'Yes, I can do that'
'My ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ Story' – Elaine Marieb '80
"My parents were hard working farming people who just about made ends meet when I was a girl. I was an average student in high school and started college in 1953 but had to drop out because I couldn't afford it.
Unhappy about being trapped in a dead-end job, I went back to college as a married student with two children in 1960. I was awarded my bachelor's degree in 1964 and applied for a teaching job at Agawam Junior High School, where I had practice-taught. However, there were no openings in the science or math departments there or any of the local other local high schools or junior high schools so I decided to go for a master's degree in biology.
Happily, I had made very good grades in college so I was able to obtain a graduate assistantship to support my master's studies, and I graduated with a masters in biology in 1966. At this point, I had had my fill of burning the midnight oil and took time out to teach at Springfield College. It was there that I realized I really loved teaching at the college level. So I applied and was awarded a National Institutes of Health grant support my Ph.D work. I was awarded a Ph.D in zoology by the University of Massachusetts in 1969 and started teaching here at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ in fall of the same year.
I never expected to stay but after 20-something years, I was still here and had become a good teacher because of the experiences ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ offered me. Shortly after I began teaching here my life took another turn when my husband was diagnosed with an incurable and progressive disease that left him unable to work. I started looking for ways to make a little extra money to support my family. One of the opportunities that presented itself was to review and critique manuscripts being considered for publication by college textbook publishing companies.
I worked very hard at both my jobs and eventually was asked if I had any interest in writing an anatomy and physiology lab manual for a small publishing company called Benjamin Cummings, a subsidiary of Addison Wesley publishing company. Even though I had never written anything more creative than science theses, I decided to go for it. The rest is history. I now have 10 books in the field of human anatomy and physiology (lab manuals, study guides, and textbooks) and serve as the content coordinator for Benjamin /Cummings, physiology multimedia products.
I've been told I demanded a lot of my students. I did and I demanded a lot of myself too. I traveled down a whole new educational pathway into nursing when I was in my 40s and 50s because I was convinced it would help me to more effectively help my students, most of whom were in nursing.
Education lifts people up into a new life stage and enhances their quality of life. I can't tell you how much my degrees added to my life – beyond gaining knowledge, it gave me the self-confidence that enabled me to say, yes, I can do that."
Elaine Marieb graduated from ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ's nursing program in 1980. This is an excerpt from the Commencement address she gave at ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ in 2000. She died in 2018.
PHOTOS: (Thumbnail) Elaine Marieb, after the dedication of the ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ sciencd building in her name. (Above) Elaine Marieb with President David Bartley in an anatomy and physiology lab, circa 1984.
