Despite having the responsibility of making phone calls for her deaf parents at age 3, a City College associate professor inspires her students to work through hardships and have a successful life.

Pam Guenther, mathematics associate professor, is nominated for the California Community Colleges Chancellors Office John W. Rice Diversity and Equity Award. She was chosen by the Academic Senate and the Faculty Recognition Committee.

“She has brought a lot of good ideas to the department and always has the focus on getting more students to be successful,” said mathematics professor Ignacio Alarcón.

With the support from City College and her coworkers, Guenther was able to help students who fall between two algebra courses by co-creating a new mathematics program that covers both subjects.

“What I want to emphasize is that my department and the school both are very open to you trying something … I have worked in other schools where they would not let you do that. That’s not the case here,” said Guenther.

The program cites that more than 70 percent of freshman students come to college at two levels below college level in their math and English classes.

At first she did not believe students could succeed if they took elementary algebra and intermediate algebra at the same time.

“These people are crazy, you can’t do that. Students aren’t passing; they aren’t going to make it,” said Guenther.

One year later she realized that her data proved the opposite. Students were passing the classes with higher grades in both. She was eager to bring the program to City College.

“We have the same results here. It’s a really big movement now across the country to try to get students to catch up quickly because otherwise they are staying too long, taking too many semesters and units,” said Guenther.

Guenther also helped the nursing department to create a new math course; “Nursing and Allied Health Math,” in order to help nursing students pass their state board exams, increasing their chances in the busy market.

“It’s a class that has the most mathematics they need, most is pre-algebra material, fractions, decimals, percent, but also unit analysis because they have to know how to change from gram to microgram,” said Guenther.

The nursing department saw an improvement after students took the class because of better exam results.

Guenther adds: “It’s a different course. We don’t teach them like we teach regular algebra classes. It’s not enough as an elementary teacher to know that 7 x 3 is 21, you have to know why and you have to be able to explain it because you have to remember the kids are learning for the first time.”

The nominee has shown special dedication for students. As a good influence at City College, Guenther encourages other teachers to do the same.

“She doesn’t impose her ideas, she just show her results and that way more of us get convinced to try,” said Alarcón.