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.”