Anthony Barcellos, a math instructor at American River College, died June 27 at Mercy San Juan Medical Center at the age of 73.
“It’s a tough loss,” said Michelle Brock, dean of mathematics at ARC.
Barcellos was born on April 4, 1951 in Porterville, California,. Barcellos was of Portuguese heritage and grew up on his family’s dairy farm that his immigrant grandfather founded.
According to an obituary in the Sacramento Bee, he graduated from Porterville High School with honors in 1969 and graduated with his associate’s degree from Porterville College in 1971. Barcellos also graduated from California Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1973 and graduated California State University, Fresno with a master’s degree in mathematics in 1974. In 2005, Barcellos earned his doctorate in mathematics education from University of California, Davis.
Barcellos was a writer for the Albuquerque Journal in 1978 as well as a legislative assistant at the California State Senate from 1979 to 1980 and an associate treasurer program officer at the California State Treasurer’s Office from 1981 to 1987, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Barcellos started at ARC in 1987. He worked there until his death in June, becoming one of the oldest working faculty members of the community college, according to Brock.
Barcellos taught all types of math; algebra, statistics and calculus. According to Brock, his classes were always filled. Even students who weren’t taking his class would come to him to ask questions about their homework.
“He was a force,” Brock said.
Brock has worked with Barcellos at ARC since 2005.
“He was a writer…and brought that to the classroom as far as having students write in a math class, which was different,” Brock said.
Barcellos would start class with classical music and have conversations about the music being played before even talking about math, according to Brock.
Barcellos was also a huge part of the art and music community. He wrote music reviews for the Sacramento Bee and was into opera and classical music. Barcellos would also visit his long-time friend, Carrie Hennessey, an opera performer in Sacramento.
“We would have an excuse to go hang out and talk about music in the community and how we could bring it deeper into the community,” Hennessey said.
Hennessey said she was honored to be a part of one aspect of the professor’s life.
“He would come to see me perform opera classics… and was always searching for the next project,” she said.
Hennessey described that his ultimate goal was to bring people in the community closer together.
“He said ‘I have weaseled my way into the Sacramento Bee so I can write more about music so we can make more of an impact on the community,’ ” Hennessey said.
