A01383 - Thyrsa Frazier Svager, One of the First African American Woman to Earn Doctorate in Mathematics

Thyrsa Anne Frazier Svager (b. June 16, 1930, Wilberforce, Ohio – d. July 23, 1999) was an American academic who was one of the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate in mathematics. Born in Wilberforce, Ohio, she graduated from high school at the age of 16, going to Antioch College in Ohio and then doing her postgraduate degrees at Ohio State University. Frazier Svager was the head of the Department of Mathematics at Central State University (CSU) in Ohio for decades, ending her academic career as provost and dean for academic affairs. She and her husband, physics professor Aleksandar Svager, invested one of their salaries during their careers to build a legacy for scholarships. After her death, the Thyrsa Frazier Svager Fund was established to provide scholarships for African-American women majoring in mathematics.

Frazier Svager was born Thyrsa Anne Frazier on June 16, 1930, in Wilberforce, Ohio. Her mother, Elizabeth Anne Frazier, taught speech at Central State University (CSU), a historically black university in Wilberforce, Ohio. Her father, G. Thuton Frazier, headed the Logistics Department at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.  She was a member of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, holding the position of Polemarch in the province. Frazier Svager had three sisters, Gail, Constance and Jane, and a brother, William Lafayette.

Frazier Svager graduated from Wilberforce University Preparatory Academy in Ohio at the age of 16 in 1947, as class valedictorian.  She attended Antioch College, a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, majoring in mathematics, with a minor in chemistry, and placed in the 99th percentile in the Princeton Senior Student Examination. Frazier Svager was one of only four black students at Antioch: one of the others was Coretta Scott, with whom she was friends. In fact, Coretta Scott wrote to Thyrsa Frazier that she herself had a met an extraordinary man up in Boston. Thyrsa encouraged Coretta to marry the man, the man known as Martin Luther King.  

Frazier Svager gained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Antioch in 1951, going on to gain a master's (1952) and a doctorate from Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus in 1965, where Paul Reichelderfer was her doctoral advisor. Her dissertation was titled "On the product of absolutely continuous transformations of measure spaces".

Frazier Svager worked for a year at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, before teaching at Texas Southern University in Houston. In 1954, she joined the faculty of CSU in Wilberforce.

In 1967, Frazier Svager was appointed chairman of the CSU department of mathematics. She was awarded tenure in 1970. She spent a summer in Washington, DC in 1966 as a systems analyst at NASA, as visiting faculty at MIT in 1969, and in 1985, she undertook postdoctoral study at OSU during the summer.

Frazier Svager was provost and vice president for academic affairs when she retired in 1993. In March 1995, she returned for a short time to CSU as Interim President.

Frazier Svager was active on the issue of scholarships, serving as the president of the local chapter of MOLES, a national association that provided scholarships for college students.  She was also a member of Beta Kappa Chi, the National Association of Mathematicians, and the Mathematical Association of America, and was involved with Jack and Jill of America. Frazier Svager participated in the meeting that founded the National Association of Mathematics in 1969.

She wrote two books, CSU's Modern Elementary Algebra Workbook (1969), and Essential Mathematics for College Freshmen (1976).

While on the CSU faculty, Frazier met Aleksandar Svager, a Holocaust survivor from Yugoslavia and a physics professor at CSU. They married in June 1968 at her parents' home.

Both university professors with a strong commitment to furthering education opportunities, the Svagers lived on one income, investing the other to build a scholarship fund.  After her death, her husband established the Thyrsa Frazier Svager Fund at the Dayton Foundation, for African-American women who major in mathematics at one of six universities, with a legacy contribution planned. As of February 2017, 33 women had received support from the Fund. An annual contribution is also being made to the American Physical Society's Minority Scholarship. 

Frazier Svager was honored with an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by CSU on her retirement, and she was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Greene County, Ohio. 

Thyrsa Frazier Svager died on July 23, 1999.

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Thyrsa Frazier Svager

Born: June 16, 1930; birth place:

Died July 23, 1999

 B.A. (1951) Mathematics Antioch College; M.S. (1952) Mathematics Ohio State University

 Ph.D.(1967) Mathematics Ohio State University
thesis: On the Product of Absolutely Continuous Transformations of Measure Spaces; Advisor: Paul Reichelderfer

As a senior (1950-51), Thyrsa Frazier obtained a very high score on the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). At the time of her professional retirement in 1993, no other Antioch student had made a score as high as Frazier's score. Thyrsa Frazier Svager earned her B.A. in Mathematics from Antioch College. After earning her Master's degree in Mathematics from Ohio State University (1952), Thyrsa accepted a position as Statistical Analyst at the Wright Patterson Air-Force Base in Dayton, OH. She spent the 1953-54 academic year as an instructor of mathematics at Texas Southern University in Houston, TX. In the fall of 1954, she began a long and distinguished career of thirty-nine (39) years at Central State University (CSU) in her hometown of Wilberforce, OH: (1954-59) Assistant Professor of Mathematics, (1959-66) Associate Professor of Mathematics, (1966-84) Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, (1984-87) Vice President for Academic Affairs, (1987-93) Provost of Central State University.

In 1967, Frazier earned the Ph.D. in Mathematics from Ohio State University. Her research interest was computer applications to number theory. She joined Central State University in 1954 and in 1966 Dr. Svager became Professor of Mathematics and department chair at Central State University. In 1984 she became Vice President for Academic Affairs and in 1987 she was appointed Provost, a position which she served until retiring in 1993. Upon her retirement in 1993, the CSU bestowed upon her the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters and named her Professor Emeritus of Mathematics. In March 1995, Dr. Svager came out of her retirement to serve as Interim President of CSU for a short period of time.

Dr. Svager authored several elementary texts in Mathematics: "Modern Elementary Algebra Workbook," Wm. C. Brown, 1969, and "Essential Mathematics for College Freshmen," Kendall-Hunt, 1976.

Her research interest was computer applications of number theory.

From Dr. Svager's neice Gloria Rose, we have learned:

Thyrsa Anne Frazier's father was a statistician. Her mother, E. Anne Frazier, was a professor of literature at Central State College.

Thyrsa Frazier and Coretta Scott King went to Antioch together.  In fact, Coretta wrote to Thyrsa Frazier that she herself had a met an extraordinary man up in Boston. Thyrsa encouraged her to marry Martin Luther King.  Thyrsa Frazier married a Holocaust Survivor, Aleks Svager, a Bosnian Jewish man.

SUMMA Thyrsa Frazier Svager web page: http://www.maa.org/summa/archive/FrazierT.htm .