Gary Sherman

Rick Gillman
Fall 2026

Last fall, I wrote about the section’s Distinguished Teaching Award. This fall, I’d like to share a bit more about the first winner, Gary Sherman, who was on the faculty at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (RHIT). There is a brief citation about Gary on the DTA webpage, but I hope to share more here.

Gary was born in 1941 and earned his BS in Mathematics Education and his MA in Mathematics at Bowling Green State University in 1963 and 1968, respectively. Between earning the two degrees, he taught for a year at Bellaire High School (Bellaire, Ohio) and served in the US Army as a surveying instructor at Fort Sill (Oklahoma). From 1968-1971, Gary was at Indiana University where he earned his PhD in Algebra, with a secondary area of applied mathematics.

He then joined the faculty at RHIT where he rose to the rank of Professor before his retirement in 1998. Gary successfully served the department as chair for six years in the mid-1980s after returning from a sabbatical year split between time at Clemson University and time at Milliken & Company. In the latter context, he worked in the corporate operations research section.

Gary was an active member of the MAA. Over the years, he served on the MAA Committee on Secondary School Lectures, as an MAA curriculum consultant, and as a member CUPM on undergraduate research. He chaired the Beckenbach Book Prize committee in 1988. Gary held many positions within the Indiana section and while doing so he strengthened the ICMC by relocating it to within the section meetings, Gary also established the INMAA newsletter, distributed by mail in a pamphlet format.

Before winning the DTA, Gary had won several other awards, including Bowling Green State University’s Distinguished Service Award (1962). At RHIT, he won the Inland Steel-Ryerson Foundation Outstanding Teacher Award (1982), the Dean’s Outstanding Teacher Award (1988), and the Board of Managers Outstanding Scholar Award (1990). The following comments from his nomination packet for the DTA illustrate his teaching abilities.

“As an engineering professor, I find too many students ruined by poor mathematics teachers. I would love to have Dr. Sherman teaching … my engineering students.”
- H. Lewandowski, former student now professor

“His devotion to teaching is nearly un-paralleled by anyone I know.”
– G. Berzsenyi, Nominator

“Professor Sherman conveyed a sense of wonder about mathematics that has stayed with me.”
– J. Williams, former student

“I felt at my other REU like I was pretending to be a grad student. Here, I felt like I wasn’t pretending to do anything – I was actually doing something.”
– E. Wepsic, REU participant

This last comment was in reference to the REU program that Gary founded in 1989 and led until 1996. In its first years, before Gary’s nomination for the DTA, its 18 participants had all gone on to PhD programs, earned four honorable mentions for the Alice Schafer Mathematics Prize, published 16 papers and 20 internal technical reports.

Gary also obtained an NSF ILI grant to build RHIT’s first symbolic computing lab. Over several years in the mid 1990’s, he gave regional and national presentations on using MAPLE and other tools in the classroom while publishing papers on the subject as well. He taught every course in the curriculum and designed Fast Track Calculus, an accelerated summer course for advanced incoming freshmen.

He was strongly supportive of students in their mathematical experiences. To this end, Gary mentored several nationally ranked Putnam teams, coached Rose’s ICMC team, was advisor to Pi Mu Epsilon, and initiated the Annual Rose-Hulman Conference on Undergraduate Mathematics.

In addition to serving as his department chair, Gary was an active member of RHIT’s faculty leadership. He facilitated Student-Faculty dialogue groups, coached the Rose-Hulman Bike Racing Team, served on and chaired the Quality of Education Committee, the Dean's Advisory Council and the Institute Curriculum Committee.

After leaving RHIT in 1998, Gary worked for the Algebraix Data Company. Its goal was to develop and market a universal data structure. As part of his work, Gary co-authored The Algebra of Data: A Foundation for a Data Economy (The Bloor Group Press, 2016). This volume describes the development of a data algebra and its application to data management, data integration, and performance optimization. While clearly a mathematical text, it is written in a very accessible manner.

He has since retired and, to my knowledge, happily lives in Minnesota.