Michael Frantz His feet rest on his desk, twitching beneath casual-Friday wool socks and sandals. As he leans back in the leather chair that sits in his crowded, greenery-filled office, the graying ponytail that has become part of his campus persona hangs behind him. Michael Frantz, Professor of Mathematics, candidly and comfortably answers questions, laughing as he tells of his hobbies and his journey to ULV, all the while calculating and thinking mathematics, mathematics, mathematics. “Everything derives from mathematics,” he said. “You get to solve problems and it challenges your intellect. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not thinking about a problem I don’t know the answer to.” But mathematics doesn’t take every waking hour of Frantz’ day. Well, at least not on the surface. An avid volleyball fan, his primary pursuit outside of his professional work (although he would probably argue that nothing is outside of his professional realm, simply because mathematics is everywhere) includes playing volleyball in the Old Gym with his fellow faculty. However, opportunities to play have recently waned, as the struggle for gym times has heightened. In addition, the relatively new 3-2 class schedule throws another factor into the equation. “That put the kibosh on that,” Frantz said. But even though the volleyball nets have been lowered, the table tennis tables remain, and Frantz – the one-time “reigning table tennis champion at La Verne” – can recall supremacy at the helm. He and another player (Phil Kaufman) would start playing, he remembered, and people around them would gravitate toward the match, the crowd deepening with every rally. “We’d get this audience up top in the tents looking down,” he said. “I was an offensive player, Phil was mostly defensive, and we would get into these extended slamming matches with Phil about 20 feet back from the table. We’d go all afternoon, working up a sweat.” At one point, a spectator spoke up, challenging Frantz. Frantz beat him 21-1. Back in his office, a daunting bookshelf blankets the entire south wall of the generously-sized room. On the bookshelf perches an eclectic collection of – for lack of a better term – stuff. Two curiously shaped wooden spoons sit next to each other on a lower shelf. One is made out of black walnut, the other from cherry, carved by Frantz himself: one of his hobbies picked up in graduate school at the University of New Hampshire. The bookshelf has little room to spare, if any. The books rest snugly against each other; however, the titles generally deal with mathematics or some facet of the discipline. The stuff that Frantz reads in his spare time – the junk food – isn’t visible to the untrained eye. “I have a predilection for spy and murder mystery novels,” said Frantz, whose reading interests include Tony Hillerman, the Native American mystery writer, as well as British spy novelist John le Carre, whom Frantz likes because he can pick up one of le Carre’s books every five years or so that he’s already read and read it again, still enthralled because of the extreme complexity of the plots. “I’m not really into high literature. It’s too much work. I’m a simple mathematician,” he joked. The path to professor for this “ simple mathematician” began while taking math courses as an undergrad at ULV (then known as La Verne College). Frantz, an eager student, used to take notes in class without looking at what he was writing. Then, that night, he would neatly rewrite them, a tip he still gives his students today. A professor recognized Frantz’ fluency in the subject and asked him to teach a class in which he was currently enrolled, while the professor was out of town on business. “It felt really good,” he said. “I could see the light go on in their faces. I can absolutely say that it was at that moment that I knew I wanted to teach. That was it. I knew for certain at that point that I eventually wanted to teach mathematics at a college like La Verne.” And that passion forged so long ago remains today. Frantz admits that he still gets excited while teaching during nearly every class. Adamantly instructing, he often goes over the end of the allotted class time. But he always keeps track. One class he let students come 30 minutes late, payback for the time he had accumulated going over on the clock. As a professor, Frantz admits to holding stringent and high standards, in addition to his penchant for prerequisites. “I’m not always willing to slow down an entire class for a few students who don’t come to a class with the appropriate background or preparation,” he said. “It doesn’t make me real popular sometimes.” But those who work hard and show an interest in finding out more than they need to “just get by” will do just fine with Frantz. “I love that, when students go above and beyond what’s asked of them,” he said, “and show me what they’ve got.” And this love for teaching remains rooted solidly in his love for mathematics. “It touches every part of our lives,” he said, “from the moment we get up in the morning. This is kind of a dream job. Sometimes I just marvel at the fact that I get paid to come to work to do what I already love to do. I wish everybody felt that way about their jobs.” RETURN TO FACULTY LISTmailto:frantzm@ulv.edu?subject=HELLOHome.htmlshapeimage_1_link_1
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