 |
PIONEER: Sunseri was the first
woman to join the department.
Glenn Matsumura |
Everyone knew when Professor
Mary Sunseri held office hours. “I remember her
sitting in her office surrounded by students sitting
on the floor and down the hall,” says mathematics
professor emeritus Robert Osserman. “Invariably
there were these hordes of students at her office hours
when others would have few come to see them.”
Each one waited to ask questions about everything from
introductory calculus to life in general.
The first woman to join the Stanford mathematics faculty,
and one of the University’s legendary teachers,
Sunseri died October 16 at her lifelong home in San
Jose, of cancer. She was 87.
Drawn to mathematics from an early age, Sunseri earned
her bachelor’s degree in 1938 from San Jose State.
Little did she know when she set foot on Stanford’s
campus for graduate school that she would make her career
there. She accepted her first instructor position in
1943, teaching undergraduate calculus and mathematical
analysis. Sunseri was named assistant professor in 1955,
associate professor in 1969 and professor in 1979. She
retired in 1986.
Sunseri focused on undergraduate mathematics instruction,
particularly for freshmen. “The other professors
wanted to teach advanced courses,” says professor
emeritus Joseph Keller. “But Mary was so happy
to teach the undergrads. She loved it and they loved
her.” Sunseri received the Walter J. Gores Award
for excellence in teaching in 1972 and the Dean’s
Award for distinguished teaching in 1979. In 1984, the
senior class selected her to speak at Class Day.
She made it a priority to get to know students on a
personal level and remained friends with many of them.
“Even though I didn’t choose math as a career,
I certainly applied her approach to learning,”
says Ruth Kamena, ’51. “She taught me that
if a door opens, go through and don’t worry about
it.”
Hoping to encourage women to pursue graduate study
in mathematics, Sunseri endowed the Mary V. Sunseri
Graduate Fellowship in 1998. (She also established the
Leo F. Sunseri Men’s Basketball Scholarship in
honor of her brother, and John, ’55, MBA ’61,
and Barbara Bentley Packard, ’54, MS ’55,
MS ’77, endowed a professorship in her honor.)
But working alongside almost exclusively male colleagues
never seemed to bother Sunseri. “I never got a
sense that being the only woman made any difference
to her,” Kamena says. “As far as I could
tell, she had them all whipped into shape.”
|
