Miriam Becker facts for kids

Miriam Freda Becker (later Miriam Mazur) was an American mathematician who lived from 1909 to 2000. Her career became very important in the 1930s. It helped decide how teachers at the City University of New York could join a union and get job security.

Early Life and Learning

• Miriam was born in 1909. She was one of three children.
• Her parents were immigrants. Her mother was from Russia, and her father from Austria. He worked as an insurance salesman.
• Miriam loved math! She studied mathematics at Hunter College in New York City.
• She earned her first degree in 1930. Then she got a master's degree in 1932.
• After that, she went to Yale University to study for her Ph.D.
• A Ph.D. is the highest university degree you can get. She finished her Ph.D. in 1934. Her special project was about "Relative Fields."

Job Security Challenge

• In 1934, Miriam started working as a tutor at Hunter College. She had a contract that lasted one year at a time.
• In 1937, the college decided not to renew her contract. They hired someone else instead.
• This decision led to a big legal fight! The Teachers Union of New York got involved.
• A union is a group of workers who join together. They work to protect their rights and improve their working conditions.
• The Teachers Union argued that a law from 1935 should apply to college teachers too. This law said that high school teachers who had worked for three years could only be fired for a good reason.
• This idea is called academic tenure. It means a teacher has permanent job security. They can only be fired for serious problems.
• The college leaders did not agree. They wanted a different way to decide if teachers got job security.
• In November 1937, the college leaders refused to look at Miriam's case again.
• A month later, a court decided that Miriam should get her job back.
• But in early 1938, a higher court changed that decision. Miriam did not get her job back at Hunter College.

Later Career and Family

• After her time at Yale, Miriam did more research at a special place called the Institute for Advanced Study.
• Then, she became a high school teacher. She taught in Manhattan and later in the Bronx.
• In 1940, she married a biochemist named Abraham Mazur.
• Soon after, she stopped teaching for a while to raise her two children.
• Miriam returned to high school teaching in 1954.
• In 1964, she went back to the City University of New York. She became an assistant professor of mathematics at the City College of New York.
• She finally received job security (tenure) as an associate professor in 1972.
• Miriam retired in 1977. She passed away on March 5, 2000.