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Remembering Mary Ellen Ryder
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Unexpected loss forces everyone to stumble and stutter over an emotion with no name. The punctuated bitterness of tears shed for someone who left too early is indescribable. As a culture, we approach it with open mouths and torn hearts.
Although grief is an individual construct, our collective hearts feel a need to speak. These are some of the thoughts of Arbiter staff and members of the Boise State community who knew Mary.
“There is hardly a person within the Department that she did not touch and she will be missed by so many. I will never forget when she played her guitar and sang at the English Majors Association Banquet last fall. She really knew how to kick back and have fun with her students.” Francy Marcotte, Arbiter Staff.
“She was always kind, warm, outgoing and eager to spend as much time as possible with students. Anytime she was serving office hours and not with a student, she would be on the couch in the writing center, being as friendly as could be.” Dale Eisinger, Arbiter Staff.
“I’ve read a lot of testimony about how much Mary Ellen loved to teach, and it’s absolutely true. What made her even more remarkable is how much she loved who she taught. She invited her students out for dinner, she would stay in touch with them years after they graduated…
She often reminded people that she would never remember their names. When you called her at 10 at night to ask her some random question (which she encouraged people to do; she put her home phone number on every syllabus), she requested that you leave long-winded messages on her answering machine, not only to give her time to get to the phone, but so she’d remember who you were when she eventually answered. Yet six years later, when I needed a letter of recommendation from her for graduate school in Oregon, all I had to do was mention a couple of the papers I had written in her class and she knew exactly who I was. She not only wrote me a recommendation, she offered to call her various friends in the department where I had applied. I got the impression that it didn’t matter where I had applied; every school had at least a few people who were friends with Mary Ellen.” Robert Bonwell Parker is an alumni of Boise State University currently residing in OR.
“I had the privilege of working in the English Dept. a few years ago. I remember all the fun conversations Mary Ellen and I used to have about books we’d just read or were waiting to read. She and I shared a common taste in books, so we were always giving each other recommendations. She told me that at the end of every school year, she would promise herself; ‘This is the summer I will read (so many) books.’ And then she’d get busy writing papers or something, and she didn’t reach her goal. I know she will be greatly missed by students, faculty, staff, and all of her friends and family. She was an easy person to like. I will think of her every time I visit Amazon.com.” Anonymous post on arbiteronline.com.
“Her students were a high priority for her and many times, she was to them as well. She once told me that no one should teach unless they enjoy it enough to do it without being paid. She told me she would. And I knew she would.” Jenny McBride, Arbiter Staff.
“Because of Mary Ellen Ryder, I graduated with a Master’s degree from Boise State University. Her incredible enthusiasm to explore the twisting avenues of language, and her gift of articulate speech, spun with her humor and music made her classes a delight to attend. Her students, colleagues, and friends will remember her for the rest of our lives.” Anonymous post on ratemyprofessor.com.
If you have a memory of Mary Ellen Ryder you would like to share, go to arbiteronline.com and leave a comment on this article.
COMPILED BY ARBITER STAFF