After a teaching career spanning 45 years, with 14 of those years at Grand Valley, Lisa Kasmer is retiring from the mathematics department at the end of this academic year.  Leaving a rich legacy of support for her colleagues and students, particularly through the Tanzania study abroad program that she founded in 2011, Lisa reflects on her career and those whose lives she has touched.

Before beginning her career in higher education, Lisa was a public school K-12 teacher for 31 years.  During that time, she became involved in an LSC (local systemic change) project funded by the National Science Foundation and run through Western Michigan University.  This project pushed mathematics teachers to think hard about the ways they taught mathematics to children and to consider new and different approaches to promote conceptual understanding.  At the end of that project, Lisa was offered a doctoral fellowship, again funded by the National Science Foundation, at Western Michigan as part of a consortium with Michigan State University and the University of Missouri.  She found it both enlightening and energizing to be able to work with some of the prominent researchers in mathematics education.

Before coming to Grand Valley, Lisa was a faculty member at Auburn University in Alabama.  As her family was still in west Michigan, however, she had a strong desire to return home and was thrilled when she obtained her current position in the GVSU mathematics department, beginning this next stage of her career in 2010.  The next 14 years brought significant growth to Grand Valley, and Lisa has played a strong role in expanding opportunities for our students.

Immediately after arriving on campus, Lisa began developing and organizing the Tanzania study abroad program in partnership with the Padnos International Center.  In this annual program, aspiring teachers studying mathematics at Grand Valley travel to Tanzania and practice their profession teaching mathematics to local students.  Since the first trip in May 2011, about 275 students have participated and experienced the incredible growth that comes from learning about themselves in a different culture.  Since many of the participants were students in Lisa’s classes on campus, she was able to experience Tanzania through their eyes and says that has been a great deal of fun.  The relationships she has developed through that program have also been both professionally and personally gratifying, and she cites the impact that GVSU students have had on hundreds of Tanzanian students as a career highlight. 

Another highlight was finding eventual success at securing funding from the NSF to further her research activities.  Though the efforts of Lisa and her collaborators were not successful the first two times they applied, she found it both exciting and rewarding when the third application, which involved months of writing and rewriting the proposal, secured the funding they sought.  Lisa also describes the support and collegiality that she has found in the mathematics department as well as the opportunity to work closely with both students in class and in their field experiences as both enjoyable and satisfying.  Lisa says she will miss the students and watching their growth as teacher candidates each and every semester. 

For all her wonderful work, Lisa was recognized as the recipient of a Pew Teaching Award in 2015.  

As for retirement, Lisa says she has a stack of fiction books just waiting to be read as soon as grades are submitted.  She also has a few trips planned with her husband, including an Adriatic Cruise in September, a trip to Normandy next spring, and Iceland in the summer.  She’ll also be spending a few weeks in Bali and Thailand with her college roommate.  Time with grandchildren and resuming gardening are also high priorities. 

While Lisa says she has thoroughly enjoyed the last 14 years at GVSU and will miss her colleagues and students, she feels like this is a good time to try retirement. 

The mathematics department thanks Lisa for her dedicated service to Grand Valley and our students over all these years.  Through your initiative and sustained energy, you have helped many students grow personally and into their professions.  We wish you a long and peaceful retirement.