Edward Griffith Begle played a prominent role in the study of mathematics and mathematics education in the United States. Gifts to the Edward G. Begle Fund support classroom-based research (Pre-K-6) in precollege mathematics education.
As a mathematician on the faculty of Princeton University, the University of Michigan, and Yale University, Begle specialized in topology. He was an active member and leader of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) and the School Mathematics Study Group (SMSG). In 1951 he was elected secretary of the AMS, a position he held for 6 years. Later he was appointed director of SMSG and continued to work on that project for over 10 years. In 1961, he joined the faculty at Stanford University, where he held a joint appointment as professor in the Department of Mathematics and the School of Education.
Among Begle's many accomplishments and contributions to mathematics education was the book
Critical Variables in Mathematics Education: Findings from a Survey of the Empirical Literature
(Washington, D.C.: Mathematical Association of America and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1979).
Edward Griffith Begle died in 1978 at the age of 64.
Photo Credit:
Paul R. Halmos Photograph Collection, Archives of American Mathematics, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin