Black Excellence: Mary Maryland

The Office of Student Success and Belonging, with Dr. Aisha El-Amin.         

Recording of Dr. Martin Luther King 00:09        

[Applause] Believe in yourself and believe that you’re somebody.        

Clips from 1995 movie “Panther” 00:17        

His intention is that we study and master a bunch of different things.       
Why are you here?         
Study and master a bunch of different things.       
I’m proud to introduce our new Minister of Information.       

Aisha El-Amin 00:26        

I’m Dr. Aisha El-Amin.        

Tariq El-Amin 00:29        

Welcome to “Black Excellence.”   

Mary Maryland  00:34 

There will be bumps in the road. It’s called life, and it’s OK. How you handle the bumps in the road that sets you up for how you’re going to handle life. 

Aisha El-Amin  00:45 

Hello, hello, listeners and supporters. In honor of Black History Month, I just want to take a moment to honor the legacy we stand on and the future we’re shaping every day, and the power we carry right now, as students, as leaders and as change makers. It’s in the stories we tell, the impact we make and the excellence we bring into every space we enter, from the classroom to the community, from activism to academics. We are the living continuation of a powerful legacy, and we’re just getting started.  

In this episode of the “Black Excellence” podcast, we speak to Mary Maryland. She discusses her deep passion for learning and shares some advice garnered by her journey of resilience. Maryland begins by sharing the driving motivation behind her career path. 

Mary Maryland  1:47 

So, my story is kind of twisted, a roundabout one, as many of our stories are. So, I came to UIC initially in 1987. I was a recruiter in the College of Nursing, doing the usual things, recruiting, typically high school or community college folks into helping them choose nursing as a career path. As I did that over the years, I said, you should think about doing this yourself. So, I was recruiting students into the baccalaureate program, our master’s programs and our doctoral programs.  

So, I tell people I did my job too well. I recruited myself to the PhD program. So, in 1990 I became a PhD student in the College of Nursing. So, that’s how I got there. Fortunately, some ups and downs, but in 1994, I was able to complete that PhD. So, a lot of work, but necessary and very important.  

Probably the other thing that I would add is: I am a lifelong learner. I’ve probably been in school more than I’ve not been in school, and still continuing to learn, though not formally in the classroom.Though I’m a registered nurse, after my PhD, I became a nurse practitioner. So, and how that happened is, I’m a clinician, I’ve taught, I’ve done research, but my heart and soul is with the patient. So,becoming a nurse practitioner was a nice next step in a career choice, you have to find your spot, and that’s my spot, talking to patients, interacting with them and their families, helping them navigate health care or even wellness care. That’s my spot. That’s partly my story. 

Aisha El-Amin  03:45 

I love that. You have to tell me, because you’ve been kind of in the field for so long, you have had to have seen quite a bit of changes that have happened years. Can you talk to me about how the field has morphed and changed for the good, for the bad, in ways that might give us some perspective. 

Mary Maryland  04:09 

So, frequently when folks think of nursing, they remember the person that takes care of you in the hospital — the person, you ring the light, and hopefully, eventually, they show up. The person in early years who may have come to the house to help deliver a baby, so, and it wasn’t necessarily a midwife, it was a public health nurse. Or if a child had been identified as having some special needs, they may be followed up on leadpaint exposure, weight gain. So many people were familiar with typically the public health nurse in the blue uniform. The other place that folks typically would interact with a nurse would be, unfortunately, in the emergency room, and for many of us, far too frequently in the emergency room.  

Just as a sidebar, I did part of my training over at the old Cook County, now Stroger. And one of the things that I saw working in the emergency department there, is I saw fairly young people coming to my emergency room repeatedly. So that shaped my curiosity in terms of looking at: Did these folks suddenly get to their 20s and now they’re sick? My thought was, probably not.  

So, my research for my PhD was looking at health behaviors of African American eighth-graders in the Chicago Public School System.nd indeed, many of my eighth-graders, and we’re talking folks from 12 to 15, already had health problems. So, you may be familiar in the Chicago Public School System, and I did part of my elementary school education in Chicago Public School System, and all of my high school in the Chicago Public School System. And so, there’s variability into whether or not there’s a nurse in the school. Frequently, one nurse would be responsible for multiple schools, so obviously, lots of children. So, teaching health, how to be healthy, how to recognize when something’s wrong, is really important. And I think something that we can begin to teach even grammar school kids, just like they, and I don’t want to date myself, but just like they can bug you for a pair of Air Jordans or whatever the newest sneaker is, they can tell you when they can’t breathe well, when it might be time to get an inhaler, but teaching them to do that is part of the wellness care that I think we have to do with young people. 

