Hontz, Jennifer

Jennifer Hontz was born and raised in 1970 in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina. She attended Millbrook Elementary School, East Millbrook Middle School, and Sanderson High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her mother was her inspiration and role model as she was growing up and hoped to be just like her. Her first math memory was from her early years in the 1st grade. She remembers starting in the top math group and top reading group and was struggling with reading so the teacher dropped her down to the lower reading group. When she went to math group that day, she remembered thinking “I must be pretty dumb at reading but pretty smart at math.”

Math has always been her favorite area of study. One person who was of great significance in her life and inspired her to be a mathematician was Mrs. Kuhn, her Geometry teacher. Being a straight A student was important to Jennifer, but athletics and friends were equally as important. Some extracurricular activities she participated in were: cross country, swimming, track, and tennis. She was also part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which is an organization that challenges coaches and athletes to use athletics to impact the world for Jesus Christ. The core values of this organization are Integrity, Serving, Teamwork and Excellence (Mission and Vision, 2014). Jennifer considered herself more athletic than smart in high school, but she definitely used her athletic talents in the right way by being a part of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.

Jennifer graduated with two undergraduate Bachelor of Science degrees from North Carolina State University; one in Mathematics Education in 1992 and the other in Applied Mathematics in 1993. She continued onto grad school at North Carolina State University to complete a Ph.D. in Mathematics (Jennifer Hontz, 2014). She majored in Mathematics Education because she intended to teach high school math. Two things set her apart from being a high school math teacher: One was that she took Abstract Algebra and her math education students hated it, while she loved it. The second was that when she student taught, all of the teachers told her to “get out, get out now.” This made her decide to take the graduate school path and delay teaching for a while. Another reason for delaying teaching was because she looked very young, making teaching challenging. So she took another year to finish her math degree and then head to grad school.

While in graduate school, Jennifer spent a lot of time researching Kac-Moody Lie Algebra in order to get her Ph. D. She worked closely with Dr. Kailash Misra, professor of mathematics at North Carolina State University. Kac-Moody Lie Algebras are infinite dimensional analogs of Lie Algebras which are vector spaces over a field with a binary operation. Kac-moody algebras have a main role in mathematics and mathematical physics. They have a significant representation theory with many applications in different fields (Hernandez, n.d.). She completed this research while in graduate school, but has not done much research since.

The main reason she initially decided to go to college was because her parents told her she was going to. She is very happy with her academic path and has had a lot of great experiences, so she wouldn’t change anything. She has wondered if other decisions would have been better, but she has no regrets. Before moving back to Meredith College in North Carolina, Jennifer worked at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio. She was an Assistant Professor of Mathematics for the two years she was there, but really missed North Carolina so she moved back home where she holds a teaching position at Meredith College. Her job emphasizes great teaching so it is a perfect fit for her.

Meredith College is a private college that has been around for over 100 years, starting with only 200 women in 1891. The campus now holds about 2,000 students, which includes a large group of men that are a part of the graduate programs at Meredith College. The school focuses on a liberal arts education and offers degrees in Bachelor of Arts, Science, Social Work or Music, and graduate degrees in business, nutrition and education (Jennifer Hontz, 2014). The college is unique in that it emphasizes preparing students for a successful career and life. They do this through a program called StrongPoints, helping students make the most of their college career. The program is designed to start with having students identify their strengths and then create goals that they will achieve in college and carry with them into life. Some things that StrongPoints focuses on are: strengths, personal interests, creating a portfolio for employment, building a network, and preparing for interviews.

Since abstract algebra is Jennifer’s greatest math passion, she has been fortunate to be able to teach Abstract Algebra and Linear Algebra while at Meredith College. Additionally, she teaches Calculus l, ll, and lll, Statistics, and Senior Seminar. Outside of teaching, she holds many important leadership roles and is very involved in campus clubs and activities. She is the Math Club Advisor, Academic Council Representative, and Paschal Scholars Pl. She is also an active participant of the Mathematics Association of America at the National and Sectional level (Meredith College, 2014). Meredith College holds a one week residential mathematics camp for women entering the 10th grade called Math Week, which Jennifer plays the important role of co-director. The camp is held at Meredith College in the summer and called Math CAMMP (Comprehensively Applied Math Manipulatives Program). The camp has educational activities involving math, technology, and engineering. Participants have the opportunity to connect math with real life applications, build and program machines and robots, and experience a week on a college campus.

Jennifer has been involved in two professional development panels, one at North Carolina State University and one at Duke for mentoring future faculty as a faculty member at Meredith. She also participated in the program as a student. At the professional development pannel, she discussed the Preparing the Professoriate (PTP) process. This process is for graduate students to be trained in their discipline, mathematics. However, they are not taught how to teach their discipline. The program focuses on the entire professional life of a faculty member, with focus on teaching.

She is most proud of The Paschal Scholars program since she is the Pl of the National Science Foundation grant that funds this scholarship program for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math education students (STEM) students. We mentor STEM students and support them as they go through their major with programming and scholarship money. The Paschal Scholars Program helps students pursue careers in mathematics, computer science, science and engineering. Participants receive a scholarship of $2,000-$2,500 and get to be a part of a learning community. The mentoring program prepares students for jobs in industry, government and education. The program also gives students the opportunity to explore graduate schools in their choice of study. The scholars get to attend a convocation about the importance of women in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Paschal Scholars, 2014).

Jennifer has two kids, Justin and Kristin. Justin is seven years old and Kristin is ten years old. She is seen as a strict and loving parent by her two kids. She is big into hiking and training for sporting events. The sporting events she trains for are triathlons and half-marathons. Her family enjoys vacationing out west in the mountains. One thing she recommends people do is to step outside of their comfort zone because you learn a lot about yourself and your values by stepping outside of your comfort zone.

Since she is a parent of a seven and ten year old, her main focus has been on personal and family goals and her professional goals are currently on hold. In a few years, Jennifer hopes to get elected to positions in the MAA Southeastern section. She additionally hopes to receive more NSF funding for the Paschal Program. Jennifer Hontz has done great things as a mathematician and will continue to be successful at Meredith College.


Written by Jenna Fitzgerald

Works Cited

Fellowship of Christian Athletes. (2014). Mission and Vision. http://www.fca.org/about-fellowship-of-christian-athletes/mission-and-vision/

Fitzgerald, J. (2014, October 7). Email interview.

Hernandez, D. (n.d). An introduction to affine kac-moody algebras. Retrieved from http://cel.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/11/25/30/PDF/Hernandeznotes.pdf.

Jennifer Hontz. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jennifer-Hontz/456972571.

Meredith College. (2014). Jennifer Hontz. Retrieved from http://www.meredith.edu
/directory/jennifer_hontz.

Merideth College (2014). Paschal Scholars Program Application. Retrieved from http://www.meredith.edu/images/uploads/admis_paschal_application.pdf.