Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.The new president of a California university got her start in a one-room schoolhouse in Nebraska.
Inaugurated Saturday as head of Dominican University in San Rafael, 12 miles from the Golden Gate Bridge, 47-year-old Mary B. Marcy has lived a life of achievement:
» She grew up on a ranch near Hay Springs in northwest Nebraska, riding horses, roping calves and helping with vaccinations and branding.
» At Rushville High, she played three sports and graduated in a class of 32.
» At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, class of 1987, she served as president of the Union Board and of the Mortar Board honorary society.
» Glamour magazine named her one of the top 10 college women in America.
» At the University of Oxford in England, she earned a master's degree and a Ph.D.
» A political scientist, she has risen through the ranks of liberal arts colleges in America.
And she knows how to kick off her shoes — literally — and have a good time.
At Dominican's recent "Midnight Mayhem" event to mark the start of practice for the college basketball season, she endeared herself to students, alumni and fans by giving a spirited, impromptu talk and then joining the action.
Quoting from the classic children's book "Where the Wild Things Are," President Marcy ended her remarks with an enthusiastic, "Let the wild rumpus begin!"
Everyone cheered, but all were surprised at what happened next.
"To their amazement," said David Albee, a college spokesman, "she kicked off her high heels, took off her jacket, grabbed a basketball, dribbled in and made a layup. The president of the university! The crowd went nuts."
Dominican teams, which compete in NCAA Division II, are called the Penguins — a name students selected in the 1970s in playful tribute to the school's founding Dominican nuns, whose old black-and-white habits made them look kind of like . penguins. The student cheering section is called the Ice Box.
Students didn't know that their new president had averaged 10 to 12 points a game as a high school senior and even played basketball in graduate school at Oxford.
Recalling her playing days in a phone interview last week, President Marcy said with a chuckle: "I was scrappy. Bossy."
Since July 1, she has served as boss of a 2,200-student school, not really being bossy but rather encouraging students — as she did at the start of the term — to seek challenges, think critically, build relationships and expand their horizons.
Horizons are broad in northwest Nebraska, where she said her great-great-grandfather homesteaded in 1888 with nothing but a horse and a wagon.
"There, he started a cattle ranch and helped found a community," Marcy said Saturday in her inaugural address. "He helped establish the one-room school where, nearly a century later, I began my education."
Dominican was founded two years after her family's ranch. Both still operate, she said, and share a commitment to education. When we spoke last week, Marcy said her parents stressed education and hard work.
"You don't realize you're learning a work ethic," she said. "It's just that the cattle have to be fed."
She enjoyed college, remains a Husker football fan and appreciates her undergraduate education.
"One of the things I loved about the University of Nebraska is that it takes young people from whatever background and invites them to think 'the next big thought' for themselves."
As a student, she became interested in diversity. Having grown up with notions of idealism, she said, she learned in college that some people may work hard "but not be rewarded because the game is stacked against them."
When Glamour magazine honored Marcy, a World-Herald article noted her leadership in helping establish a multicultural center at UNL, as well as her efforts aimed at "reducing discrimination against American ethnic minorities."
Glamour flew her to New York, where she first "felt like a country hick" among honorees from Ivy League schools. But by the end of the week, she was holding her own in intellectual conversations. She later met two of her fellow honorees again as students at Oxford.
Her career has included positions in the state of Washington and, most recently, at Bard College in western Massachusetts, where she was vice president.
Young for a college president, she said she never set a presidency as a goal but merely has accepted meaningful opportunities.
With a bagpiper leading the entrance procession, delegates from 30 other universities, dressed in colorful academic regalia, attended her inauguration Saturday as the school's ninth president in 122 years.
Among those attending were her mother, Barbara Marcy of Chadron, Neb., and siblings: Ruth Gerdes, Auburn, Neb.; Sara Andres, Blair, Neb.; Tom Marcy, Hay Springs, Neb.; and George Marcy, Fort Collins, Colo.
The new president's father, World War II veteran Charles R. Marcy, died in 2005 at age 86. He raised corn, soybeans, alfalfa and sugar beets, as well as Angus cattle and Morgan horses.
The youngest of the Marcys' five children took the oath of office and told the audience she carries into the presidency enduring legacies — of the campus in California and of her family in Nebraska.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1132, michael.kelly@owh.com
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