Aisha El-Amin  06:42 

No, you’re reminding me of a situation even when my oldest was about 10. And she went in to the dentist, and he said:You need to get her to urgent care because her teeth, he could tell by the way herteeth were moving that she was having trouble breathing, and her tonsils needed to be removed. And so sure enough, we went in, and they removed her tonsils. And so, you know thosehealth-related issues have so many other impacts, right? And so that’s a reminder. 

Mary Maryland  07:14 

Those observational skills are important. Just thinking back to my time in the emergency room, I can remember some of my young guys coming in, they came often, and we’d have to have the conversation. So, what brings you here? And even when we have the chest pain conversation. So, I need to know what you took or had, so that I can treat you appropriately in the beginning, and after a while, rather than the song and dance, if I have no idea, don’t know, woke up like this, then we’d find what they had, and then we could move on the right path. So, part of establishing that relationship of non judgment, but don’t have me going down the wrong path because you didn’t give me correct information, that could be a very bad outcome for you. So, eventually, we get to the point, well, you know, I might have had a little something. OK. Now we go on that path. Establishing a version of trust relationships with them, with patients, is important, and with their families, so that part of the interaction I enjoy. 

Aisha El-Amin  08:20 

And so, you were the seventh African American to achieve a PhD in UIC’s College of Nursing, which is that’s really big, right? I mean, and so many have followed in your footsteps. What was it like being amongst the first African Americans in the UIC College of Nursing? 

Mary Maryland  08:43 

So, first, let me give you my perspective about that wonderful accomplishment. I’m pleased that I did it, but we’re talking in 1994, that a public university with a program that was nearly 20 years old back then, I was number seven. And I know the other six. So, the process of creating an environment where people entertain a PhD at the University of Illinois at Chicago, we still have some work to do. It’sdoable. It’s achievable. I’m not Einstein. If I can do it, hard work, you can do this too. But sometimes it’s the putting it on the plate, putting in the thought process.  

So, it was a fabulous experience for me. The things that I was exposed to there, I was already a nurse, I had been a nurse, so I didn’t have that piece to deal with. So, I could enjoy world leaders that would come to our college. And it’s that good of a reputation. We have people who are over international programs who come to our college.  

One of the advantages of working in the college, I knew the faculty, so I knew the folks that would be most likely to help me get done, and I knew the folks that may not have been as likely to help me get done. So, I deliberately picked my advisor. She has since passed, but, and it was a good choice for me. She was over the international program in the College of Nursing. So, I was housed on the floor with the international students, which was perfect. So, and I’ve always been a joiner in a busy body. So, I was president of the Graduate Student Organization. So I created with the rest of the team where we would have an international student, kind of like, I can’t remember what we called it, but we would provide the dessert and beverages, and people would come and bring their lunches, and we’d have that hour, because that was the hour that was set aside where we didn’t have classes And so, many of us got to know the international students and their country vis-à-vis them because of that program, which was really kind of cool.So interesting.Wonderful. Wish I could help more folks make the choice to do it. By the time we get to doctoral studies, you have to kind of have a sense — I can do this. I’vealready had some success. It doesn’t have to be a straight path, but indeed, you can do this work and a public institution, UIC, has space for you. Some of it, you’ll have to traverse alone, but you will, you can find it, so please join us and do this work. It’s important that we have more people do this 

Aisha El-Amin  11:37 

I love that. Can you tell us how your background in nursing and in leadership prepared you for the work you did with NASA? In that role. I mean, you’ve done so many great things, so I’m like picking and choosing different things to try to get some nuggets of wisdom to share with the listeners. 

Mary Maryland  11:59 

Sure. So I guess my first thing would be, I’d say, don’t be afraid to be involved. We have multiple things on our plates. You know, we work. We might be wives and mothers, and we have families, but our careers are also important. So, start early in figuring out how to interact with that career. And I’ve been blessed. I’ve been able to do that. And so when the opportunity for NASA came about, and the real exposure came from another student who had been, who had, she was finished, but she was in doctoral program at UIC. and I applied, and they accepted me, and I say that as a short explanation. But part of my achievement in getting to participate in that program with NASA is that I had a terminal degree. Other folks who were participating in those trainings, and we were at Langley Research Facility on the East Coast, all had terminal degrees, so the likelihood of being chosen without it, probably was nothing. So having that credential was important. All through my career, I wanted to be prepared for whatever.  

