Sadie Bragg’s history as a mathematician of note is not ancient history. In the case of most community college faculty, their place in history comes not from research or work on mathematics per se, but from their efforts to reach more people with the knowledge of mathematics they need to be a contributing member of the community or to pursue a career. Dr. Bragg was President of AMATYC from 1998 through 1999 and was the first, and at this date, only African American to serve in that position. She promoted the community college here in the United States and, to some degree, globally. Sadie served on the AMATYC board from 1994 through 2001. She was president of NYSMATYC, the New York affiliate, before that.
I had the good fortune of becoming friends with Sadie when Geoff Akst, her colleague from BMCC, invited her to come to the AMATYC conference in Calgary. I was chair of the newly founded Equal Opportunity Committee. Geoff introduced Sadie to me and said he thought that she could make significant contributions to the committee. Sadie did just that and became very active in AMATYC. She later became chair of the Equal Opportunity Committee.
Sadie was born in Petersburg, VA, and lived in that area until she left for college. She married her high school sweetheart, Alvin Bragg, to whom she was married for nearly 50 years. She graduated from Virginia State University and then continued her education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where she earned a Doctorate in Education.
She became a member of the faculty at Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) in 1982, where she worked to ensure that students had the classes, support services, and advising that would allow them to transfer to four-year colleges. After serving as faculty for 24 years, Sadie joined the administration at BMCC, where she served as Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs. Sadie was a contributing author for pre-college textbooks and, with colleague Geoffrey Akst, co-authored a college textbook series. She always worked to find ways of learning that were effective for non-traditional students.
The community college was her great love, after Alvin and her family. She was always looking to help the organization and support our students. Several of us from AMATYC attended the International Congress of Mathematical Education (ICME) in Quebec in 1992. Upon scanning the program, we were concerned to find that the community college and other non-university, tertiary institutions around the world were not represented at this international meeting. The model of education referenced here includes community colleges, technical schools, junior colleges, and colleges for special skills that do not lead to a baccalaureate degree. These were becoming increasingly popular in developed and developing countries throughout the world, and the educators in those institutions should have the opportunity for the growth provided by meeting with their international peers. To attempt to remedy this, I managed to secure a venue for meeting with those educators at the next meeting of ICME, four years later in Seville, SP. Sadie was ready to promote the effort, and she and Alvin made plans to attend and assist!
In her role as President of AMATYC, Sadie was proud to lead a group from AMATYC to the next ICME conference, four years later, in Tokyo, Makuhari/Japan. For the first time in the 36-year history of the ICME conferences, a session was listed on the program that was specifically for educators from non-university, tertiary institutions around the globe. I chaired the session and was joined by three representatives of other countries, one each from Japan, Uganda and Philippines.
The major AMATYC projects that Sadie was involved in and that represented her educational interests were Beyond Crossroads and Project ACCCESS. Beyond Crossroads was a Special Issue of The AMATYC Review consisting of the reflections of several mathematics educators on the significance of the original Crossroads in Mathematics document, published in 1995, and its possible impact on teaching and learning. Project ACCCESS, on the other hand, is a program that provides mentoring and professional development opportunities for two-year college mathematics faculty. The goal is to help new faculty become more effective in teaching and more involved in the mathematical community.
Sadie received the honor of an invitation to serve as a member of the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction of the National Academy of Sciences. She received several awards from BMCC and AMATYC for teaching and leadership.
I had the pleasure of being her friend until she slipped away in 2018. I visited her in Harlem, where I got to tour the wonderful Brownstone boarding house that she and Alvin had remodeled and refurbished into a beautiful 4-story home. And she visited me in Texas and was persuaded to at least sit on, if not to ride, one of our horses. The reward for her compliance was a picture to show her students.
Sadie was the epitome of the women and men of history in community college mathematics. She was a master of the mathematics that her students needed and totally committed to finding ways to ensure their learning.
Sources
AMATYC. (2019, January). “AMATYC News – Volume 34, Number 1.” Retrieved from
https://cdn.ymaws.com/amatyc.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/amatyc_news/january_2019_for_web.pdf
An Interview with AMATYC Past President Sadie Bragg. (n.d.). AMATYC. Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://amatyc.org/page/sadiebragg
Mathematics Excellence Award Recipients 2010. (n.d.). AMATYC. Retrieved March 14, 2021, from https://amatyc.org/general/custom.asp?page=MathExcellenWin2010
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