I am a "grandson" of the Texas method in two senses. My father, Wm. S. Mahavier, was a student of Moore, and my advisor, John W. Neuberger, was a student of Wall. Thus two influential people in my life had considerable exposure to Moore and his colleagues. What struck me most as a child growing up around this group of devoted mathematicians was how in one sentence they would be debating the properties of indecomposable continua while in the next they would be bragging proudly about how an elementary education major had proved that 2 was an irrational number. Their devotion to research and teaching at all levels has stayed with me to this day and my teaching methods are strongly influenced by the courses I took over the years. While Michel Smith's calculus class at Auburn University caused my change in major from physics to mathematics, it was my father whose example led me to teach via Moore's method. Paul Lewis taught me more about mathematics and teaching mathematics than anyone, and John W. Neuberger, a man whose infinite optimism is an inspiration to all who know him, directed my dissertation. While I am a firm believer in the method and my education was largely guided by "children" and "grandchildren" of R. L. Moore, H. S. Wall, and H. J. Ettlinger, I remain a strong supporter of other methods, perhaps because a non-Texan, Dean Hoffman, set the stage for my return to graduate school by gently convincing me that I could prove theorems. I feel deeply indebted to my teachers and I repay them in the only way I can, by carrying their examples into my classroom and passing the time they offered me onto my own students.

I am currently an Associate Professor at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas. You can contact me via my homepage.

R. L. Moore's Gravesite A picture of my father and me at R. L. Moore's gravesite. Is this morbid?