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A Dream Deferred: 50 Years of Blacks in Mathematics, Inaugural C. Dwight Lahr Lecture by Edray Herber Goins, Ponoma College

In 1934, Walter Richard Talbot earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh; he was the fourth African American to earn a doctorate in mathematics. Unfortunately, opportunities for African Americans during that time to continue their research were severely limited. “When I entered the college teaching scene, it was 1934,” Talbot is quoted as saying. “It was 35 years later before I had a chance to start existing in the national activities of the mathematical bodies.” Concerned with the exclusion of African Americans at various national meetings, Talbot helped to found the National Association of Mathematicians (NAM), the nationwide organization of African Americans in Mathematics, in 1969.

In this talk, we take a tour of the mathematics done by African and African Americans over the past 50 years since the founding of NAM, weaving in personal stories and questions for reflection for the next 50 years.

Edray Herber Goins grew up in South Los Angeles, California.  The product of the Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD) public school system, Goins attended the California Institute of Technology, where he majored in mathematics and physics, and earned his doctorate in mathematics from Stanford University.  Goins was on the faculty at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana from 2004 through 2018, where he rose through the ranks to become Professor of Mathematics in 2017.  He was only the second African American to receive tenure in the Department of Mathematics, and one of two African Americans out of 300 professors in the College of Science at the Big Ten school.  Goins is currently a Professor of Mathematics at Pomona College in Claremont, California.  He works in the field of number theory, as it pertains to the intersection of representation theory and algebraic geometry.   Goins served as president of the National Association of Mathematics (NAM), the nationwide organization of African Americans in Mathematicians, from 2015-2020.

Goins caused quite a stir when he wrote a blog in September 2017 for the American Mathematical Society (AMS) titled "Why I’m leaving a Research I University for a Liberal Arts College."  In this essay, Goins outlined his reasons for leaving his tenured position at Purdue University after 14 years in favor of Pomona College.  He discussed how isolation -- both academic and social -- led him to rethink his career trajectory.   This blog was picked up by the New York Times, where Goins's story was featured in more detail.  The February 2019 front-page article titled "For a Black Mathematician, What It’s Like to Be the `Only One’" and its follow-up article titled "What I Learned While Reporting on the Dearth of Black Mathematicians" featured Goins's struggles with the mathematical community and his efforts to make it more inclusive.