Tribute to Mary McEvoy, Memorial Service, October 29, 2002, Williams Arena
Robert Bruininks, President, University of Minnesota


Last Friday, the University of Minnesota lost one of its brightest lights. As the former Dean of the College of Education and Human Development, I had the rare privilege to recruit Mary McEvoy to the University, to watch her evolve into a great public scholar, and political leader, and to count her among my closest friends.

Mary’s infectious personality, her optimism, her spirit and her energy sometimes overshadowed her reputation inside the academy as a hard-nosed and uncompromising researcher. She was clearly committed to the idea of using knowledge to make our lives better. Indeed, everything she did was connected to one central question, “What do we know, and how can we apply it, to make life much better for our fellow human beings?”

Mary was a scholar who was nationally known for her work in early childhood education and special education, and for her work the early language and literacy of young children.

Upon that foundation, she built an unmatched reputation for building coalitions, and for connecting her scholarly work with the worlds of public policy and politics.

It’s no surprise then, that the University of Minnesota’s Graduate and Professional Student Assembly has created, just this past evening, the “Mary A. McEvoy Award for Public Engagement and Leadership.”

I might add that this decision was made without any pressure from the interim president.

I should tell a little bit about this award. This award will be awarded to one graduate student and one professional student each year who best exemplify the union of scholarship and research, the creation of knowledge, to civic responsibility, and to quote the students, “in the tradition of Professor Mary A. McEvoy.”

As one of her colleagues noted to me, Mary McEvoy—or Mary Mac, as many of you knew her--didn’t need a task force to bring people together…even people who never imagined being in the same room, working toward the same common goal. As her assistant at the U pointed out to me, she had “a wonderful insight on how people matched—how someone from her political life fit beautifully with another [person] in her academic life; how one of her student’s goals matched with a colleague across the country.” She would always take the time to connect people and then follow through to make sure the connections were real.

In fact, when I think of Mary, I think about her as the marathon runner that she truly was. Once she decided something was the right thing to do, there was always follow-through, there was always a way to get it done, and, although her charm and her persuasiveness often belied it, she was always impatient for the world to catch up with her.

She was the embodiment of a George Bernard Shaw quote that was a favorite of Robert Kennedy when he spoke of his brother Jack: “Some men see things as they are and say why? But I dream things that never were and say ‘Why not?’”

Already, in my work I can hear Mary, in her Tennessee drawl, tapping her foot, looking over my shoulder saying, “Come on Bob, let’s get it done around here.” She had that effect on a lot of people, including Paul and Sheila Wellstone, and I know that the Wellstones relied on Mary as their key educational adviser and a key adviser in the field of mental health. I know that the leave of absence with Senator Wellstone to work on critically important educational legislation absolutely transformed Mary’s life and Mary’s work. As her husband Jamie told me, she died doing what she loved—Making a positive difference in the lives of others.

And that wasn’t just a pretty phrase for Mary. She knew where she came from, and she knew that her forbearers had worked and sacrificed so that eventually she would be able to go on and earn her college degrees and eventually her Ph.D. Each summer she and her family would return to Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, where her family first arrived in North America. They would visit her Grandmother’s home, they would climb the hills to look out over the ocean and they would reflect on life. They would sing, dance and celebrate in the tradition of a hardscrabble Atlantic fishing village. And, as her siblings have noted early this morning, from an early age Mary would always out-sing, out-dance and out-celebrate everyone else—even if she didn’t know the notes or how to play them.

And that idea of one generation working for the next, that spirit that took her to Cape Breton every summer, also shaped her professional life.

In one of the many visionary initiatives that will be her lasting legacy, she was working with her colleagues, public schools, day care referral organizations, technical colleges, and public policy advocates to ensure that young children were receiving the help and support they needed to lay the foundation for early language and literacy, the building stones for lifelong learning.

In a world where much lip service is paid to children and to their importance, Mary genuinely cared about the fate of all of God’s children, and she spent her life trying to improve their lives. She believed very passionately that a nation that failed to invest in its children was failing to invest in its future.

And anyone who knew Mary Mac knew that “you couldn’t say no to Mary,” whether you were her sister, her colleague, the chair of her department, or even the President of the University, as I found out all too often.

Just ask Representative Matt Entenza, who, a few short days after being elected to the State House for the first time, found Mary at the door of his Capitol office. She said, “Do you remember how you said to ask if I needed help? Well, I need to move into your office for the next three or four months.” Mary was concerned at that time that special education funding was vulnerable at the legislature that year, and before you knew it, there were people meeting in Matt’s office—parents of children with special needs, professors, policy experts and other public officials. The new legislator didn’t even have access to his own desk! In the end, Mary won, along with all the parents, and the children with disabilities in Minnesota.

When I think back on my many memories, I truly marvel at how much all of us enjoyed it when Mary imposed on us!

In this difficult time, I’ve also been amazed by the number of people whom Mary touched, as a member of her church, as a neighbor, as a local activist, as a statewide and national political leader, as a scholar, and as a friend. Everyone knew Mary, and they were often surprised to learn of the many hats she wore.

Among those hats, I know that none were more important to her than that of loving mother and spouse. Even in these roles, Mary was a leader and an innovator. Truly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person who was away from her loved ones so often, but who was still so connected and firmly grounded in family life.

Jamie, Clare, Becca, and Luke--they sacrificed a lot of time with Mary so that she could be with the rest of us….so that she could do her part, as Paul said so eloquently in the tape, to literally change the world. For her daughters, especially, she was role model, a working mom working tirelessly for social change and social justice, who was always trying new things and encouraging them to do the same.

I doubt that, for example, growing up in Tennessee, Mary ever envisioned that one day she would be cheering on her daughter’s ice hockey team (although they do a have a pro hockey team in Tennessee now), but she took on that role with the same energy and enthusiasm with which she did everything else.

As one neighborhood activist said in a letter to the family, “rarely have I seen someone with such sheer force of personality so profoundly uplift people.” That was Mary. She was a force, she was a spark, and she touched an incredible number of people while she was with us on this earth.

In remembering the writer James Baldwin, the poet Maya Angelou once said, “A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.”

And so it is with Mary McEvoy. We love you Mary.

Back