Faces of Michigan

Robert Megginson: Climbing Higher and Digging Deeper

By V. Thandi Sule

Robert Megginson is an avid mountain climber. Mountain climbing allows him to pay homage to his Lakota Sioux ancestry because among the Sioux, high places are deemed sacred. Mountain climbing also reinforces his appreciation for diversity, because it gives him the opportunity to experience the interconnectedness of natural phenomena. Upon reaching a mountain’s summit, he is reminded of how human destiny is intertwined. For this reason, he believes humanity is rewarded when everyone has an opportunity to achieve their personal best. “There is a summit for everybody,” he insists.

As the associate dean for undergraduate and graduate education in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA), and one of the few American Indians with a doctorate in mathematics, Megginson works tirelessly to ensure that students reach their personal summits. He believes that diversity is one way of promoting student success. “It’s not possible,” Megginson says, “to function in this world if you’ve only been working with people who are just like yourself and believe the same things that you believe.” Accordingly, he asserts that diversity is about engagement across differences.

In order to foster this type of engagement within academe, Megginson encourages members from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups and women to consider disciplines and careers that have been historically closed to them because of discrimination, inadequate educational preparation or other reasons. He has mentored underrepresented students from varied backgrounds who have gone on to receive degrees in math-related disciplines. And, through such professional organizations as the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and the Mathematical Association of America, he has spearheaded recruitment and mentoring efforts for underrepresented groups.

Some of Megginson’s most important work has been done on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Since 1992, he has devoted summers to math and science enrichment and mentoring programs for students from the reservation. His goal is to get students interested in math so that it doesn’t stand in the way of their career goals. In 1997, Megginson was recognized for his mentoring work when he received the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring. And in 1999, he received the Ely S. Parker Award, the highest honor from the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, for lifetime service to the American Indian Community.

Megginson’s efforts to foster mentoring relationships and develop role models extend to the teaching population on the reservation. Because most teachers of Indian students are not Indian, he is actively involved in grooming teachers of Native American descent. For several years he has designed and helped direct programs for the largely American Indian teacher aide population on Indian reservations, primarily among the Pueblo tribes of the Southwest. The aides take college courses in the history of American Indian Education, as well as math classes, in the hope that they will complete their college degrees and work as teachers on Indian Reservations. Megginson believes that access to role models is essential to American Indian academic development. “There is nothing that tells Indian kids that ‘I can do mathematics’ better than seeing a person from their own tribe teaching them mathematics,” he says.

A member of the U-M community since 1992, Robert Megginson is committed to ensuring that the University continues to be a thriving teaching and learning environment by promoting excellence in teaching and mentoring students. In addition to serving as the director of the undergraduate mathematics lab, he has served on many committees, including the President’s Advisory Council on Multicultural Affairs and the LSA curriculum committee, and in 1999, received the Regents’ Award for Distinguished Public Service.