Brendan Murphy, mathematics faculty member, in his words:

“I’ve been a consultant for the College Board for over 20 years, running/presenting professional development workshops for teachers around the nation and the world. To the best of my knowledge, I am the only consultant in the world endorsed to run all of the following AP workshops:
AP Calculus AB
AP Calculus BC
AP Calculus AB/BC Combined
AP Statistics
AP Precalculus

“I’ve run one-day, two-day, and week-long AP workshops. In the summer we call them APSI’s (AP Summer Institutes). Thus far, I’ve run 90 APSI’s and I’m working on getting this number up to 100. In a typical summer I run two to four. In these workshops I help explain the College Board policies, strategies, pedagogy, as well as discuss best math practices. I love to hear how other teachers from around the world teach mathematics and of course there is no one best way to teach the math.

“My wife Jen and I love to travel and when the College Board asks me to go overseas, it has been hard to say no. We travel well and I’m flexible by nature, super important skills when going to far away countries where language barriers are a real concern. That being said, mathematics is the universal language so I’ve always been able to adapt and help the participants, regardless of their native language (most but not all of my international participants over the years have spoken at least a little bit of English). As the AP Program has grown over the last twenty years, the College Board looks at other countries around the world to bring college-level mathematics to their students, regardless of where they live. I’ve learned so much from other cultures and teachers as well as seen some amazing sites and places with my College Board travels.

“And as an additional treat, it’s fun to talk with our international students at John Bapst and tell them I’ve been to their country. They automatically light up and love to talk to me about my travels and experiences in their country.”