Associate Professor
Mathematics
Phone: Ext. 6128
Email: SanfordM@felician.edu
Positions Held
- Associate Professor, Felician University
- Assistant Professor, Felician College
- Chair, Department of Mathematics, Felician College
- Director, Faculty Excellence Center, Felician College
- Assistant Professor, Marymount Manhattan College
- Assistant Professor, St. Francis University
- High School Teacher, Two Eagle River School
Academic Accomplishments
- Ph.D. Montana State University 1995
- M.S. Montana State University 1988
- B.S. Montana State University 1983
Biography
I am from Montana where I began my teaching in high school and college as a swimming and first-aid instructor. I also tutored in the math lab at Montana State University as an undergraduate where I completed my Bachelor of Science in Mathematics, with an option in education. I went on to teach high school at private tribal school, Two Eagle River School, on the Flathead Indian Reservation, a BIA funded school for those tribal members that dropped out of public school. Since I was their first certified math teacher, it allowed TERS to finally get accreditation and award high school diplomas and move from a school that could only prepare students for the GED. While there, I supervised the Title I and Special Education mathematics programs as well as went through a review process by the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges, similar to our Middle States.
After leaving TERS, I went to graduate school at Montana State University to pursue a Master of Science in Mathematics with an option in Mathematics Education with full intention to stay a high school teacher like my dad. However, something amazing happened. Because graduate students teach one class per semester at MSU, I began to love teaching at the university level. I, also, became someone who went from a person who liked math to someone who loved it. My topology and dynamical systems classes are probably the classes that turned the corner for me more than any other. And so I stayed, and after completing my masters degree I pursued and completed a doctorate in mathematics with a specialty area of dynamical systems, colloquially called chaos theory. Besides being a graduate teaching assistant, I also served as a graduate research assistant, and the graduate representative to the mathematics department’s executive committee (the committee that advised the department chair) and the graduate committee.
Upon completing my Ph.D., I took a full-time position at Al-Alkhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco, for two years. The experience of living in a foreign country and learning their culture and religion was a wonderful experience. But, my father’s health wasn’t so great, so I wanted to be back in the United States and so I came home and took a temporary position at the University of Montana-Western (formerly Western Montana College) while I looked for a full-time position in the US. I got one at Felician College. I have served as Chair for the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Director of the Faculty Excellence Center, Faculty Athletic Representative, and I was a Fellow to the Small College Consortium. I have taught some version of every mathematics class save one at Felician College and I even taught an education class twice. I also taught in the EOF summer program. I advise many students, and I have been on many committees. I have been that typical volunteer parent, coaching my son’s sports teams and being involved with his scouting. After my father’s death, I got involved in raising money for Parkinson’s disease, which suffered.
Field(s) of Interest/Expertise
- Dynamical Systems
- Mathematics Education
Courses Taught at Felician University
- Statistics I
- Honors Statistics I
- College Algebra
- Precalculus
- Geometry
- Discrete Mathematics
- Calculus
- Differential Equations
- History of Mathematics
- Matrix Theory & Linear Algebra Probability with Statistics
- Other class Taught Prior 2014
- Developmental Mathematics
- Quantitative Reason
- Mathematics for Financial Decision Making
- Mathematics Explorations (Mathematics of Elementary School Teachers) Finite Mathematics
- Multivariable Calculus Number Theory Abstract Algebra Statistics II
- Modern Geometry
- Complex Analysis
- Advanced Calculus
- Topology
Publications/Research
- Thesis Committee: Sannaâ Khabbar, Immigrant and Education: The Case of Moroccans in France,
- Al Akhawayn University, School of Social Science (1996-97)
- Other teaching/coaching/mentoring experience Riverdell Black Hawks Soccer Club
- River Edge Little League
- River Edge Cub Scouts Pack 95
- Big Sky Taekwondo
- Red Cross & YMCA swimming Red Cross First Aid
- “Extending Maps of the Cantor Set Product an Arc to a Near Homeomorphisms of the 2-Disk,” with Russell B. Walker, Pacific Journal of Mathematics, vol. 192, No. 2, 2000, pp. 369-384.
- “Kupka-Smale Extensions of Cantor Set Homeomorphisms without Source or Sinks,” with Russell B. Walker, Topology and Its Applications, vol. 59, 1994 pp. 273-285.
- “The Chaos of Arcadia,” Playbill insert for Marymount Manhattan College’s Production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, 2004.
- O’Leary, Michael. Revolutions of Geometry. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, ISBN 9780470167557, Reviewed in 2010, Oct CHOICE.
- Boelkins, Matthew R. Differential equations with linear algebra, by Mathew R. Boelkins, J. L. Goldberg, and Merle C. Potter. Oxford, 2009; ISBN 9780195385861. Reviewed in 2010, Jun CHOICE.
- Sandifer, C. Edward. How Euler did it. Mathematical Association of America, 2007; ISBN 9780883855638. Reviewed in 2008, Jan CHOICE.
- Geometry in Action. Internet Resource. Reviewed in 2007, Nov CHOICE.
