Jordan Edwards, a senior from Greenville, MI, is the recipient of the Excellence in the Discipline award in the mathematics department this year.

Jordan became interested in Grand Valley through an aunt who works in the Career Center and who regularly promoted the school to him.  After a campus visit, he was swayed by the personable environment and the small class sizes.  He arrived his first year with quite a bit of college credit obtained through Advanced Placement and dual-enrollment classes he took at Montcalm Community College near his hometown.

Jordan’s mother, a middle school math teacher, introduced him to the pleasures of mathematical thinking at a young age.  As a young student, he would often play around with mathematical ideas when he had completed other school work assigned to him.  He describes developing an expression for the area of a trapezoid on his own and how he came to see algebra as a continual puzzle.  

In spite of this, however, he wasn’t initially interested in studying math when he first came to Grand Valley.  It had been a while since he took calculus during his sophomore year of high school so he planned to major in both computer science and math and to eventually seek a career in computing.  However, he took MTH 210, Communicating in Mathematics, which serves as an introduction to proofs, with Dr. David Clark, and was drawn to the power and pleasure found in creating logical arguments.  Through that course, he reacquired his love of mathematics and declared a theoretical math major in his second semester.

During his time at Grand Valley, Jordan has been involved in several research projects, beginning with a study of the game Lights Out with Dr. Darren Parker in the summer after his freshman year.  As part of this project, he developed a formula for determining the winnability of the game on multi-partite graphs, which helped him grow in his confidence that math is what he wanted to do.  In addition, Jordan has spent a couple of semesters researching seven-dimensional Lie algebras with Dr. Firas Hindeleh and another semester investigating a method for evaluating particularly complicated integrals with Dr. Feryal Alayont.  Jordan has presented these various projects at several regional and national conferences to much positive feedback.

Besides his interest in mathematical research, Jordan has discovered a real talent and passion for teaching and helping others to learn mathematics.  In addition to serving as a tutor in the Math Center, Jordan worked last summer as an in-class tutor for a section of MTH 110, Intermediate Algebra, and as a tutor in the Oliver Wilson Scholars program.  This past academic year, he has served as a peer mentor and academic coach in the PAL (Peer Assisted Learning) program in sections of MTH 124, Precalculus, and MTH 201, Calculus I.  Jordan has excelled in this role, providing excellent support to both students and the instructors of these courses.  After graduation, Jordan will continue on this trajectory by entering Central Michigan University’s Ph.D. program in mathematics with a concentration in collegiate mathematics teaching.  

Besides his love of math and teaching, Jordan enjoys playing pick-up basketball on campus, weightlifting, and hunting.  He also has discovered a love for history and learning about the past.

When asked what advice he would give to students just beginning to study mathematics, Jordan leans into his own experience and encourages them to view math with a playful attitude and to recognize that the only real way to learn math is by actually doing it.  Making mistakes is a part of the process so it’s important to allow yourself to sometimes be wrong.

We’re excited to see what the future holds for Jordan and wish him all the best at Central Michigan!