A spotlight on Hannah Lewis

Awards are lining the shelves of Hannah Lewis’ bookcase as she continues to achieve excellence in her field.

Lewis is Utah State University Eastern’s assistant professor of Professional Practice and instructor over mathematics and statistics. Overall, she has nine awards in the mathematics department. Three, consecutively, for excellence in teaching at Utah State University and multiple from Utah Tech University while she was a student. Her most recent awards the past two years are: Math and Stats Faculty Teacher of the Year, College of Science Faculty Teacher of the Year, and the Teaching Scholar Certificate.

“The first time I was given the opportunity to teach a university level class I was both scared and excited, Lewis said.” During this time her intention was to teach high school mathematics, but her professor had asked her to substitute for him.

“It was an incredible experience to lead a group of young adults to understand math.

After this experience, my mentor approached me about going to grad school to head towards a career in teaching university math,” she said. After doing school for some time, Lewis left but would come back later. She worked at a bank and learned that she loved teaching people how to do better financially. When she went back to school she knew that teaching mathematics was for her.

“After a lot of hard work, passion, and a lot of long days doing a lot of math, I figured out that to be a ‘math person’, all you need to do is be a person and do math! I worked really hard and decided, with the help of a great mentor, that I loved it so much I wanted to teach math at the university level,” she continued. She’s involved in the faculty student mentoring program as well as Eastern’s math club to help students learn and study math on the college level a bit more.

At Eastern, the classes are small. Lewis is able to get to know the students on a more personal level and have the opportunity to teach students across USU campuses. She thinks that having a growth mindset and practicing on a subject is the solution to most problems. To her, this and the students make teaching at USUE the greatest.

“My personal goal is to do my best to make sure that math is not the thing that is holding someone back from achieving their educational goals, whether those goals are traditional university or tech ed,” Lewis said.

Most semesters, her favorite class to teach is math for elementary education majors. Lewis thinks all math is fun, but what really makes it fun is the students and getting to watch them grow into loving math a lot more and hating it a little less.