'Yes, I can do that'
'My HCC Story' – Elaine Marieb '80
"My parents were hard working farming people who just about made ends meet when I was a girl. I was an average student in high school and started college in 1953 but had to drop out because I couldn't afford it.
Unhappy about being trapped in a dead-end job, I went back to college as a married student with two children in 1960. I was awarded my bachelor's degree in 1964 and applied for a teaching job at Agawam Junior High School, where I had practice-taught. However, there were no openings in the science or math departments there or any of the local other local high schools or junior high schools so I decided to go for a master's degree in biology.
Happily, I had made very good grades in college so I was able to obtain a graduate assistantship to support my master's studies, and I graduated with a masters in biology in 1966. At this point, I had had my fill of burning the midnight oil and took time out to teach at Springfield College. It was there that I realized I really loved teaching at the college level. So I applied and was awarded a National Institutes of Health grant support my Ph.D work. I was awarded a Ph.D in zoology by the University of Massachusetts in 1969 and started teaching here at HCC in fall of the same year.
I never expected to stay but after 20-something years, I was still here and had become a good teacher because of the experiences HCC offered me. Shortly after I began teaching here my life took another turn when my husband was diagnosed with an incurable and progressive disease that left him unable to work. I started looking for ways to make a little extra money to support my family. One of the opportunities that presented itself was to review and critique manuscripts being considered for publication by college textbook publishing companies.
I worked very hard at both my jobs and eventually was asked if I had any interest in writing an anatomy and physiology lab manual for a small publishing company called Benjamin Cummings, a subsidiary of Addison Wesley publishing company. Even though I had never written anything more creative than science theses, I decided to go for it. The rest is history. I now have 10 books in the field of human anatomy and physiology (lab manuals, study guides, and textbooks) and serve as the content coordinator for Benjamin /Cummings, physiology multimedia products.
I've been told I demanded a lot of my students. I did and I demanded a lot of myself too. I traveled down a whole new educational pathway into nursing when I was in my 40s and 50s because I was convinced it would help me to more effectively help my students, most of whom were in nursing.
Education lifts people up into a new life stage and enhances their quality of life. I can't tell you how much my degrees added to my life – beyond gaining knowledge, it gave me the self-confidence that enabled me to say, yes, I can do that."
Elaine Marieb graduated from HCC's nursing program in 1980. This is an excerpt from the Commencement address she gave at HCC in 2000. She died in 2018.
PHOTOS: (Thumbnail) Elaine Marieb, after the dedication of the HCC sciencd building in her name. (Above) Elaine Marieb with President David Bartley in an anatomy and physiology lab, circa 1984.
