Artist, Mathematician, Educator – The Watchdog

You might find Dr. Luke Rawlings speed-walking across campus with students trailing behind him as he narrowly makes it to his next class. If you want to ask him a question after a lecture, it would be wise to book a reservation a month in advance because the line to speak to him often stretches far out the door. In fact, it took me almost two weeks to schedule an interview with him!

I remember when I first met Dr. Rawlings. He covered my linear algebra class mid-quarter, and upon meeting us all for the first time, he informed us that he was a crazy person. He then proceeded to tell us some hilarious but slightly inappropriate jokes about eigenvectors. Even though there were only a few weeks left in the quarter when he took over our class, he managed to fit many riveting stories and jokes about linear algebra into his lectures. I was so taken away by his lively method of teaching a dry topic that I went on to take the rest of my math classes with him.

Dr. Rawlings got his start in math as an artist. As a child, he struggled with math but was enamored with the work of M.C. Escher and would trace over prints of Escher’s work. He did not realize then that he was doing abstract algebra in his artistic pursuits. While he continued to make art, he did not come into math as a subject of study until “chapter three” of his life, as he states in his bio. He started his career as a dancer and was a Broadway performer for some time. Later, when he turned to academia, Columbia University saw his work in his application to study there and requested him to enroll in their math program because they found his art and ideas on education to be highly interesting. On his website, where he posts his artwork, there is a section dedicated to his process of creating tessellation art. Pictures of his sketchbooks from early experiments with different shapes provide background into his thought process and finished artwork can be seen here. His dissertation, Grünbaum and Shephard’s classification of Escher-like patterns with applications to abstract algebra, can be ordered on ProQuest for further reading on abstract algebra and group theory in relation to tessellations. 

Students say that his teaching methods changed their perspective on math, so much so that getting into a class taught by him is an Olympic sport. Andrew Lehr, a BC alum who now attends UW Bothell, told me, “Luke turned math from a bunch of tedious rules to follow into tools to create, explore, and play with. He has forever changed my understanding of math for the better.” Dr. Rawlings has a novel way of teaching, particularly his un-grading method, wherein he refuses to give out letter grades until the end of the quarter and often institutes a way for students to grade their progress by self-designed metrics. He believes that this method of teaching math without an emphasis on grades allows the math classroom to be a place of creativity rather than one of tedious problem-solving. Will Norden, another BC alum and Dr. Rawlings’ protegé said, “I basically fell in love with the frameworks people use to analyze the world…I never knew that was possible for me, and Dr. Rawlings’ love for it rubbed off on me and I saw the beauty in it that I’ve always heard was there but never saw for myself.” He went on to say, “He turned math from my absolute weakest subject into one of my strongest.” 

A comedian and trained dancer with many years of experience as a Broadway performer, Dr. Rawlings has a way of weaving stories that leave the audience entranced. Lauren Slivka, who is now pursuing her B.S. in pure mathematics at UW Seattle, says, “I still remember what the lowercase omega letter looks like, as he compared it to how pointy a secretary’s butt must look after sitting for hours.” In differential equations, he would explain the equation for growth by telling us about the time he had students construct a differential equation for “how long it would take for tabloids to say that Britney Spears isn’t wearing panties,” in reference to when Britney Spears shaved her head in 2007. To this day, I remember that a vector field has a sink if its divergence is negative, given the toilet humor that accompanied that explanation and that one should never give their boss the trivial solution to a differential equation due to the number of memes and jokes born from that quip.

As a professor at Bellevue College, Dr. Rawlings has been very pragmatic about advocating for those who cannot do so for themselves. Liam Anderson, now studying applied math and physics at UW Seattle, attributes his courage to speak at the Math and Physics Colloquium on advanced integration techniques and deliver the last lecture in vector calculus on Maxwell’s Equations to Dr. Rawlings’ encouragement. “He always would push me towards exploring the patterns I notice in class, and to explore my mathematical interests, helping me advocate for myself to learn topics way beyond the scope of so many classes.” In past conversations with Dr. Rawlings, he has spoken passionately about supporting women in mathematics. I found his positive reinforcement to be a great driving force in my efforts to resurrect the math club at BC. 

Interview with Dr. Rawlings:

What was your math journey?

“I’m a ‘late bloomer’ when it comes to mathematics, but I’m so intensely interested in answering the question ‘from where did this concept or symbol originate, and why?’ I was lucky to have been a student of some incredible teachers, too, who had a great influence on me, but I struggled to learn the subject and never ever tested well. No matter what happened in school, I seemed to be drawn to the subject because of a feeling of satisfaction when things made sense.  I read books on the history of symbols and was blown away when I read about the great ideas the so-called inventors of Calculus had regarding the two parts of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, a theorem that was so mysterious and frustrating at first, and, with some history, so simple and clear. I wondered why these stories were not taught to us in school, but the fact that they weren’t motivated me to search and find. But I struggled every year, until graduate school. I have noticed that I have truly learned mathematics by teaching it, and still learn new things to this day. Even as a professional dancer, I would be reading analysis books in rehearsals for shows, working problems on breaks, and tutoring when I was not employed as a performer. But my journey, if I’m honest, is that I am always learning more and more about the subject.”

What inspires your art?

“I don’t know how to answer this briefly, but art keeps saving my life. I do it because I feel like I have to, as if I have things inside of me that have to be released. At my core, I’m an artist. I’ve always felt compelled to write or draw or paint, and the act of creating something is sometimes frightening at first, but somehow always healing and satisfying in the end. I love the connection art has with mathematics, but also the freedom to express yourself in some form. I love rebellious people, too, and have found artists to be important rebellious people. Art helps me deal with depression, anxiety, grief, and self-expression. I’m obsessed with office supply stores and if I walk into any store with art supplies, I lose all control in managing my finances. Give me a paycheck and I will buy canvases and tubes of paint before paying a bill.”

Why do you teach the way you do?

“I absolutely love the challenge of standing in front of a group of people and trying to make mathematics a pleasurable experience. But I think of the many many moments in my own life when someone helped pry me away from my own ignorance. That is a SKILL. Every time it happened, someone did something that ignited a fire inside of me. I think that’s our job: to light a fire inside of someone else. I see myself as part teacher and part educator, but I dislike the education system in general, and especially dislike the direction in which it is going. It’s a system of indoctrination. I see teaching as an art form, and I am at my happiest when I am sharing why I love the job of professor of mathematics. It’s also work that I am drawn to because it is constantly stimulating: I know I can always improve at it, and also learn from others. I can be ill or exhausted and walk in a classroom and feel alive. It’s a job I absolutely love doing. Every time I learn something, I tend to drift toward the teaching aspect of that thing.

I believe I am sloppy in the area of teaching methods. I have found that I have always learned something when I am playing. (Psychology says this, too.) I think teaching is an art form and we should be comfortable with messy. We should break structure and try things. We should go for connection and storytelling, not the mere learning of facts. My teaching philosophy is best summed up in a picture: I want to be able to convince students that the goal is the one on the right, not just the left.”