PROVO — In fifth grade, a teacher told Tyler Jarvis that he would never be good at math.
“I was terrible at math in elementary school,” Jarvis said in a statement. “When I reached junior high school, I learned the good students got to take algebra, while the bad students had to do more arithmetic. I wasn’t quite sure what algebra was, but I knew I wanted to be done with arithmetic.”
This month, the BYU mathematics professor was given the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo award — the most prestigious teaching award in the country for university mathematics instructors.
“This is not just any teaching award,” Michael Dorff, chairman of BYU’s math department, said in a statment. “It has been likened to the U.S. Hall of Fame of teaching undergraduate mathematics.”
Only three professors receive the Haimo award each year out of a possible 20,000 members of the Mathematical Association of America. According to an association release, the award is given to teachers who have been extraordinarily successful and whose teaching effectiveness reaches beyond the university.
Dorff, who received the award in 2009, attributes Jarvis’ success as a teacher to the enthusiasm, passion and care he has for his students — a sentiment echoed even by students who didn’t major in mathematics.
“It was not the content material that was significant, it was the fact that Dr. Jarvis had designed the class to help students develop good thinking skills in all aspects of their lives,” Daniel Butler, a former political science student, said in a statement. “The mentoring-like experience I had with Dr. Jarvis gave me the head start that has allowed me to perform well in Stanford’s competitive Ph.D. program.”