Zebras Were Her Love:
In Memory of Dr. Susan E. Hashway
With sadness I report to our professional community that Dr. Susan E. (Hartman) Hashway was found deceased in her home near Ruston, LA, on June 8, 2012, after an apparent home invasion. Her tragic and sudden death should not replace in our memories the living joy and caring that she shared with many of us.
Our dear colleague, friend, and former NADE president, Dr. Hashway, will be remembered for her inspiration of and dedication to both undergraduate and graduate students at Grambling State University, from which she had recently retired as a professor in mathematics. Her strong family background -- steeped in a love for family, with three sisters she adored -- cultivated intellectual excellence, which she accented with charming wit and humor. Dr. Hashway's distinct New England accent came from her native West Warwick, Rhode Island, where she had taught junior and high school mathematics. Never one to seek the spotlight, she served our profession with honor not only as a teacher and professor but also as NADE state chapter president in 2000-2001 and NADE president in 2004-2005.
Dr. Hashway was preceded in death by her husband, Robert Hashway (also a professor at Grambling State University) and her brother George Albert Hartman. Dr. Hashway was active in the Monroe (LA) Symphony Orchestra Board of Governors, where she served as an officer. She also was managing editor of the Educational Research Quarterly, which she produced in her dining room with her loving cats "helping" by her side. (Visitors to her home could see that these beloved creatures ruled.) Susan also thought of her students as part of her family and spent many hours dedicated to assisting and mentoring us all.
Much of my dissertation was written under her loving guidance. I remember sitting on her front porch gazing at the ducks on the lake across the road; I was struggling with writer's block and feeling ever so blue. Noticing my distress, Dr. Hashway insisted we watch Racing Stripes, her favorite movie, a zebra that thought it was a racehorse. Dr. Hashway knew this film would reveal a metaphor for the students enrolled in my developmental education courses. Thanks to her, a moment of pure insight produced my research design on assessment.
Dr. Hashway's greatest lesson to me was her firmly held belief that students should never be limited by their life circumstances or their assessment scores. How many zebras are really racehorses in our midst? I know that Dr. Hashway would find many.