Boyden receives Chancellor’s Gold ‘U’ Award

Marjorie Boyden jokes that football kept her at UNMC.

In reality, it is the colleagues and graduate students with whom she has worked the past 35-plus years.

For her outstanding performance and service, Boyden, an office associate II in UNMC’s Department of Pathology and Microbiology, has received the Chancellor’s Gold ‘U’ Award for April.

“I like my job and like the work,” said Boyden from her fourth-floor office in Wittson Hall. “I was absolutely, chin-hitting-the-floor shocked to learn I received the Gold ‘U.’ ”

Marjorie Boyden Title: Office associate II Job responsibilities: Graduate program coordinator in pathology/microbiology; provide support for Drs. Steven Carson, Toyin Asojo, Donald Johnson, Rakesh Singh. Joined UNMC: December 1960, then left for a few years before returning in 1974. One day I’d like to: Watch a Nebraska football game in a “sky box” and have my family with me. Greatest personal achievement: Combining a career I enjoy as well as raising three sons and having a successful marriage (45 years in June).

And how does football — especially for a campus without an athletic team — factor into her tenure? Well, thanks to her university affiliation, Boyden had an opportunity to buy Husker football tickets in 1974 through the lottery system. “You never win that, but I happened to, and started getting tickets,” she said. “I joked that I would stay.”

The Jefferson, Iowa, native has been a regular in the northeast section of Memorial Stadium ever since.

Back on campus, she says it is the people and the work that have kept her happy at UNMC. ‘It’s never the same — even if you have a schedule you can never predict what will happen on any given day,” she said. “I love working with the graduate students – they keep me on my toes!”

“One of the most outstanding traits that Marge has displayed is her flexibility and a ‘can-do’ attitude,” said one nominator. “She is willing to not only provide assistance but to go above and beyond the call of duty. A second remarkable trait of Marge Boyden is her loyalty to the university, the college, the department and all of the faculty and staff that constitute the academic community. The number of challenges that she has faced over the years would have driven away a lesser person.”

As a youngster, Boyden considered becoming a flight attendant, but said she didn’t meet the airline’s height regulation or its requirement of no glasses. Instead, she took typing, bookkeeping and related secretarial courses in high school.

Boyden started doing secretarial work at the Nebraska Psychiatric Institute in 1960, where she was one of the few employees who had a key to the front door. Several years later, she left to raise three sons. During that time, she ran a typing business in her home. “I typed a book for a psychologist and did a lot of work for (psychiatrist) Frank Menolascino,” she said.

She returned to the institute in 1974. Four years later, she began working with Dr. Harry McFadden in medical microbiology. In 1985, the departments of microbiology and pathology merged and “it became a whole new ballgame,” Boyden said.
“(Marge) knows so much about the history of the department, the campus and the support staff,” said another nominator. “She goes above and beyond with extra projects and the graduate program. Marge is truly dedicated to the university. Her work reflects what she has given to us – her heart and soul, as well as most of her adult life, as she is in her 36th year with UNMC.”

In raising three sons, Boyden was active in Cub Scouts, serving 10 years as a den mother and holding weekly Monday night meetings for a dozen youngsters. She also was a regular at her sons’ activities, which included baseball, football, wrestling and diving. Now, the Council Bluffs, Iowa, resident and her retired husband, Roy, attend “anything” involving their seven grandchildren. They also have one great granddaughter.

The years on campus have flown by, she said. “It’s different every day. When the department merged I wondered what would happen,” she said. “I chose to ride it out and am glad I did.”