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Math Instructor at 2 Boston Universities Is Accused of Running a Drug Lab With Her Son

December 4, 2011, 7:58 pm

Prosecutors say a 74-year-old mathematics instructor at two Boston universities will be arraigned this month on charges accusing her, along with her son, of running a methamphetamine lab out of their home, The Boston Globe reported. The instructor, Irina Kristy, teaches three courses a semester at Boston University, where classes for the semester are scheduled to end on December 12. A spokesman there declined to comment on her employment status. She had also taught at Suffolk University until last Monday, when she was placed on administrative leave, a spokesman said. Ms. Kristy declined to comment to the newspaper. Her son, Grigory Genkin, who is 29, pleaded not guilty to charges of methamphetamine distribution and conspiracy last month.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Laurie-Fendrich/100000562755838 Laurie Fendrich

    David, I might be an exception to the rule. A part of a generation where everyone who went
    to college was required to study mathematics at least through pre-calculus, I find the abstract logic involved in such endeavors as geometry and algebra a lot of fun and a lot easier than word problems. In your examples here, I had no trouble solving the abstract problem, but stumbled for a moment over the word problem—the one you say most people find so easy. 

    Perhaps there’s a subgroup of people who are like me? I’m wondering if the very words
    “bartender” and “night club” don’t trigger something in some people’s imagination that makes their brains think a story is about to be told–instead of the challenge of having to solve a problem.

  • suomynona

    Is poor attention to detail (or missed detail) a function of a person struggling with abstract thinking, or a cause?  Suppose, for example, you read ‘vowel’ but apprehend both a and b falsely as ‘vowels’ by making a hasty association (a vowel is a letter, a letter is not a number…).  Would that be a failure to realize an abstraction, or to work with abstractions, or a problem with reading carefully, or both?

  • dpbarash

    Interesting. I recently tried these two puzzles on my honors seminar: 14 got the first one wrong (1 right), but none had the slightest trouble with the second. Maybe this speaks to the value of an “n” greater than one … or perhaps, Laurie, you spent too much time on calculus and not enough in bars!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Laurie-Fendrich/100000562755838 Laurie Fendrich

    I promise you I spent plenty of time in bars!

  • tardigrade

    The bartender quiz is badly formulated, as it doesn’t explicitly state whether the “under 21″ person and the “over 21″ person are drinking anything at all.

  • electronicmuse

    Illogical that logic is not logic.

  • k_steiner

    I’m with Fendrich. The first was easy, and I had it within moments. The second was poorly set up. It was not immediately obvious, to me at least, that the bartender was being confronted with four individuals about each of which he (rather improbably) knew either the age or the drink but not both. I guess I stumbled on the second because it wasn’t “positioned in a world of social reality.”

  • dank48

    I believe Marvin Minsky once defined “Logic” as “what doesn’t work in the real world.”

  • johnbarnes

    Seems to be a natural connection to the perpetual observation that people who are barely numerate can calculate correctly as long as it involves money or (less often) driving directions.

  • goxewu

    Old joke I like (OK, it’s an “ethnicist” joke):

    Three UN teams, from England, Germany and France come to check a recently installed water-pumping system in a developing country. The English team turns on the water, checks for leaks, finds none, and pronounces the system OK. The German team checks the pressure and volume gauges, finds them accurate, and pronounces the system OK. All eyes then turn to the French team, whose leader says:

    “Ah, yes. But does it work in theory?”

  • http://nathaniel-campbell.blogspot.com/ Nathaniel M. Campbell

    As someone who made it through calculus in high school (and loved math and science despite going into the hardcore humanities), I, to the contrary, stumbled over the first problem but had no problems with the second.

    What I think the general trend reveals is the evolutionary value of understanding the world in terms of narrative — I’m thinking here along the lines of the recent work of Brian Boyd, though my own work in apocalypticism and theologies of history backs this up.  We are predisposed to discern patterns of meaningful narrative around which to structure our lives.  Indeed, I find that I’m a more effective teacher when I’m telling a story rather than droning on through names and dates and places.  That’s why, for example, students have a better grasp of medieval pilgrimages after reading chunks of the Canterbury Tales than they do if I lecture about this saint and that church and the relics over there.

  • hhopf

    This issue was brought home to me during my junior year in college.  My roommate had taken the GREs and came home and asked me about a word problem from the test.  It was a baseball problem and presented a series of substitutions that had been made, then asked who was available to pitch.  Without any calculation, I (a varsity softball player) said, “Player B.”  She had gotten the correct answer algebraically, but it took her 5 minutes of intense calculation.  This was an early glimpse for me into how bias is so hard to remove from standardized exams.  And also that playing sports isn’t just a waste of time!

  • dank48

    Do you know the one about the engineer, the physicist, and the philosopher on a train traveling through Scotland? They look out the window and see black sheep. The engineer says, “In Scotland sheep are black.” The physicist says . . . 

  • ledzep

    That’s a very cool comparison, though like some of the others I was initially confused about the rules of the second scenario.

  • mbelvadi

    Social consequences of the exploitation of contingent faculty?  Would she have done it (assuming she did-she’s charged but not yet convicted) if she had actually been paid a living wage for what amounts to a full teaching load?

  • dank48

    I’ve worked some fairly hard jobs for fairly low pay, but I’ve never done an amateur production of Breaking Bad. As noted, this is an accusation, not a conviction, but in any case, lousy adjunct pay doesn’t exculpate criminal activity.

  • mbelvadi

    At an individual level, I agree, but at a sociological level, it’s a warning sign.  Just like crime rates go up when unemployment goes up as people on the extreme edges behave criminally, you can look at individual moral culpability but you’ll make better public policy if you look at trends. I thought this story might be an interesting anecdote on the extreme edges of the trend towards de-fulltime-ization (I refuse to call it deprofessionalization) of teaching faculty.

  • dank48

    And I agree that, as a somewhat colorful example, this sort of thing is a symptom. Perhaps you’ve noticed an increase in the past three years in, shall we say, informality about invoices for relatively small jobs of work done and services performed, with a preference for cash not checks. So I’m told. . . .

  • katisumas

    Though I sure agree that contingent faculty should be paid a living wage AND benefits such as participating in retirement plans, but this case is different.  This person is 74 years old, so presumably  she is getting social security and she is covered by Medicare, so her adjunct pay supplements it.  

    Meth is so horrible, there’s no excuse for spreading it around.

    However, this is still at the accusation stage. Is it possible that only her son did it and her alleged guilt is that it was done in her house (that usually makes you guilty even though you might not have been aware of it? Actually I found it hard to believe that someone would allow a meth lab in her house because it will ruin the house and often the land on which it stands….)

  • marka

    Actually, crime has often gone DOWN in recessions/depressions.  One of many myths about the links between/among crime and poverty/unemployment/imprisonment, etc., explored & exploded in Stuntz, William J., The collapse of American criminal justice, CALL NO: 364.40973 S9348c 2011, BARCODE: 31168102830229.  Highly recommended read.

  • psychout

    No. One outlier does not serve as a “warning sign” at a sociological level. It might make a nice case study though (older mom, faculty adjunct, “Breaking Bad” parallel, and all the other stuff that’s likely to come out).

  • mkt42

    Son:  But you said it was okay.

    Math Mom:  I thought you said “math lab” not “meth lab”.

  • tdb489

    People don’t start a criminal life at age 74.  My guess is her involvement with methamphetamine is a years/decades long behavior.  It is the Personnel Department’s responsibility to run criminal and background checks on people before they are hired.  The universities are very lucky this did not result in another campus death. 

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