Math professor Jennifer Quinn loves to count her steps. Her goal is 10,000 a day, the number recommended by the American Heart Association. "We worry about so many things in our lives — our families, our students — that taking care of ourselves comes last," said Quinn, the interim associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at UW Tacoma. "It's so important to value yourself and your health and to make that time. Whatever you enjoy doing in life, you want to make sure you enjoy it for a long time, right?"

Show of hands: Who here hates math? You won't need a calculator to see that the number is big. One survey found that a third of Americans would rather clean their bathrooms than do a math problem, and more than half of children polled said they would rather eat broccoli. Are some people just not meant to ace algebra? Are they destined to despise digits? Allison Hintz wants to put a big, red ‘X’ through that way of thinking.