Chamber President Joins with Past President of MCTM to Speak at National Math Conference

Chamber President Walt Townshend, who also serves as Vice President of the BWCC Foundation, joined with Sue Vohrer, immediate past president of the Maryland Council of Teachers of Mathematics (MCTM), to speak at the recent Northeast Regional Conference of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. The conference was held at the Baltimore Convention Center and drew nearly 3,000 math educators.

Townshend and Vohrer’s presentation was entitled “Building a Public Private Partnership for Mathematics Conferences,” and focused on the strategic alliance among the BWCC, the BWCC Foundation and the MCTM in producing the annual mathematics conference for Maryland’s math educators.  To our knowledge, Maryland is the only state in the U. S. have such a partnership for its statewide math organization.

The BWCC Foundation has produced an annual program for math educators since 1993, celebrating twenty years of STEM support.  The last four years’ conferences have been conducted in strategic alliance with the MCTM. 

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is the public voice of mathematics education, providing vision, leadership, and professional development to support teachers in ensuring mathematics learning of the highest quality for all students. With 80,000 members and more than 200 Affiliates, NCTM is the world’s largest organization dedicated to improving mathematics education in prekindergarten through grade 12.

As part of the presentation, Townshend used the mathematics ambigram designed by Michael Irving, shown here, which reveals the same word when viewed upside down.  The Chamber president said, “those in the business community and the mathematics community see the issue somewhat differently—but it is still the goal of both to improve mathematics education for our future workforce.”