<p>"Perhaps in Alia Saburs wildly advanced studies she came across a famous quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.</p>
<p>Knowing is not enough. We must apply, the German writer once observed.</p>
<p>That could serve as explanation for what prompted the 19-year-old to become the youngest college professor in history…</p>
<p>She started talking and reading when she was just 8 months old…"</p>
<p>By 14, she has a BA from Stony Brook in applied math, summa cum laude. Later, she got a masters and doctorate from Drexel.</p>
<p>She had elementary school finished at age 5.</p>
<p>She made the jump to college at age 10. And by age 14, Sabur was earning a bachelors of science degree in applied mathematics summa cum laude from Stony Brook University the youngest female in U.S. history to do so.</p>
<p>Her education continued at Drexel University, where she earned an M.S. and a Ph.D. in materials science and engineering.</p>
<p>And she’s a musical prodigy (clarinet) and black belt in tae kwon do, but what I particularly was impressed by this:
"Although she doesnt start [her job as a fulltime prof at a Korean university] until next month, Sabur has taken up teaching math and physics courses at Southern University in New Orleans, which is still struggling from the devastation left in Hurricane Katrinas wake in 2005.</p>
<p>Some people come and they do Habitat for Humanity and they build houses, but I dont think I would be very good, she said. So I tried to do what Im good at. I was particularly interested in this university because they are still in trailers after Hurricane Katrina. And I thought it could be something I do to help.’
[Woman</a>, 19, becomes youngest college professor - TODAY: People - MSNBC.com](<a href=“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24273418/]Woman”>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24273418/)</p>
<p>Check her birth certificate; I think she’s the Danny Almonte of professorship. She looks way older than 19 in that msnbc video–and I don’t mean mature, I mean old. Could be just that horrific hairstyle combined with the extra weight.</p>
<p>Hmm getting a job offer from a very little known school… I say it’s age discrimination I’d be interested in seeing how she makes out through the academia!</p>
<p>But, yes, yes, there’s that quesiton of students possibly cringing at the thought of being taught by someone just their age (or younger!).</p>
<p>I don’t want to brag or nothin’ but my grandfather became president of Ogden College in Kentucky (now part of WKU) when he was 23. I am also reasonably sure that there have been math professors younger than 19 over the course of the centuries. Norbert Wiener, for instance, pulled down his Ph.D. from Harvard when he was only 18, though it seems he didn’t teach until a few years later.</p>
<p>I don’t really think age is as big a deal to students, at least at top colleges, as some might think. My son had just turned 15 when he took a graduate course in which his fellow students wrote comments on their teacher evaluation forms at the end of the semester that noted things like: “(Son’s name) should have been an official TA for this course. He was more helpful than the official TAs” and came to his office after the last class and told them they had done so. This was likely the reason he was asked to be a TA for the course the next time it was taught one year later (when he had just turned 16) and as far as we can tell, none of the graduate students in the class even had a clue that he was young. In February, a fellow student from the time our son was in the class as a student invited our son and his parents (as we happened to be visiting him that weekend) to her 31st birthday party (at the home of yet another student from that class, who was now dating the gal), and while there, our son was speaking with a student he had in the graduate class he TAed the prior semester. This guy was almost 24 and was in complete disbelief when he first learned that our son was younger than he was; it never had crossed his mind that his TA might have been younger than he. And if you go farther back in time, our son was tutoring calculus students in the math lab at his university when he was 9 and while everyone back then knew he was a young kid as he looked his age, students still requested our son as their tutor rather than the typical aged tutors as they claimed he was able to explain things in ways they could understand, so he was even getting respect of a sort before he physically blended in well with other students.</p>
<p>John, I’ve never heard of a college president being so young - that is quite an accomplishment indeed! Here I thought my one grandfather had done well just to get a book of poetry published (back in the days before self-publishing) and a patent, and some nice grapes growing on the vines out back of his home! ;)</p>
<p>In Googling her, I was surprised to find that she has put up her own self laudatory web site. It’s her first and last name (no separation or punctuation between them) dot. com. </p>
<p>Pictures, newspaper articles, a bio, her musical and academic achievements, and her resume and e-mail are all there. Strikes me as a bit odd that she’d choose to do this.</p>
<p>One thing that I’ve noticed is that there’s no prominent info about her family such as who her parents are. I did see an article that said she has no siblings. That seems a good thing as she’d have been a hard act to follow or precede.</p>
<p>I’ve also never seen anyone listing PhD (ABD) on their resume -ABD means that she’s finished her course work but has not completed her dissertation (all but dissertation) so has not been awarded the degree.</p>
<p>Leon Botstein, current president of Bard College, is often listed as having been the youngest college president in the country at Franconia College - also when he was 23.</p>
<p>I used to teach MBAs my age and older than me. Not a big deal at all no one cared. She’ll be fine, if not great because of her age. She might be able to relate better to young students.</p>
I’d be interested in seeing how she makes out through the academia!</p>