In order to perform one of the busiest jobs on campus while simultaneously raising five children and completing a PhD, Mary Anne Lindskog knew she would need some substantial inspiration. The assistant secretary of the University, Lindskog found her inspiration in the stories of women from the early 20th century who faced some incredible challenges themselves.
Lindskog, who successfully defended her doctoral dissertation at Pennsylvania State University several weeks ago, will receive her PhD on May 12. Her degree is in educational theory and policy, and her dissertation is based in large part on oral histories of women who prepared to become teachers prior to 1920. Lindskog conducted most of her interviews with the former teachers in the early 1980s, when most of the women were well past the typical retirement age, documenting how they prepared to teach before the existence of so-called "normal schools." She focused her research on parochial school preparation, interviewing nuns and other religious women who had taught in schools in Homestead, Penn., near Pittsburgh.
A typical example Lindskog cited from her research is the story of a 14-year-old girl who graduated from her Catholic parish school in June, entered a convent in July and by September was teaching 102 second-graders. "That just blew me away," Lindskog said. "I thought, `how could they have done that?' What I discovered, as simple as it sounds, was that they mainly did it because they believed they could, because they had courage, which is doing something despite your fears about it. They just went into those classrooms and did what had to be done. I think these are stories that need to be told."
Telling Emory's countless stories to a number of audiences is a full-time job for Lindskog, a former newspaper reporter and public relations professional.
As editor of The Emory Neighbor, a semiannual publication for residents living near campus, Lindskog is keenly aware of the concerns that nearby residents have about Emory, such as traffic, parking and construction. "I try to find out what it is that the neighbors of the campus are particularly interested in," she said. "In that regard, I have begun to attend the Druid Hills Civic Association Liaison Committee meetings. We meet in the Administration Building about every other month with several of the neighbors and discuss things that are of concern to them. That gives me a lot of insight into what The Emory Neighbor should consist of."
In addition to The Emory Neighbor, Lindskog has served for the past two years as editor of the quarterly newsletter of the Washington Cluster, Emory's partner cluster in The Atlanta Project (TAP). "The neat part about that publication is that it's a chance to showcase all the achievements in that cluster, and they are incredible," she said. "The Mighty Messengers, for example, is a group of gospel singers from the cluster who used to be typical street kids. The had been in some trouble but decided that they could turn their lives around. They are now on the verge of becoming professionals and they are just delighting audiences."
Lindskog also communicates Emory's stories by serving on the Partnership Advisory Council of Emory's partnership program with Fernbank Elementary and Druid Hills High School; coordinating the publication of the commencement magazine, commencement program and trustee handbook; and writing up the minutes of many of the committees of the Board of Trustees, with whom she and University Secretary Gary Hauk work closely.
The pace of Lindskog's life doesn't slow down much when she goes home. Her five children, who range in age from 8 to 22, were a tremendous help to her while she was finishing up her dissertation this winter. Her husband Dale, a graduate of Emory's nursing school and a Crawford Long staff member, has been running the household, in spite of being on medical leave due to kidney disease.
"My family was absolutely tremendous," Lindskog said. "There is no way I could have finished my dissertation without their help. I really put on a burst of speed to be able to defend it successfully [in late February] by working since Christmas every moment I was at home, including a lot of the time at night when I should have been sleeping. But the dissertation got finished because they took care of everything else. My husband cooked wonderful meals. He and the kids took care of all the rest of the household, the grocery shopping, laundry, etc., so that I could just come home from work and have my attention on the work I was trying to finish. It was truly amazing, and no one was more surprised than I that as a result, it actually got done and got defended."
Now that she has achieved ABG (all but graduated) status, Lindskog plans to turn her attention to other opportunities, perhaps doing some teaching. "I realized the other day that I now have the terminal degree in my program," she said. "That's kind of an ominous word, and it reminded me of one of my former jobs where I flew in and out of airports a lot. I always went to the terminal. I realized that the PhD as a terminal degree is just like the terminal in an airport, because it's where one leg of your journey ends and another begins. Thinking about it that way helped me understand better why it wasn't this awesome, end-of-the-world task that I had thought it was. Wherever it is that I go next, this is just another milestone along the way."
--Dan Treadaway