Nana Linge
Many associate the Dead Poets Society with the 1989 film about Robin Williams’ character, Mr. Keating, inspiring his students through the art of poetry. However, Associate Professor of Math, Ron Taylor, was inspired by a scene in the film to bring the same dynamic to mathematics.
Taylor attended a math meeting in 2006 where a friend of his gave a talk entitled “Teaching Research: Encouraging Discoveries.” The discussion went through the process of doing research with undergraduate students. It correlated with the clip shown from the film where Mr. Keating makes one of his students come up in front of the class and compose a poem. As it shows, the experience has a transformative effect on the student.
“One of his primary motivations for working with students is to cultivate their “mathematical yawp,” which he defines as ‘that expression of surprise or delight at discovering the beauty of a mathematical idea or argument’,” said Taylor.
The club originally started as an experiment by Taylor as he encouraged students to come for free pizza and solve problems.
“[I] bribed half a dozen students with pizza to meet one evening and work on a problem from a math journal. We were able to solve it, submit our solution and get our name in the journal,” said Taylor. “Now, seven years later, we have somewhere between ten and twenty students each week along with half a dozen faculty members and I don’t have to buy them pizza anymore.”
In relation to the movie, each DPS meeting begins with a quote from George Polya’s “How to Solve It” that begins with, “A great discovery solves a great problem but there is a grain of discovery in the solution of any problem.”
DPS tries to encourage students to think outside the box and not be limited to what they see or hear. The club is open to all on-campus, math major or not, and Assistant Professor of Math, Dr. Zahava Wilstein, said that anyone can participate.
“We always have problems that you can do without seeing Calc I,” said Wilstein. “The problems aren’t easy, but they are accessible where you do not need advanced techniques.”
Although the club does not primarily prepare for math competitions, Wilstein said they typically practice old questions from former regional national competitions, test problems and exams.
“We are a group of people that like to work on problems…incidentally we end up at competitions. It is not the goal of the group,” said Senior Justin Lyle.
The club has participated in competitions and the team recently placed second at Mercer University’s math competition. DPS has expanded beyond Berry and has been adopted at other schools, which include: Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania, Odessa College in Texas and Rabun Gap High School, here in Georgia.
“Odessa and Rabun Gap were started by former Berry students who now teach at those schools, and Slippery Rock was started by a friend who liked the idea enough to want to use it for his students,” said Taylor. These math fanatics are taking the concept of carpe diem to a whole new level.