Cami Sawyer describes teaching at Southwestern as her dream job. "I know the value of a liberal arts education. I love working with a broad range of high quality students, and the fact that I'm at my alma mater makes it even more special."

Since returning to Southwestern in Fall 2000, Sawyer has taught Calculus I and II, Probability, Math Concepts, Statistics, Linear Algebra and Special Topics in CWAT sets. Ironically, she now offices in the very room where she spent countless hours as a student working with Walt Potter, professor of mathematics and computer science.

"I took independent studies with him during my junior and senior years. That's when I realized I had a passion for math, not just a talent for it. He influenced me to go to graduate school instead of teaching at the high school level like I'd planned."

Sawyer went on to earn her master's and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of North Texas. She taught at Texas Woman's University in Denton as a visiting assistant professor for one year before joining Southwestern's faculty.

Sawyer serves as a faculty representative on the Student Success Task Force because she wants students to "have as good of an experience as I had." She is a faculty advisor to both math clubs and a member of the McMichael Student Experience Enrichment Fund Committee and the Brown Scholarship Committee.

Recently, she secured a national grant for "Transforming the Preparation of Secondary Mathematics Teachers," which will create a capstone course for math majors and minors seeking secondary certification. She says, "This will help connect the college-level math they are learning to the high school-level math they will teach. There is a gap there, and we want to close it."

The program, developed by Sawyer, Associate Professor of Education Michael Kamen and Professor of Mathematics John Chapman, will begin this summer with the first course offered next fall. They plan to invite alumni who teach or have taught high school math to campus during Homecoming in October to discuss how to improve the program and to meet with current students.

She says it is the students who make her excited to walk to campus every day. "I recently had a chemistry major ask me for a recommendation. I love that I teach at a place that allows a math professor to know a chemistry student well enough to do something like that. I enjoy teaching non-majors, and I hope they like to learn math. As for my math majors, I share my joy and love for the subject, and many of them leave here better mathematicians than me!"

Outside of the University, Sawyer's life is dedicated to her family. Her spouse, Greg, is a molecular biologist doing post-doctoral work at the University of Texas while also serving as director of DNA Identity Lab in Lewisville. They met while working at a gas station in Yellowstone Park the summer after she graduated from Southwestern.

They have two children, seven-year-old Matthew and 18-month-old Addison. She readily admits to being a soccer mom and says they all enjoy leading active, healthy lifestyles. "It's part of the reason I walk here every day. Well, that and I think it would be fun to be remembered as the professor who always walked to school."