Caren Diefenderfer

Caren began teaching at Hollins College (later Hollins University) in 1977 where she remained for the next forty years, rising through the ranks from instructor to full professor. During that time she served multiple terms as chair of the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science as well as two terms as chair of the Division of Natural and Mathematics Sciences. She even served for one year as the acting director of Academic Computing Services. Caren was awarded the Hollins University Distinguished Service Award in 2008. In 2011 she received both the Herta Freitag Faculty Award as well as the Roberta A. Stewart Service Award. The former honors "a member of the faculty whose recent scholarly and creative achievement reflect the extraordinary academic standards" set by long-time Hollins mathematics professor Freitag. At the May 2017 commencement she was posthumously recognized with the Algernon Sydney Sulliven Community Award (Citation ). The Hollins Quantitative Reasoning program that Caren helped to develop and lead as Acting Director became a model for other institutions interested in creating their own quantitative reasoning requirement. Her expertise on quantitative reasoning was recognized by her election as chair of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Special Interest Group in Quantitative Literacy, her appointment as a member of the MAA Committee on Quantitative Literacy and the MAA Committee on Articulation and Placement, and her selection as a member of the Advisory Board of the National Numeracy Network and her election as President of that organization from 2011 to 2013. Her editorial on "The Joy of Quantitative Reasoning" was published in the journal Numeracy in 2012. She was well respected as a workshop leader, invited speaker, and outside evaluator for quantitative reasoning programs at numerous colleges and universities throughout the United States. Caren was an active member of the Mathematical Association of America. She served the Maryland-District of Columbia-Virginia Section in many capacities and was elected as Governor of the section from 2013-2016. In that position she also served on the national Board of Governors for the MAA. She chaired the Linear Algebra group from 2013 to 2015 for the MAA's 2015 Curriculum Guide. In 2015 Caren received the John M. Smith Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching for the MA-DC-VA section. As the recipient she also became the section's nominee for the national Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. In January 2017 she was one of three winners of this award. The citation reads as follows: For her work as an outstanding teacher and leader both as a professor at Hollins University and in the larger mathematical community, Caren Diefenderfer is recognized with a 2017 Haimo Award. Her contributions to the teaching of mathematics are deep and broad. She has inspired students at many different levels—high school and college students, math majors and math-averse students, and students in her classroom and students nationwide whom she has never met. At Hollins University, Caren has distinguished herself as a well-loved professor who teaches a broad range of mathematics courses. In addition to her success with the standard curriculum (students write poems about her linear algebra class), she has designed and taught eight special topics courses in mathematics, and supervised forty-nine senior mathematics projects. She has been an active participant in the Hollins First-Year Seminar program, developing and teaching three interdisciplinary courses, most recently Games, Puzzles, and Logic, designed to help students succeed in college by improving their skill in written and oral communication. Students of many different interests and abilities speak enthusiastically of her influence on their lives. First at Hollins, and later in the wider community, Caren has been a pioneer in