Art Richert
From SAUwiki
Dr. Arthur Richert is the chair of the mathematics department. A genius in his field, Art Richert may be the most knowledgable math professor on campus. His areas of expertise are Intermediate Analysis, Set Theory and Logic, and Point-Set Topology (not a class taught at Southern), although, like all of the math professors at Southern, he teaches just about every math course when it is his turn.
Unfortunately, some students in lower division math courses have a difficult time relating to him and his teaching style. Dr. Richert loves proofs, and this comes through in his calculus lectures, to take an example, as proofs of most of the major theorems on the board. Thus, many students feel ill-equiped to tackle their plug-and-chug computation-oriented homework.
However, seasoned students of mathematics will recognize this approach as an important part of mathematics education. Southern is blessed with three very good and very different mathematics teachers. While Dr. Brown is very computation oriented and Dr. Moore is very concept oriented, Dr. Richert is focused on logic and proofs. Upper division mathematics students will tell you that they could hardly ask for a better Analysis teacher than Dr. Richert.
Dr. Arthur Richert earned his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin which (at least today) boasts a mathematics department of some prestige. His wife is a nurse.
Some comments from his students are bellow:
[comment] Unfortunately, some students feel his love for mathematics does not transfer over well to his students. I don't recommend taking a class from him as you will find that he knows what he is talking about, but that you can't keep up. No other math professor that I know would take up a whole class period writing proofs on the board and then stare at them with amazement and love in his eyes.
[comment] While this is true in most of the lower division math courses, that is, any math courses a non-math major is likely to take, once you have enough of a background in math to understand most of what Dr. Richert is saying, he becomes a pretty interesting teacher and, because of his extensive knowledge of the subject, the best Analysis teacher you could ask for. Elminster 13:50, 17 Oct 2004 (PDT)
[comment] He's one of the best lecturers at SAU. They flow from theorem to proof to example to next theorem flawlessly. He does it so well that even non-majors will jump ahead of him and make his next point. I'd advise avoiding that and enjoying the ride at his pace. You won't have a better class until grad school when you are with professorss doing active research in your field of choice.
