After finishing his doctoral degree in mathematics during the 2008 recession, Louis Levy took a job with the federal government since most universities were forced to downsize.

“Roughly half the jobs I applied to were no longer open to anyone because the economy was so bad,” Levy said. “The industry job came up and I figured I’d wait out the recession there.”

Now, Levy comes to Baker as an assistant professor of mathematics.

“I wanted a smaller school where teaching was the main focus,” Levy said. “I actually hadn’t heard of Baker until I read their ad and I thought ‘wow, this place actually sounds pretty nice.’”

Levy brings with him about five years of teaching experience from classes he taught while gaining his doctorate degree at North Carolina University plus a one year visiting position at Millersville University in Pennsylvania.

Describing his teaching style as interactive, Levy will be instructing three courses in the fall: college algebra, calculus I and linear algebra.

“Math is mostly problem solving and I believe that math is mostly learned through doing math rather than just hearing someone talk about math,” Levy said. “It’s very rare I work an example start to finish on my own so I ask students to help along the way as I go through the problems.”

Levy is no stranger to the fact that many students aren’t fond of his subject.

“I’ve had a number of students who have hated math before,” Levy said. “I try and make it not detestable as best I can.”