Wade Ellis Jr.
West Valley College math teacher adds to his cornucopia of awards
By Rebecca Ray
Before spring semester ended at West Valley College, math instructor Wade Ellis Jr. received another award to add to his collection--the annual Distinguished College or University Teaching Award from the Northern California Section of the Mathematical Association of America.
Ellis was surprised to receive the award, he said, since it's rare for it to be given to a community college instructor. According to an official from the association, Ellis is actually the first community college instructor in the Northern California section to win the award.
Ellis, 59, who has taught at West Valley for 25 years, teaches math classes from beginning algebra to differential equations, a course that students can take after calculus. In fact, he has taught every math course at West Valley, except arithmetic and discrete math--a math class for computer science students.
Ellis has belonged to the association, which has 30,000 members nationwide, for 20 years and has served in several capacities, from member to vice president.
The award from the association isn't the only award Ellis received recently. In 1996, the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges presented him a lifetime achievement award for excellence in education. And in 1995, when he was a visiting professor at the U.S. Military Academy, the United States Army gave him an Outstanding Civilian Service Award.
Ellis is also one of three math professors at West Valley who has received the Hayward Award for Excellence in Teaching, given by the governing board of the California Community College System. The math department at West Valley alone has had more instructors win this award, which Ellis received in 1990, than any other community college in the state.
In addition to teaching math 15 hours a week, Ellis is working with senior faculty members at various junior colleges to improve students' performance in beginning algebra. At least half the community college students across California fail, he said. He has also given numerous talks worldwide about integrating principles from learning theory into the classes at West Valley, which he and other instructors at West Valley plan to do.
Ellis said he would like to see math textbooks more thoroughly embrace the use of technology in classrooms. He has authored and co-authored some 30 books, including Calculus: Mathematics and Modeling, which he uses in his classes. Instructors at various colleges, such as Clemson University in South Carolina, have also used the book in their classes.
To further promote the use of technology in classrooms, Ellis collaborated on an interactive CD-ROM that's used in classes at West Valley. In 1988, he received a matching grant from the National Science Foundation to add computers to the West Valley math lab.
In the 1990s, the foundation awarded Ellis other grants to investigate ways to make science, technology, math and engineering more attractive to women and minorities; and to help run graphing calculator workshops for junior college math instructors. He also evaluates foundation grant applications and has served on the foundation's panels to determine who receives grants.
"But basically, I'm still a good, old country boy," said Ellis, who grew up in Oberlin, Ohio, which had some 5,000 residents when he lived there.
Ellis, who is originally from Michigan, comes from an academic family. His father, Wade Ellis Sr., was a dean at the University of Michigan, president of Mary Grove College in Detroit and a math professor at various colleges. His mother, Agatha Ellis, was a kindergarten teacher, and his brother, William Whit Ellis, is a senior researcher at the Library of Congress.
Ellis received a master's degree in mathematics from Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, in 1974. He had received his associate degree at Oberlin College. Previously, he attended a prep school in Andover, Mass., from which he graduated with high honors in math and physics.
At first, he wanted to teach high school. He spent a year teaching at a high school in a lower-middle-class, Italian-Catholic suburb in Cleveland, Ohio. The school imported academically gifted African-American students from lower-income areas, and race riots often broke out between the two groups. Although no race riots occurred when Ellis taught there, he decided he'd rather teach college. "It was a great year, and I'm glad I did it, but I never want to do it again," he said.
After he entered graduate school, Ellis taught various math classes to students of many levels, including students with very little math background.
Ellis says he decided to become a community college instructor, rather than a university instructor, because his first and only responsibility would be teaching. After he received his master's degree, he moved to California because of the great weather. Also, its education system supported community college education much more than other states, he said.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
