Alice Mason, associate professor of Mathematics, died March 6 at Nashville's Centennial Medical Center from complications following heart bypass surgery last November. She was 54.

Burial will be in her hometown of Brooksville, Fla., on Sunday, March 16. A memorial service will be held on campus from 11:15 a.m. to noon, Tuesday, March 25, in Bruner Auditorium.

Mason, who joined the Tennessee Tech faculty in 1983, was appointed chairperson of the Mathematics Department in 1986. She stepped down in the spring of 1998 to return to the classroom full time.

Long-time Mathematics secretary Mamie Goulet, who has since retired, worked with Mason for many years, alongside current secretary Vickie Mayberry.

"She was a very dear friend to both of us," says Goulet. "She was kind-hearted, generous, considerate, and thoughtful of individuals, especially to Vickie and me. She loved her teaching more than anything."

Mason was valedictorian of her graduating class at Hernando High School in Brooksville, as were her mother and grandmother before her. After earning a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida, Mason taught math at High Point High School in Beltsville, Md., from 1970 to 1975. She returned to Gainesville, earning a master's in 1977. She went on to the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, but ultimately moved back to UF, where she completed doctoral studies in mathematics, with a specialty in topology, in 1983.

During her career here, she served on several committees and university task forces, and published papers in, among others, The Journal of Mathematical Behavior.

She is survived by her mother, Dorothy Mason; a brother, Joe Mason Jr., his wife, Kay, and their two daughters, Mary Katherine and Celia Ann. All are residents of Brooksville.

The family requests that donations in lieu of flowers be made to the Building Fund of First United Methodist Church, 109 S. Broad St., Brooksville, FL 34601; the American Heart Association; or the Tennessee Technological University Foundation Scholarship Fund, Box 5047.