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Student math prize posthumously named for 11th President of Grinnell College, Pamela Ferguson
Most students here have no experience of Pamela Anderson Ferguson, a long-time professor and one-time president of Grinnell College. But current and future students will remember Ferguson's legacy through a mathematics scholarship announced by her husband last week.
"We feel that helping others to follow in her footsteps and appreciate the intrinsic beauty of [mathematcis] is the best way to honor her memory," said widower Roger Ferguson.
The spouse of Grinnell College's 11th president Pamela Ferguson has endowed the college with funding for a monetary prize offered to mathematics majors entering their senior year.
Candidates for the Pamela Ferguson Endowed Prize in Mathematics will be judged on the basis of their performance in mathematics classes, independent research projects, posters and other presentations, publications and competitions. The intention of the prize is to recognize and encourage potential within mathematics. Up to two prizes will be given each year.
"Pam's great love was mathematics," Roger Ferguson told the college. "She loved exploring its boundaries and bringing new clarity to ideas never before understood or explored."
While candidates of both sexes will be considered, there is an emphasis on female applicants, who are often under-represented in the field.
Ferguson graduated from Wellesley and University of Chicago. She came to Grinnell College after serving as an associate provost and dean of the graduate school at Miami University. Her tenure as president of the college spannd six years from 1991 to her resignation in 1997.
"It was mathematics that led to her great success in life," Roger Ferguson said. "She had many other great abilities ...but she never would have had that opportunity if not for her mathematical abilities."
She continued to teach mathematics and computer science at the college as long as her health permitted and passed away in Des Moines, Iowa, on Apr. 24, 2004.
-Drake Ballew
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