By: Jasmine Morrow
Staff Writer

On April 11, Western mathematics instructor and developmental math coordinator Dr. Sylvia Valdés-Fernández gave her presentation, “Math: The New Civil Rights Issue.” Though the presentation was only an hour and a half long, attendees of the event were given something to think about regarding underserved students in math courses.

Valdés-Fernández and her father co-founded the Valdés Math Institute in San Jose, California; a seven-week program, that helps underserved students with mathematics, which was honored by the Obama administration with the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence.

Valdés-Fernández believes in creating fair and understanding classroom environments for students who feel that they’re treated like they can’t understand math.

According to Dr. Valdés-Fernández, underserved students have a more difficult time when it comes to math literacy. They are told that they can’t do well in this area and that it’s their fault when something is hard to understand.

When Valdés-Fernández was asked why math is important to her, she responded, “To me, it’s not so much about the math, but it’s about what math affords people. Jobs, a position in society. It opens up a lot of doors, since there are so many careers that are closed to you if you don’t have a certain amount of math literacy.”

Everyone should have a chance to learn something that’s going to be very crucial to make a living. One of the problems about achieving equity that Dr. Valdés-Fernández mentioned was the “belief that not all students can learn math.”

If educators keep looking down on students who have difficulty understanding math, then the students are just going to give up. When a student is having difficulties, the educator can’t make the whole class simpler, but they should be able to accommodate for all students.

“Math needs diversity for new ideas,” concluded Valdés-Fernández.

Contact the author at jmorrow16@mail.wou.edu