Two for One

Two friends, a shared journey and a force for mentorship in math education. 

By Joe Tougas ’86 

Best friends Felicia Smith and Chalandra Gooden are finding that they are indeed inseparable. 

The two have studied, graduated and worked together since meeting 11 years ago at the University of South Alabama, where they were both sisters in a sorority. 

A strong friendship ensued as they cruised through undergraduate studies and the same master’s program together, both intent on becoming math teachers. And a weird thing happened when they sent out resumes afterward.  

“The only place that wanted to interview us wanted both of us,” Smith recalled. It was a  K-12 public education teaching job at a middle high school, which hired them both. 

A few years later, the Smith and Gooden both applied to a number of universities. One of those was Minnesota State University, Mankato which was hiring for a single spot in math education. And the same thing happened again, resulting in MSU’s College of Education hiring two best friends to be among its faculty specializing in math education. 

They were thrilled to know that “the band wasn’t going to break up after all,” Smith laughed. 

Gooden, in fact, had been offered a different job she said, but she was more excited about the opportunity to continue her career alongside Smith. . “You can’t complain about moving to a whole new state with your best friend. … It made it easy to say ‘yes.’”  

As did the tour of the campus, which reminded Gooden of their first college.  

“That small-school feel we had in South Alabama, I knew the benefits of that,” Gooden said. “If you needed to talk to the dean of students, you could. If you needed to talk to the provost, you could. … I knew in terms of being there for students, it would be a good fit.”  

How do students benefit when two close friends are teaching in the same department? 

“You get to see professors who interact with one another and who collaborate and work together, because sometimes we can all be siloed,” Smith said. “And I think it’s really good for students to see that as they’re coming through the program.” 

Once here and on the job, the two wasted no time finding ways to help students and future teachers of color. They helped activate and design a mentorship program, MavTeach, that pairs working teachers of color with students of color. 

“The first semester, I had a Somali student say ‘You’re the first black teacher I ever had. It was really nice to see you up there and learn from you,’” Gooden said. “I took that to heart, which showed me that that was a gap.”  

From there, Gooden and Smith asked MSU’s advising program if there were opportunities to bridge that gap and mentor students of color, and they learned of the MavTeach mentoring program that was essentially waiting to happen. 

The program was a hit with the schoolteachers who mentored students, to the extent that they want to keep working with the students until graduation. The program continues during the Fall 2025 semester.  

Being at the helm of a mentoring situation brings Smith and Gooden full-circle in one sense. 

“Mentors were very influential in our process and us getting here. It was very important to us when we went through our doctoral program because there was no one in our direct department that was a woman, let alone a person of color,” Smith said. “Some people don’t understand the way certain cultures and certain groups communicate and write, and we struggled. So we connected with a mentor we had in the program, a faculty mentor, and she was very influential in helping us write to cater to a higher ed audience and not losing our voice at the same time.” 

Taking on the first year in a new state was made – to use a math term – exponentially better because they were together. 

“Anytime someone asks, ‘How was your first year?’ I say honestly, I had a cheat code, because I’m with my best friend,” Gooden said. “We work with each other so much that it rarely encounters work-related issues.” 

“We can talk things through, without feeling like a little tadpole in a pond which happens when you’re a first-year faculty member,” Gooden adds. “Having someone who’s a sounding board is something people don’t get—someone who’s also going through the same thing but somebody you fully trust.”