Jim Diederich's retirement party.
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Jim Diederich's retirement party. |
I had the pleasure of working with Evelyn on many things in the Department throughout most of the 33 years she was here. She exhibited a supreme level of dedication and integrity in everything she did. She always put the interests of her students, the Department, and the Campus above her own.
Her reputation as a teacher was not based on just being nice to the students. She didn't coddle them at all. She was very demanding, yet the students responded positively to the enormous effort that she herself put into her classes. She always inspired us to work harder at our teaching.
During the last 5 years I had the opportunity to work in the UCD Math Project, which among other things conducts institutes for local area K-12 teachers. Evelyn had been involved for decades. I was fortunate to see some of her presentations in the project and I was more than impressed with her insights into teaching. She had a depth of understanding of mathematical pedagogy that went far beyond anything I had ever seen. And it had her unique stamp on it and it was clear that there was a tremendous amount of effort and thought that had gone into it.
Yet, in spite of all of the work Evelyn did in teaching, research, and committee work ( I get exhausted just reading about the committees she worked on) Evelyn maintained a great sense of humor. She also used it effectively in the classroom and in all of her presentations. She had a beautiful smile and a great laugh. So I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I include a humorous story about her.
A couple of years ago I attended a ceremony in which Chancellor Vanderhoef presented Evelyn an award. In his remarks he made an astonishing statement that when he first met Evelyn that his reaction was something to the effect that here was woman who could kill him someday. Evelyn was at first speechless. I don't recall the Chancellor's explanation, but we all understood that her passion and dedication came through strongly and clearly and that she would fight to the death for what she believed in. She was clearly amused by the comments. What I didn't tell the Chancellor at the reception was that indeed, Evelyn had once poisoned me years ago. I had taken a doghouse that we were no longer using over to her place. Evelyn had adopted one of our puppies. She had proudly acquired a new juicer that was big and powerful and wanted to try it out. She ran some raw beets through it and served me a nice tall glass. We chatted for a while as I drank the potion. Slowly waves of nausea began to overwhelm me. As I finished the drink I politely excused myself and spent the remainder of the day doubled over on my couch wondering what had hit me. Eventually, Evelyn discovered that you should always blend beet juice with some other juice like carrot. Naturally, she apologized profusely, and we had a great laugh over it. Her laughter still resonates in my mind, and always will.
Here is a nice picture of Evelyn taken at her house in June 2004 when she was so kind to host my retirement party.
We are all so grateful that she touched our lives in such positive ways. It is hard to absorb that she is no longer with us.