LU math teacher also has leadership role

Stephanie Clark poses outside of Damel Hall on the campus of Lincoln University. Clark is an LU math teacher and incoming Faculty Senate President.
Stephanie Clark poses outside of Damel Hall on the campus of Lincoln University. Clark is an LU math teacher and incoming Faculty Senate President.

Stephanie Clark has been teaching math at Lincoln University since 2009 - but she wasn't a traditional student.

After graduating from high school in 1997, she recalled last week, "the plan I had didn't really work out - so, I was plan-less for a little while."

She moved from the Chicago area to Jefferson City in 1998, because members of her mother's family lived here.

"I ended up first working at the police department as a dispatcher," she said, noting she met Officer Bob Clark (now a police captain) there. They've been married 15 years.

Also while working at the police department, she started taking part-time classes at Lincoln because of her work schedule.

"But I always knew I wanted to complete the degree," she said. "And after my daughter was born in 2004, that's when I went to full-time."

Clark said she wasn't planning to be a math teacher.

"When I was in high school, I was OK at math, but I wasn't the person who always seemed to understand it," she said. "And I had a teacher who, basically, said, 'Yeah, you really don't need to do any higher math.'"

But Lincoln requires students to take at least a basic math course.

"When I started in college algebra - it just made sense," Clark said. "I don't know if it was because I was older, or the way the teacher that I had (Al White) taught it."

She already considered teaching as a career, Clark continued. "But I thought it would be, like, English or history or something like that," she said. "(White) actually said, 'You'd make a really good math teacher' (and when) I started as a student tutor for math, and then I realized that was something that I could do well."

She graduated from Lincoln in 2008, then taught 8th and 9th grade math at Eugene High School.

Then she returned to LU as a math tutor and began working on her master's degree.

Now, she teaches college algebra, and geometry and stats for elementary education majors.

She agrees with those who say mathematics can be like a foreign language.

As a college student, Clark noted, "It was more like I finally understood the language" than when she was in high school.

"Now I can see math as just a different type of language and, once you understand the language, then you can keep going," she said.

One of the challenges to teaching math is getting students to work past their anxiety, Clark said.

Students haven't changed much over the years, she said. But society as a whole expects things to come more quickly than in the past, and that can make teaching more difficult.

Another challenge is to convince students they can do it, and it's meaningful, Clark said, calling math a way to problem-solve and think critically.

"It doesn't matter whether you're in a math-oriented field or if you're an English major," she said, "you're still going to be faced with problems."

The logic used in math can help people cut through the distractions and deal with those problems, she said.

As the incoming chair of LU's Faculty Senate, Clark will be dealing with other kinds of problems.

"The main (Faculty Senate) charge is looking at curriculum and classes to be offered, protocols on student conduct and planning for the year," Clark explained.

The Senate also advocates for faculty when there are disagreements with administrators.

Clark said some on the Senate encouraged her to run for the chairmanship.

She will succeed outgoing Bryan Salmons, who isn't seeking a third one-year term.

"I think it's because I have a tendency to be vocal and point out things," Clark said. "Looking for the next couple of years - instead of sitting there and not being a part of the solution, I wanted to be a part of creating a positive path to the solutions that we need."

In the past couple of years, she said, faculty members have felt Lincoln's administration wasn't listening to them.

"When your voice is shut out over and over and over again, that makes it hard to be enthusiastic," Clark said.

But with the departure of President Kevin Rome, Clark hopes the changes Lincoln is experiencing mean faculty and administrators can have a new relationship.

"It's changed the overall environment of our school," she explained. "I'm hoping that, as we go forward, not everything has to be a fight. I'm hoping for a more collaborative relationship."

Clark also has been active in the faculty effort to have the Missouri National Education Association represent them in bargaining talks with Lincoln's administration.

She cautioned those roles are separate with different goals for the LUMNEA and Faculty Senate.

Clark said she doesn't have a lot of spare personal time, although she does participate in a book club.

"That's my outside support system," she said. "In my spare time I, basically, drive my daughter to and from dance practice - four or five days a week.

"She's been on a competitive dance team since, I think, she was 5."

She hopes people will remember her as "having a passion for fighting for what I believe is right."