Chapter 5: Reaching Distinction Through Striking a Balance

As is the case for most academics, throughout my career, my workload has been divided into the areas of teaching, research, outreach, and service. Note, however, that these areas intersect in many ways. For me, focusing on this intersection has been purposeful in that I feel that it is an important part of becoming a change agent. My work focuses on factors that influence K–12 students’ achievement in mathematics. These factors include, but are not limited to, family and personal influences which include parental education, socio-economic status, race/ethnicity, and students’ abilities and beliefs; school factors which include teachers’ knowledge and instructional methods, students’ opportunities to learn, school policies, and curricula; and community factors which include the potential for upward mobility and school support systems. The projects in which I have been involved highlight the connections between the aforementioned factors and how they can influence students’ mathematics achievement in positive and negative ways. Moreover, they connect across the components of my academic mission. In this chapter, I describe how I reached the point of being named a distinguished professor and the lessons that I learned along the way.