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Sue Marx's latest documentary is
a story of success by the numbers

S

ue Marx has met a lot of interesting
people in her work as an oscar-
winning filmmaker.

She and co-producer Allyson Fink Rockwell
have created award-winning programs for
a variety of clients on topics from health to
history, politics to animal welfare. They've
done projects for the City of Detroit, the
DIA, DSO, Cranbrook, the Detroit Zoo, the
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit.
They recently produced The Relaxation
Station, a video for children and their
families that is shown daily throughout
Children's Hospital of Michigan and many
other hospitals in the country.

And, oh yeah, Marx won an Academy
Award in 1987 for Best Documentary Short
Subject for the film Young at Heart, about
her widowed father who found love again
in his 80s.

board," she recalls. "I heard what they
were saying and asked how long the
program had been going on, and turns
out it had been around since 1992."

So she made it a point to learn about Math
Corps. Marx found that the free summer
academic enrichment and mentoring
program was created by math faculty
members Leonard Boehm — also a WSU
alum — and Professor Steve Kahn. They
wanted to .put middle and high school
students from Detroit with college students
to learn mathematics from one another
and interact with faculty in a university
setting. The middle school students
are taught by high school kids in the
program. Students in the Math Corps High
School Bridge Program are taught by the
university students. It is a self-perpetuating
group of students and teachers.

To get into the program,
students must complete an
application and write a short
essay. What he looks for, Kahn
says, is kids who are willing to
work hard. It doesn't matter
what kinds of grades students
have received in math before
entering Math Corps. The
program is very strict: homework
every day, no fighting and if
you're late, you're out. Kahn says
Most Math Corps students remain with the
there is fun and craziness in the
program through high school graduation.
program — but above all, there
She knows a good story when it comes
is an expectation of greatness.
along. And she found a great subject at
It All Adds Up includes interviews with
Wayne State University — Math Corps,
students who admit that they weren't
a six-week summer camp for inner-
really interested when approached with
city Detroit kids. The resulting short
the
idea of spending six weeks of their
documentary film, It All Adds Up, debuted
summer
vacation — plus Saturdays —
in November on WTVS, Detroit's public
studying math. Yet, after meeting other
television station. The film will be seen
students and being inspired and supported
nationally on other PBS stations in 2009.
by Boehm and Kahn, they are totally
Marx first heard about Math Corps a few
hooked. Most stick with the program
years ago when she attended a dinner
through high school graduation. In the
and was seated with Robert Thomas, dean
film, Boehm recounts the story of one of
of the WSU College of Liberal Arts and
his first students, a young man who would
Sciences. Thomas was talking about Math
call him nightly from a pay phone because
Corps with other dinner guests and Marx's
his family didn't have a telephone. That
ears pricked up.
young man received a full scholarship to
Yale and majored in math.
"Thomas was talking to a guy to my left,
George Hill, who was on the Math Corps
While Detroit Public Schools has one of

the nation's most dismal graduation rates,
since 1995 more than 90 percent of Math
Corps students have graduated from high
school, about 10 percent have entered the

Math Corps: Some fun, some
craziness, but above all an
expectation of greatness.

military or completed technical training
and more than 80 percent have gone on
to college.

After raising funds for the film, co-
producers Rockwell and Bob Berg went
to work. "People connect with this kind
of story," says Rockwell. "It's a win-win
situation. We're hopeful that after the
national broadcast, this kind of program
will expand to other communities
throughout the country."

After Marx won the Oscar she could have
taken her business anywhere, but she
chose to stay in Detroit. "I didn't leave
Detroit because I was married, I have
friends here and I will always be here,"
she says.

Marx received her graduate degree at
Wayne State University. Her late husband,
Hank, received both his bachelor's and
master's degrees from Wayne, and her
oldest daughter, Terry, graduated from the
School of Medicine.

Marx and Rockwell have several projects in
development, including a documentary for
public television about the history of Jews
in Detroit and Michigan.

To learn more about Math Corps or
financially support a student in the
program, visit www.mathcorps.org . To
learn more about Sue Marx's films, visit

suemarxfilms.com .

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