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Math Field Day proves its legacy

Longest-running CSUB event celebrates 50 years

By California State University, Bakersfield

March 8^th, 2023

What’s the formula for success for California State University, Bakersfield’s longest-running event? For Math Field Day, getting to 50 years is due to the dedicated faculty of the university’s Mathematics Department and generations of high-schoolers who enjoy a good challenge.

On March 11, the longtime event — now officially called the Lee Webb Math Field Day in honor of its founder — will celebrate its golden anniversary at the Doré Theatre. For decades now, it has given high school math students the chance to compete in several different events and be celebrated for their mathematical talents.

“I’m incredibly proud of the fact that this university and particularly this department has carried it forward,” said Dr. Lee Webb, a retired CSUB math professor who has remained involved in his namesake event.

The event’s first 29 years were led by Dr. Webb before passing the torch to Dr. David Gove, current chair of the university’s math department, who has run the event for the last 21 years.

“David has been a rock,” Dr. Webb said of his successor. “I don’t think the Math Field Day would even be held anymore if it wasn’t for David.”

Dr. David Gove, left, has organized Math Field Day for the last 21 years, taking over from Dr. Lee Webb, right, who organized it for 29.

Solving for fun

Dr. Webb started Math Field Day in 1971, just one year after CSUB held its first classes. He and a colleague wanted to hold an event that would help put the new school on the map.

“We just thought, ‘We’re a backwater location here, and no one knows what Cal State Bakersfield even is,’” Dr. Webb recalled, adding that before CSUB opened, its region was one of the largest without a four-year university. “This area has really come along well with respect to developing its reputation, but back in 1970 and ‘71, it hadn’t yet. So, the purpose (of Math Field Day) was to get more kids involved in the area of science and math, and we’ve succeeded pretty darn well.”

For most of its 50 years, Math Field Day has run as a well-oiled machine, but Dr. Webb still remembers the first year being “a little disorganized.” Not only did the organizers need to allot time for each of the event’s contests, which include Team Medley and Math Bowl, they also needed to account for the time it would take to grade students’ answers. The latter was perhaps miscalculated.

“We didn’t give the awards out until 6:30 or 7 at night,” he said. “That was a difficult thing, but we corrected that very quickly. That was only the very first year. After that, it really clicked.”

Throughout the years, Math Field Day hasn’t changed much in terms of contests, but as it predates many of the buildings on campus, location is one component that has evolved. For many years, its homebase has been the Doré Theatre, with certain events being held elsewhere on campus. Dorothy Donahoe Hall and Science I and II were once common locations for Chalk Talks and Individual Medleys, but the event has most recently settled into Science III and the Business Development Center.

“For each room, we have to find a CSUB student volunteer to proctor the exam,” Dr. Gove said, adding that undergraduates help with this task. “They pass out and proctor the exams. They often like being on the other side for a day. They get to say, ‘Be quiet! No cheating!’”

That many of the college student volunteers were once Math Field Day participants themselves is a clear sign of the event’s legacy. Christian Bernal Zelaya, a CSUB math major in his fourth year, participated as a high school senior in 2019 with Independence High School.

“For me, the whole event felt more like a math get-together than a competition, which is why I started to enjoy mathematics, because of the fun it involves,” Bernal Zelaya said of his experience as a participant. “I also liked meeting other high school students that weren’t from my school who also had an interest in mathematics.”

Bernal Zelaya was already planning to attend CSUB, but Math Field Day did help him decide to major in the subject. A first-generation college student whose parents came to the U.S. from El Salvador, Bernal Zelaya has already been accepted into the Ph.D. statistics program at the University of California, Irvine.

“I wanted to volunteer to help the mathematics department out a little bit, to give back for all the support they have shown me,” he said. “I also hope that I can serve as role model to a high schooler who is debating getting into mathematics and be that extra influence they need to actually major in mathematics.”

Foothill High School math student Melissa Zepeda competes in the Chalk Talk portion of the 2016 Math Field Day event.

California City High School math student Ryan Kmet works out a calculus problem during the CHalk Talk portion of the 2016 Math Field Day event.

High school students from Kern County and beyond compete in the 2016 Math Field Day event.

Going retro for 50th event

The 2023 Math Field Day will include several contests: the Individual Math Medley, Team Medley, Chalk Talks, Math Humor, a Rubik’s Cube contest and the day’s biggest event, the Math Bowl. In honor of this year’s milestone, that last event will be presented with a retro twist. While teams do their work by hand in this event, in recent years they have submitted answers electronically, which automatically records the order in which teams answer. This year, they’re going old school.

“Instead, they will write it on a piece of paper and hand it back to a checker, who will say whether the answer is right or not,” Dr. Gove said. “That, in a way, is more exciting because the whole audience in the Doré can see whose hand goes up first, whose hand goes up second.”

While the Math Bowl has teams send one individual member to the stage at a time for each round of questions, the Team Medley has teams of up to four students work together on a set of free-response questions. Students can also compete solo in the Individual Math Medley.

“We want every single student who is interested to have a chance,” Dr. Gove said. “There are other events where you have to make your team to go. Anybody who wants to can come for Individual Medley. If there’s a group of students from a school that doesn’t have a team, I would still like them to come.”

Other events include Chalk Talks, where students give a 10-minute presentation on the mathematical topic of their choice; Math Humor, where students can present skits, poems, songs and other original creations as a groups or individuals; and a Rubik’s Cube contest, where competitors race to solve the puzzle.

A new activity added this year is a mystery contest that combines math skills with guessing skills. What exactly it is will be kept under wraps for now, but participants will learn more about it at the event.

The next 50 years

Math Field Day has only ever taken two years off, both due to the COVID-19. Last year’s competition was held virtually, so this year marks a return to in-person events. Even before the pandemic, though, attendance had begun to wane. Dr. Gove chalks that up to more conflicts in students’ increasingly busy schedules.

“The main thing that would make it not go on another 50 years is if we stop having any schools willing to participate,” Dr. Gove said. “Part of the charm but part of the danger of Math Field Day is we’re not part of a national competition. There’s no next round; the winners don’t get to go a state meet or anything like that. It’s all homegrown, and this is it.”

Another potential complication is that Dr. Gove isn’t far from retirement himself. He isn’t likely to lead 29 years of Math Field Day like his predecessor, so soon enough he will need someone else from the math department to take the reins of the legacy event.

“We have maybe a couple who might be willing to continue it,” he said. “When I took over from Lee, I thought, ‘Well, I’ll take over next year, and maybe the year after that, and then the faculty will rotate it.’ Maybe it is important to have one driving force, but maybe it would be even better if we could rotate it.”

Registration is still open for the 50th annual Math Field Day. Dr. Gove and Dr. Webb hope students and schools will hear the call and decide to participate in the event, not just to ensure the event continues but because of what students will get out of participating.

“I always let Lee say a few words at the end of Math Field Day because he summarizes it very well,” Dr. Gove said. “He talks about how vital it is for the country to have a talented, scientifically and mathematically literate populace. We’re hoping the students who participate will all continue their interest in mathematics. We don’t expect them to only do mathematics, but math is necessary for every other STEM field.”

To register for Math Field Day, go to https://forms.gle/3bt3gd7tnqLMWMeT7 or email lwmathfd@gmail.com.

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Footnotes

Story and photo of Drs. Gove and Webb by Kelly Ardis, communications specialist, School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering (NSME); Event photos from 2016 courtesy of The Bakersfield Californian; Event photos from 2015 provided by Dr. Gove

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