Nancy J Simpson
Nancy Simpson is Director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at Texas A&M University and a lecturer in the Mathematics Department. She teaches honors sections of calculus for life sciences majors and finite mathematics for business majors.
Nancy Simpson received a B.A. in Mathematics from Luther College, and an M.S. in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Educational Curriculum and Instruction from Texas A&M University. Since 1991, she has served as an instructional consultant at TAMU’s Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) and in February of 1999 became the Director of the CTE. She has presented workshops on teaching (including Teaching Higher-Order Thinking, Effective Use of Writing Assignments, and Using Teaching Portfolios to Improve and Evaluate Teaching) for faculty at TAMU and numerous other institutions. Since 1993, she has been affiliated with the Wakonse Foundation, and serves as Wakonse Staff for the Wakonse Conference on College Teaching, held annually in Michigan. In addition to directing the Center for Teaching Excellence, Dr. Simpson teaches Finite Mathematics and Calculus for honors students.
Throughout my life, God has demonstrated His faithfulness. I was blessed to be born into a large and happy family; home was a place of love and security and I wanted for nothing. Some of my best memories are of times spent camping with my family during the summer months. I recall one camping trip to Maine, in particular. I was a teenager and (as teenagers often do, I suppose) I sought solitude by walking along the shores of the lake. I can remember sitting on a rock at the edge of the lake, looking at the beauty around me, and thinking “there must be a God, and He must be a God who loves us to have created all of this for us to enjoy.” I did not know it at the time, but that thought was the tiniest seed of a desire to know my Creator. And God demonstrated His faithfulness in fulfilling His promise “seek and you shall find.”
In my senior year of high school, my best friend Karen and I spent many hours reading philosophy and discussing what we considered to be lofty and deep ideas. We were both seeking to know the Source of all Truth–we just did not know it yet. I was standing by my locker one morning when a friend came up and invited me to go with her to a meeting at her church: “There will be some people there that I think you will like to hear.” So I went. The people at the meeting were talking about having a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. I had gone to church with my family all of my life, but the idea of a personal relationship with God was new to me. The next day in the school cafeteria, I found myself telling Karen all about the meeting the night before. She responded excitedly, “This is what we’ve been looking for.” And so it was. We both received Jesus Christ as Savior. Again, God demonstrated His faithfulness in that He led me to a church where God’s Word was taught. So, almost immediately after beginning my Christian life, God provided spiritual nourishment through solid Biblical teaching. That foundation stood me in good stead when I went to college where I was challenged by many secular and religious notions that could have caused me to abandon my still-new faith. It was the Word of God in my soul and the power of the Holy Spirit within me that sustained me then and have continued to sustain me and give me inner peace and absolute confidence in the One who called me thirty years ago. In difficult times, I have not always been able to answer “why?” but it has been enough to know God’s character. During times of financial struggle, I have seen God fulfill the promise “my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. During times of discouragement and self-doubt, I have found comfort and renewed hope in the knowledge that He knows me, and loves me, perfectly. Jesus Christ has been my anchor and strength through the years of a failed marriage and single parenting. I am continuously filled with amazement and gratitude that the Creator of the universe entered our world in the Person of Jesus Christ.
There is another incident during my senior year in high school that haunts me. During homeroom one day, I was visiting with Jeannie, a friend who sat behind me. I was sharing what I had learned about Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, what a difference knowing Jesus Christ had made in my life, and that she too could receive Him as her Savior. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I’ll never forget her response: “That sounds like something I’ll want to do some day . . . just not right now.” Several years later, (but while we were still in our twenties), I was shocked and grieved to learn that Jeannie had died suddenly of an aneurysm. My first thought was “I wonder if Jeannie received God’s gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ before it was too late.” When we are young, we think we have all the time there is. But none of us have more than one day at a time. There is no more important question than the one Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do you say that I am?” and there is no better time to seek Him than now.