Biography
Lynn Arthur Steen was born in Chicago and grew up on Staten Island, New York, where his mother sang with the N.Y. City Center Opera and his
father conducted the Wagner College Choir. Steen’s interests, however, lay more in the arena of mathematics than of music. In 1965, four
years after graduating from Luther College, Steen completed a Ph.D. in mathematics at MIT and joined the St. Olaf faculty. He retired in 2009
and is now Professor Emeritus of Mathematics.
Initially, Steen focused on teaching (mostly calculus) and developing research experiences for undergraduates. One result was the widely used
reference book Counterexamples in Topology (1970), co-edited with J. Arthur Seebach, Jr. and partly authored by St. Olaf students.
Another was a gradual change in mathematics at St. Olaf from a narrow discipline for the few to an inviting major of value to any liberal arts
graduate. By broadening the major and focusing student work on inquiry and investigation, Steen and his departmental colleagues grew mathematics
into one of the top five majors at the college—and one of the nation's largest undergraduate producers of Ph.D.s in the mathematical
sciences.
As his teaching led Steen to investigate links between mathematics and other fields, he began writing about new developments in mathematics
for audiences of non-mathematicians. Many of his articles appeared in the weekly magazine Science News and in annual supplements to the
Encyclopedia Britannica. Much of his professional work in the 1970s was devoted to mathematical exposition, the communication of mathematical research to students, teachers, and the broader public.
In the 1980s, Steen helped lead national efforts to modernize the teaching of calculus and other aspects of undergraduate mathematics, serving as editor of the widely cited Calculus for a
New Century: A Pump, not a Filter (1988). During 1985-86 he served as president of the 30,000-member Mathematical Association of America
and in 1989 as chairman of the Council of Scientific Society Presidents. He also served for six years as Secretary of Section A (Mathematics) of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
At St. Olaf, Steen served as faculty secretary of two special curriculum review committees—the 1972-74 Centennial Long-Range Planning
Committee and the 1988-89 Curriculum Review Committee that established the initial framework for the college’s current curriculum. In
addition, on three different occasions he led the college's Academic Computing Center and later, the office of Institutional Research and
Planning.
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Steen's work on collegiate mathematics drew him also into the nascent movement to establish standards for school mathematics. From 1992 through 1995, on leave from St. Olaf, Steen served as executive director of the Mathematical
Sciences Education Board at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. Upon returning to St. Olaf, he began working on special projects
for the Provost’s office.
For several years in the late 1990s Steen also served as a writer and editor for the Washington-based Achieve, Inc., as they pioneered
grade-by-grade standards that attempted to meet simultaneously the mathematical requirements of college and career. The current campaign for
common standards is an evolutionary outgrowth of those early efforts.
Steen's work on different sides of the school-college boundary seeded his interest in the imperative of numeracy or quantitative literacy (QL) for alert and active citizens in today's data-driven society. Here
the challenge was not just to help students learn to do mathematics when required or prompted, but to make evidence-based reasoning an ingrained
habit of mind. This work helped stimulate a wide variety of QL programs on campuses around the country and led to the development of the
interdisciplinary National Numeracy Network.
During his career Steen has lectured in over a dozen different countries and is the author or editor of numerous articles and books including
Everybody Counts (1989), Why Numbers Count (1997), Mathematics and Democracy (2001), and Math and Bio 2010
(2005). He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and recipient of three honorary Sc.D. degrees.
Further details about Steen's areas of interest can be found at the four links in the preceding paragraphs as well as from links on the left
sidebar. Also on the left are links to bibliographies of his writing grouped by area; many can be accessed via live links. Selected Papers offers links to many articles arranged not by topic but by title as well as by
date. Professional Resumé contains a synopsis of Steen's major professional positions
and responsiblities. Full and selected versions of Steen's C.V. are found at C.V. (complete)
and C.V. (abridged). Finally, certain special projects are listed (and linked) below
and on the left sidebar.
Steen’s wife Mary is Associate Professor Emerita of English and former chair of the Department of English at St. Olaf College. They
have two grown daughters, Margaret and Catherine, and six grandsons.
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