And one of my brothers would say, your papers are straight. What that meant was, whichever one they’re looking for — here. This is what you need? I have it. This is what you’re looking for? I have it. Sopreparing ahead of time, because we don’t know what’s coming, but being prepared to take advantages of opportunities. So that was how that subcontract with NASA came about. Who would have thought? 

Aisha El-Amin  13:41 

It’s funny, because I’m going to be using that term now. Keep your, get your papers straight. You know, I like the term that your brother used. My husband often says, I got to qualify. I’ve got to get getmyselfqualified. I’ve got to qualify myself. And so, no, I appreciate that. As you, throughout your career, you’ve been a trailblazer, and where do you think the passion and this kind of spirit of boldness has come from? Like, where is where is that rooted? Where’s the root of that? 

Mary Maryland 14:11 

So, I’m probably the child that my parents, and I’m going to say all three of them, and I’ll explain that moment, but probably at different times, each of my parents have thought: Did we bring the right child home? Somebody has to be the one, that’s the odd one, the different one. And I guess, those poor people, they got me. So, let me quickly explain my three parents. So, I have two dads and a mom. I say one of my dad’s was at my nursing school graduation from Malcom. The other dad was at my graduation with my PhD. And such an odd child, I thought it was important to have relationships with all my parents. You know, that’s not always the case. So, I initiated. And again, I guess they thought, my goodness, she really is going to do this. So, I guess we just get on board. And they did. And so my parents stressed education early on. The dad that I grew up with initially, he was from Mississippi. Mom’s from Ohio. My other dad was born in Kentucky, but was in Ohio. I was born in Cincinnati, been here since I was 2, so this is home, but they all stressed education and achievement. And my early academic life was spent in the Catholic school system, So we were simply raised to be good kids. Not learning was not an option. So, if something happens and you get off track, figure it out, and get back on track. That was the approach. So, that’s been how I approached life. And in some instances, if I needed something and it didn’t exist, sometimes that meant create it, or get someone to help you create it.  

Aisha El-Amin  16:03 

 As folks are thinking about their careers, thinking about a PhD, thinking about the profession. What words of advice would you give them? 

Mary Maryland  16:15 

There will be bumps in the road. It’s called life, and it’s OK. How you handle the bumps in the road that sets you up for how you’re going to handle life. So, plan as much as you can. Anticipate, what things might be the stumbling blocks for you. So, and I share this story, and some folks ask me why.  

When I first became a nursing student, I was at a private school right out of college, and I was not successful. I failed out of nursing in that school, and my first opportunity, kind of, really to not be successful in soemthing. So I had a choice. One of those stumbles, I could believe what a faculty member told me, that I could never be a nurse, or I could decide where’s my next opportunity to become a nurse, and that opportunity became City Colleges of Chicago.  

Early in my studies at Malcolm, we developed a study group, and all of the folks in our study group were successful on passing our state board exam the first time, except one of our peers, had decided to have a baby. She didn’t pass one book for her next time around. She was successful, and I am still friends with part of that group, and we’re talking 50 years later. So, take advantage of the opportunities to develop relationship with your peers. Some of them are going to become your professional colleagues. Others are going to be just your support system. Over life, the years go very fast, so make time to develop relationships with people so that when, indeed, you hit one of those stumbling blocks, you got somebody who call and tell about it. They may have had a stumbling block too. So kindred spirits, it’s OK. You have to be able to tell somebody about it.  

The other thing I’d say, when you hit stumbling blocks, don’t be afraid to get professional help. Sometimes it’s bigger than us, and the tragedy is not getting the help and support that you need. And one of the nice things about being a student, there are all kinds of support systems on campus, confidential resources. Use them. The goal is to help you be successful as a person, help you be successful as a student, help you be successful in your career path. So, reach out, get help, develop relationships, get on the right course. When things go wrong. It’s called life. Things will go wrong. So, develop that muscle memory you have the capacity to fix this and to keep moving forward. 

Aisha El-Amin  19:00 

I think that is a brilliant and sound, sage way to end our time together today with the wonderful advice that you’ve offered. Thank you for your time, thank you for your dedication, thank you for your sharing of that, because that is a gift. 

Mary Maryland  19:20. 

And thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for bringing this to the students. 

Announcer  19:23