Thanks to the editor-in-chief Katie Jang, I had the lovely opportunity to sit down with Royce Olarte, a La Sierra University class of 2017 Honors graduate. We talked about the many twists and turns that landed him in a dual-emphasis mathematics education and cognitive science Ph.D. focus program at University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) where his passion for improving equity and social justice in teaching can thrive.
Royce’s family moved to Loma Linda from the Philippines when he was seven years old and from then until his graduation from La Sierra University, he had the same tight-knit friend and family group he could always rely on. Those he knew from that friend group, as well as many friends he met in Honors, shared the pre-med, music major track that he entered La Sierra with. During our discussion, one praise Royce gave to the pre-med track was the direction it provided, especially within the Adventist system. The work is not easy, but at least the steps are clear. Royce was involved with Honors and the university in many ways; among other things, he was the worship leader, Honors council president, and South Hall Resident Assistant for two years. And for the first two years, it was fine! However, something had to go wrong… and so the first twist came from chemistry.
Royce found that the information he was learning in chemistry just wasn’t engaging and exciting him as he hoped – but the math classes he was taking for fun on the side were. It wasn’t the pure math such as solving complicated calculus problems or proving Lagrange’s theorem that was the grab for Royce, but the teaching. As an extracurricular, he had been teaching music and always enjoyed it. Now he thought he could transition that and become a high school math teacher. However, when it came time to shadow high school math teaching, he found the experience unlike what he previously envisioned and made another pivot. Math education was still the focus, but now at a more meta-level. He began what he is working on now, eight years later, researching “himself.” At first, he looked at how undergraduate math students learned, and now as he is closing out his Ph.D. he is researching how math graduate students form their professional identities as aspiring faculty.
After his time at La Sierra, Royce landed at Portland State University where he acquired his MS in Mathematics for Teachers. At Portland, he trained as an algebraist but after getting through his courses in only one year and a quarter, the distance from the community he’d built over the past 10+ years finally caught up to him and he came home. For the next year and a half, from 2019 to the summer of 2020, he was an adjunct professor in the math department at La Sierra University. Only one year post-graduation, he was back teaching and attending meetings with his former professors and now colleagues. He shared how weird it felt. Some of his friends were still students about to graduate, and since he was so involved as an undergraduate, most people knew him not as the calculus professor but as the worship leader or Honors RA and math guy. As the university transitioned to online schooling in the winter of 2020, Royce received news that he had been accepted to his number one choice UCSB to complete his Ph.D.! Today, he researches and writes about equity and social justice in mathematics and higher education contexts.
After completing his Ph.D., Royce plans to continue his research at a university while teaching occasionally. He’d like to one day start enacting the solutions his research finds. Hopefully one day as a provost or other university leader, he can help usher in more equitable math education at the university level.
After discussing his path and background, I got to ask Royce a question I’ve thought about many times: “Does school teach the right math in the right way?” And he answered my question in the best way, by saying, “Of course not, and just like the way math is taught, that question is too narrow.” As someone who struggled with algebra and trigonometry in high school and early college but now loves complex math more than any other subject, I was hoping to hear an answer about something like a different order of math subjects but Royce opened my mind to the idea of “What even is complex math?” He discussed critically examining how educational systems and institutions have defined “math” because that directly impacts how students engage with mathematics, how teachers teach mathematics, and how we prepare teachers to teach mathematics. At a high level, the math connects seemingly unrelated concepts, phenomena, and situations and is deeply tied to how people engage with the world. Many other cultures around the world, such as Indigenous people, do complex math that we don’t recognize or value because what we teach is such a narrow Eurocentric slice. Perhaps there are entire mathematical worlds yet to be recognized and appreciated, ready to reshape our worldviews.
We ended the interview with advice. Royce had two major suggestions for undergraduates. First, embrace failing and being uncomfortable. Looking back, he wishes he had stayed in Portland longer, even though it was hard, as that was where he “grew up” and had to learn all the solo adulting things. Secondly, one of the hardest things Royce learned is self-grace. He wanted to remind students that if you’re having a bad day, don’t force yourself to slog through it, just go to the beach for a little. Find the rest and inspiration that will get you over the barrier.
Thank you Royce for being willing to talk with me and educate me a little about this subject I’ve spent so much time with. I wish you the best as you finish your Ph.D. and look forward to reading your dissertation.
– Zack Sutter (Majors: Mathematics & Computer Science, Class of 2025)