The inaugural Jim Cross Award Presentation night

The late Dr Jim Cross , right and Professor Eberhard Knobloch

Dr James (Jim) Cross was very much a boy from the western suburbs of Melbourne. He excelled in academic pursuits thanks to a mixture of raw talent, hard work and a positive attitude and he built a remarkable career in mathematics spanning the globe. On the evening of 3rd of August, falling fortuitously between Melbourne lockdowns, friends, colleagues, students and, most importantly, the family of Dr Cross joined together at Graduate House to celebrate Jim’s life and to witness the presentation of the inaugural Jim Cross Award. The award was created in Jim’s name by his wife Emilia Cross in collaboration with the registered education charity, The Institute for Enquiring Minds. The Institute is proud to administer the award which is the highest honour we bestow annually on a young mathematician that has shown the sort of dedication to maths education that Jim was famous for. Dr Jim Cross personified the idea of a lifelong learner. He was a perpetual student and not just of mathematics. He was also an historian, a musician, a polyglot and a polymath. Jim trained in a seminary for many years and excelled at the classics and languages. It was clear to his teachers that he had the potential to go far, very far, and he was encouraged to follow an academic path. Throughout his years at The University of Melbourne, Johns Hopkins University and Delft University of Technology, it was Jim’s passion mixed with his attention to detail that formed the central narrative of the stories we were fortunate to hear on the presentation night. There were many speeches on the evening which spanned the years of Jim’s life and work. We were honoured to have Jim’s brother Gerry Cross and his wife Kate present. Gerry spoke of their early days, the influence of their parents and Jim’s influence on his own brothers helping them reach their own potential in maths and engineering. Dr John Stinson reminisced about his first meeting with Jim alighting from a steam train at Robertson Station and their high school years in the 50’s when Jim scooped up prizes and dazzled as a flautist. Dr Frank Barrington talked us through their time together as undergraduate and then research students in the 60’s. Jim was already very active training the next generation of high school teachers at the secondary teachers college. He was passionate in his belief that maths had to be taught by people well equipped to do so. Professor Kerry Landman took up the story from the 70’s initially from the perspective of a student and then into the 80’s as a colleague. She recounted how Jim was always interested in both the cultural and academic development of young mathematicians. Dr Christine Mangelsdorf met Jim in the 90s while teaching maths for engineering and their shared interest in education brought them together as teaching specialists. Jim would always find the time

From left: Mrs Kate Cross, Mr Gerry Cross, Mrs Emilia Cross, Professor Barry Hughes, Dr Christine Mangelsdorf, Professor Arun Ram and Dr Rachel Wilson

to help any student with a problem and developed reams of teaching materials for “skills repair”. Jim would also find time for quite a lot of football banter. Professor Barry Hughes was asked to give the biggest speech of the night. Barry tied together the themes that were elucidated by each anecdote, themes that started very early in Jim’s life and continued into his retirement. Jim somehow managed to be a quiet achiever with missionary zeal. When he became engaged with a subject or involved in a project there was little that he would not do. His fascination with the teachings of Clifford Truesdell is a great example of this. When Jim ”found” Truesdell, he was not content to learn from afar and this was of course the reason why he set off for Johns Hopkins. It was after this pilgrimage that Jim returned to The University of Melbourne and met the love of his life, Emilia. The drive and attention to detail synonymous with Jim persisted throughout his career and, indeed, after retirement. In the 2000s when working on his opus on Dirichlet, no stone was unturned, no book was unread and no conversation was lacking, regardless of the language being spoken! Finally we were treated to the humour and memories of Mrs Emilia Cross, the patron of the Jim Cross Award and Jim’s widow. “Lia” had the room laughing, reinforcing the sense of celebration that pervaded the entire evening. Jim is sorely missed but all of us reflected upon how lucky we are to have him in our lives. Emilia presented the Jim Cross Award to Mr Shaun Yeoh. Mr Shaun Yeoh was awarded the inaugural prize due to his commitment to helping the next generation of mathematicians. For three years he has donated his time, skills and positivity to a series of students through the Institute for Enquiring Minds Mentorship program. His approach was akin to the “skills repair” that Dr Cross and Dr Mangelsdorf developed years before. Through prolonged commitment to his students and impactful coaching he meticulously found the concepts and skills that his mentees were struggling with and carefully retaught them. The Institute works closely with other important organisations in the mathematics and education space. Time and again the Institute was contacted by representatives of our partner organisations, such as Western Chances, to compliment Shaun and thank us for all that he was doing. It is fantastically appropriate that for most of the last few years Shaun has been helping young people that happen to come from

From left: Ms Jill Miles, Dr John Barrington, Professor Kerry Landman, Mr Shaun Yeoh and Dr Andrew Jacobs

the western suburbs. He has helped them solve problems in mathematics and overcome challenges in life. Shaun is a worthy recipient of the award. He is always available to help, meticulous in attention to detail and asks for nothing in return. It is as if Jim’s story has come full circle and returned to the west. Professor Barry Hughes recounted that a senior colleague of his in the sixties said of Jim; “He was always on the lookout for a soul in perdition that needed to be saved for a promising academic career”. What was said of a young James in the mid 1960’s could be said of Shaun today. It was Jim’s remarkable decades long dedication to the creation of generation after generation of mathematicians, engineers and maths teachers that inspired Professor Arun Ram, a director at the Institute, to introduce Jim’s wife, Emilia Cross to the Co-Founders of the Institute for Enquiring Minds, Dr Andrew Jacobs and Dr Doug Lynch. The Institute for Enquiring Minds is a Melbourne based charity and benevolent public institution that is dedicated to changing the way young people experience maths. Across the nation engagement in and standards of mathematics are falling. We want young people, and society as a whole, to see beauty and utility in mathematics. We want them to see it as a possible career and, if they do follow that path, we want them to feel that they belong to a community of people that appreciate mathematics and appreciate what mathematicians can do for Australia. We need to be able to solve our own problems. We need our own problem solvers. The Institute for Enquiring Minds does this by awarding intensive mentorships, at no cost to the student, to deserving people that demonstrate both the ability to apply themselves and the potential to improve. Our scholars make great leaps forward in their mathematics skills and perform far above expectation in their assessments. Our mentors are all volunteers who come to us from academia and maths intensive industries (pre or post-retirement). We are proud to be carrying forward Jim’s legacy. If you would like to know more or if you would like to help a young mathematician reach their potential, please visit their website at https://www. enquiringminds.org/