2020 ME Award Recipient

In receiving the 2020 ME Award, Dr. Richelle (Rikki) Blair becomes the 19th recipient of the award first given in 1984.  Rikki was recognized by President Kozak during the 2020 virtual conference and at the virtual Delegate Assembly. 

Rikki was a faculty member and department chairperson at Lakeland CC (OH) and was awarded Professor Emeritus for teaching excellence and service.  As Statewide Coordinator for Administration for Ohio's NSF-funded Project Discovery in the early 1990s, she led a statewide professional development program for K-12 teachers. 

Rikki has left indelible marks on AMATYC as an organization and on mathematics education nationally.  Within AMATYC, she served as Regional Vice President, President-Elect, President, and Past President.  She chaired the Placement and Assessment Committee, was AMATYC's first Historian, and was Writer and Editor for standards documents Crossroads and Beyond Crossroads, respectively.  Rikki was part of the writing team for AMATYC's newest document, IMPACT.  AMATYC awarded Rikki Presidential Awards for Outstanding Service in 1993 and 2000. 

Nationally, Rikki was appointed as a member of the US National Commission for Mathematics Instruction of the National Research Council, the NSF Federal Advisory Committee for Education and Human Resources, the Executive Committee of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences (CBMS), the Executive Board of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board (MSEB) of the National Research Council, and the MSEB Task Force on Quantitative Literacy.  Rikki served on several committees of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), including the Department Review Committee, the Committee on Two-Year Colleges, and the Steering Committee of the Preparing Mathematicians to Educate Teachers initiative. She has a unique ability to work across organizations and tasks to support mathematics education.

Rikki's professional contributions began forty years ago and continue to the present.  As Associate Director for Two-Year Colleges, Rikki manages the two-year college component of the CBMS national survey of US mathematical sciences programs.  She is a co-author of the CBMS2010 and CBMS2015 reports and is currently working on the 2020 survey process.  Rikki is Mathematics Consultant and Leadership Fellow at the Charles A. Dana Center of the University of Texas at Austin.  She recently served as Editor for a compelling Dana Center report entitled Emerging Issues in Mathematics Pathways:  Case Studies, Scans of the Field, and Recommendations.