Passion for math breaks down barriers

It’s hard to know where to begin with Clemmie Whatley.

There’s no one moment on which to hang her story. No one accomplishment that defines her being.

At 59, she’s a full-time college professor, founder of a nonprofit and, as one of the first two African-American women to graduate from Georgia Tech, now has a giving circle named for her.

You listen to her talk about the things that matter to her and you discover Clemmie Whatley has seen some things and it is those things that drive her, that give her life meaning.

She has seen, for instance, the disconnect between classroom instruction and schoolchildren. She has seen that bright light go dim in otherwise bright kids.

And she has seen the dearth of African-Americans and women pursuing degrees in math, computer science and architecture.

For years, this bothered Whatley because she knew in her heart of hearts that math and science were not as difficult as some teachers made it.

If the little girl who grew up on the south side of Atlanta could graduate from high school, earn a math degree from Clark and then go on to be get a master’s degree in applied mathematics from Tech, so could others.

For years, though, Whatley used her numbers gift in corporate America, where she spent 22 years at Southern Bell as a junior engineer.

“I was so excited to have a job,” Whatley said last week.

Sometime in the 1980s, she started tutoring, and that’s when she saw the deficiencies in students’ mathematical skills.

“They were bright but for some reason they weren’t getting it,” she said.

One student had a D in algebra but with Whatley’s help was able to improve to a B. Another was getting Cs in geometry and after just a few sessions had the highest exam grade in her class.

“So many of our kids were really suffering,” said Whatley.

And so in 1996 soon after her own son and daughter graduated from Tech, Whatley started teaching full time.

Four years later, she was at Emory working on her doctorate in educational studies. She was there when she started doing consulting work, providing professional development for middle school teachers, and then writing grants for the Clayton County schools.

Even then Whatley felt there was more for her to do. She was en route to a funeral in 2005 when she knew she had to teach mathematical concepts through music.

She had seen the strong connection between music and learning math; saw children who took music perform better academically; and how music helped develop spatial reasoning, which drives mathematical reasoning.

Whatley, a resident of Mableton, called a friend and shared her idea. Can we do it, she asked?

Sure, her friend told her.

Three years ago, she formed Educational Dynamics, a nonprofit that uses music to teach kids math. The program is being piloted at the Carver YMCA.

When she is not there, she is at Mercer University, where she teaches early education or consulting with teachers and administrators in the Clayton County schools.

Recently, the Georgia Tech Black Alumni Organization honored her by establishing the Clemmie Whatley Giving Circle, to support an endowment scholarship it recently established to commemorate and celebrate integration at the school.

When she and Grace Nibaldi Hammonds entered Tech in 1971, it wasn’t to make history, she said. They simply wanted a master’s degree and Georgia Tech was the first to send an acceptance letter offering the two of them a teaching assistanceship.

The two of them graduated in 1973, becoming the first African-American women to do so.

That, Whatley said, was no different from her eventual route into the classroom.

“I’m not setting this path for myself,” she said. “It’s the path spiritually set for me.”

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