Word Equation Editor not updating syntax

Hi all, having a strange issue in word and hope someone can help.

To start, my setup is:

iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, Late 2015)

macOS Mojave Version 10.14.6

Word Version: 16.35 (20030802)

Hopefully that's enough info, let me know if you need anything else.

Here is the situation:

Short Version:   Word does not evaluate the "" command (i.e. \alpha, \int, etc) expressions when I push scpacebar after typing.  In other office products (Powerpoint, Onenote) the equation editor works just fine.

Long Version:

I open any word document (could be from a few days ago, could be brand new, doesn't matter).  I enter into the equation editor via "ctrl" + "=", and this is what shows up like normal:

Here is where things start to be weird, without changing any preferences or clicking anything I start to type a command (in this example \alpha, but it doesn't work for the many many different commands I have tried):

At this point, I noticed that the font is different than usual.  Typically, the background of the equation editor is grey and the text is highlighted dark grey.  The text itself is usually italicized.  More on this later.  If I press spacebar at this point, nothing happens. If I right click (or click the blue dropdown arrow on the editor itself) and choose "Professional", it does evaluate correctly.

I spent a significant amount of time looking around on these forums trying to find a solution, but to no avail.  Here are some of the things I have checked/tried:

1.) Checked the Equation Options tab for incorrect settings.  See the following images of my settings:

I have tried cycling just about every checkbox/setting in these windows - to no effect.  I then reset everything to defaults and tried again, nothing.  

2.) I found this forum question/response:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_word-mso_mac-mso_365hp/unicode-with-equation-editor-in-word-powerpoint/d17175cf-a52d-49d6-a1d2-156068eea6f8

and tried the corresponding solution of deleting the file from:

~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.Office/Microsoft Office ACL [Math]

then restarted word and tried the equation editor again.  No dice.

That about summarizes my experience, after a few hours of trying to fix it last night I decided to seek help...

There are a few other peculiarities with the situation, I don't know if these are pertinent to the root issue so I decided to exclude them from the main description.  I'll do my best to describe them here:

Extra-weirdness #1:

I type the \alpha command as I had above

I quickly douple-tap the space bar, a period is added.

I press spacebar once again after the period is added, the command "executes" and changes to the formatted version.

If I write the command and simply type a period and then press space, nothing.

Extra-weirdness #2:

I go to the pre-built equation dropdown and choose the equation that tickles my fancy at the time (can be any of them).

Word inserts the "professional" formatted version.

I right click and change to "linear" mode and the text changes to the non-italicized version.  My suspicion here is that the linear version is for some reason evaluating to LateX syntax, see below this.

Spacebar does not evaluate the text.

If I write some command, say for example make a 5x1 vector:

\matrix(5@4@3@2@1)

and then press the "professional" key, it will evaluate the \matrix command and generate the familiar black box symbol, but it will not generate the formatted matrix.

Extra-weirdness #3:

On my laptop (MBPro mid-2012, macOS High Sierra 10.13.6), with the exact same version and release of word the equation editor works just fine.  I think this might narrow it down to a local issue, but I can't for the life of me figure out what that issue might be.

I think that about covers it, hopefully that isn't too confusing an explanation.  Let me know if you need anything else.  I am really hoping that there is a well documented fix that I just missed, but I'm happy to take suggestions to try something new.

Thanks in advance!