Students filed by, picking up a tip sheet for overcoming their fear of math as they left the room, hopefully for cooler realms.

“I just can’t do retro,” I overheard one young women say to another.

“I totally get it,” said her companion.

“Is there an algorithm you don’t get?” I asked, unable to resist.

“No, we’re talking about clothes, Dr. Knowles,” the first woman said.

“I knew that.”

Rachel Wheeler, my assistant, stayed behind to walk me out. Rachel was everyone’s assistant, in fact; a post-graduate student helping out in all the math and science labs.

“Do you have a minute, Dr. Knowles?” Rachel asked. Her narrow face was somber, her usual animated personality subdued. I hoped it was simply the nasty July heat that gave her a bedraggled look.

“As long as we walk while we talk,” I said, eager to leave the stifling, musty building. “We might be able to catch a breeze.”

No such luck. We walked in stagnant air down the imposing exterior steps that led from Franklin’s clock tower to the lush campus below, and headed for the parking lot.

I envied the small group of scantily clothed students in front of the gym, frolicking in the fountain that surrounded a statue of our esteemed founder. I hoped our humorless dean wasn’t looking out the window of her administration building office. The simple caper could generate a long memo from her about decorum taking precedence over the possibility of heat stroke.

“Thanks for setting up the measurements lab for tomorrow,” I said to Rachel. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I’m thinking of quitting.” Rachel’s head was down; her eyes seemed focused on her red patent sandals.

I’d heard this threat all summer, and it wasn’t about the math labs or converting from inches to centimeters. Rachel’s thesis work in chemistry had not been going well.