Indiana Section of the Mathematical Association of America
Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics

Citation to

Justin J. Price

To the best of our knowledge, a citation was not prepared for the presentation of this award; however, the following was the citation given for the national award.

The Mathematical Association of America is pleased to present a 1993 MAA Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics to Justin J. Price of Purdue University. Professor Price was the recipient of the 1993 Indiana Section Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics.

Justin J. Price received his Ph. D. in mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania in 1956, and he has taught at Comell University and, since 1963, at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he is Professor of Mathematics. At Purdue, Professor Price has been involved with an exceedingly wide variety of courses, ranging from Graduate Real Analysis to Freshman Calculus and from Honors Real Analysis for advanced undergraduate mathematics majors to special courses for mathematics education majors. He has positively influenced the lives and careers of an enormous number of students and colleagues through his teaching and his related efforts. He has authored, with Harley Flanders, textbooks in calculus, precalculus, and college algebra. In 1976 he was awarded the Lester R. Ford Award for excellence in expository writing by the MAA for his article "Topics in Orthogonal Functions," which appeared in the American Mathematical Monthly, and his contributions of teaching related articles to the mathematical literature continue to be appreciated by readers of such journals as The Mathematics Teacher and The College Mathematics Journal.

Excellence in exposition is not only a quality of Professor Price's own writings, but also a goal which he has challenged his students to attain and to carry along with them into their careers. His point of view on this expectation of students - whether prospective mathematics researchers or prospective school teachers - is qualitatively the same: to develop the ability to express mathematical ideas clearly and precisely in a grammatically correct and readable mixture of mathematical formalism and English. Price's emphasis on writing excellence in the mathematics curriculum preceded the acceptance by professional organizations of such efforts as fundamental adopted principles by at least a decade. And he is currently involved as a principle investigator in a major NSF-funded project "Enhancing Teachers' Abilities to Teach Mathematics as Communication."

For his extraordinary success in the teaching of mathematics, excellence in exposition of the ideas of mathematics and mathematics education, and positive influence on the careers and lives of students, teachers, and colleagues, Justin J. Price is deserving of this recognition.