2013 Falconer Lecturer of the Association for Women in Mathematics and Mathematical Association of America, speaking on "Improving Equity and Education: Why and How". Kenshaft was selected a Fellow of the Association for Women in Mathematics in the Class of 2021 "for almost 50 years of sustained and lasting commitment to the advancement of underrepresented groups in the mathematical sciences, especially girls, women, and African Americans. Her extensive service, publications, and outreach bring to light racism, sexism, and inequities, always delivered with the message that positive change is possible".

References

External links Archive of Home page at Montclair Archive of Personal home page

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Patricia Clark Kenschaft

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Patricia Clark Kenschaft claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In mathematics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Patricia Clark Kenschaft before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Patricia Clark Kenschaft ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Patricia Clark Kenschaft

In research: Patricia Clark Kenschaft appears in mathematics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Patricia Clark Kenschaft in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Patricia Clark Kenschaft is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1940 births, 20th-century American mathematicians, 20th-century American women mathematicians, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Patricia Clark Kenschaft outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Patricia Clark Kenschaft in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Patricia Clark Kenschaft means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Patricia Clark Kenschaft out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Patricia Clark Kenschaft in simple terms?

Patricia Clark Kenschaft (March 25, 1940 – November 20, 2022) was an American mathematician. She was a professor of mathematics at Montclair State University.

Why does Patricia Clark Kenschaft matter?

Because it connects several mathematics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Patricia Clark Kenschaft?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Patricia Clark Kenschaft.