As many across the SPH and wider University of Maryland community know, our own Dr. Viki Annand retired last week after 29 years of service to the University. Since everyone has a great story about Dr. Annand, we were unable to include everything in one post.
So, you'll see a "news story" below, and we'll soon be posting a collection of stories and anecdotes from Dr. Annand's career. If you have something you'd like to add, please email us at rmcmahon at umd dot edu or comment in the post below.
Also, feel free to check out the photos of the retirement party on the main SPH page at this link. Thanks to Daniel Kessler for taking some great photos.
Best wishes to Dr. Annand, and enjoy:
----
As the video rolled, 29 years worth of colleagues, students and friends came on screen or gathered around her to thank her and say goodbye. She sat in the middle of all of them in a chair decorated with balloons, watching the video, smiling, remembering and—most of all—laughing.
“We’re all going to miss her laugh,” said Blakely Pomietto, Coordinator of the Student Services Center.
Infectious and liberating, her laugh cuts through the room, seemingly raising laughter in everyone else. After nearly three decades of good times and good friends, it’s hard to imagine a better way to end a career.
Dr. Viki Annand, most recently an Assistant Dean at the School of Public Health, retired from the University of Maryland on Monday. Her long career was celebrated by more than 70 people crammed into the Student Services Center of the School of Public Health—a place that she created—to eat cake, give hugs and reflect on what Dr. Annand meant to Maryland.
Dr. Annand arrived at the university in the late 1970s to serve as a professor in the therapeutic recreation program in the school’s department of recreation. After the program was eliminated in 1992, she was one of the few faculty to be retained, and Associate Dean Jerry Wrenn of the-then college of health and human performance (now the school of public health), tasked her to, among other things, create a center to help advise and support students.
To meet this need, Annand created the Student Services Center, which, after more than a decade in operation, has helped thousands of students enter the school of public health and navigate their way through to graduation. The center often works with students who’ve gotten on the wrong path—academic probation, failing classes, missing deadlines—a group that Annand was ready and able to help.
“No matter what mistake you made,” Pomietto said, “she would teach you through the mistake and reassure you that you couldn’t mess up so bad that it couldn’t be fixed.”
As the video continued to roll, many of Annand’s “favorite students”—they all claimed to be her absolute favorite--appeared on screen. They thanked their mentor for all she’d done, including providing wisdom, giving a safe place to vent and making—by all accounts—amazing 7-layer dip.
Erin Ledden was one of those students, and watches herself as she describes Annand as “the most magical person ever.” She met Annand when she visited the school as a high school junior, and within “three minutes of meeting her,” she knew she wanted to attend Maryland.
“The first advice she ever gave me was that I’d never get a job in sports psychology,” Ledden said with a laugh.
Refocusing her studies with Annand’s help, Ledden graduated in May with a degree in clinical exercise physiology, and will be heading to Ball State University in the Fall to work for toward graduate degree (Annand wrote her recommendation letter). When she heard of the retirement, she pushed back her move date so that she could be here for the party.
After the video comes gifts—wine, running shoes and a crystal bowl, among other things—at which time Annand finally gets her chance to speak.
“I’ve had many years here, and I’ve loved it,” Annand said.
She mentions every organization and office that’s represented in the room, and makes jokes about her husband waking up early to play golf. In a few days, she’ll make the move to Savannah for her retirement, but today, with her laugh cutting through the room, she makes one last request:
“Thank you all for coming. Let’s eat drink and be merry.”
No comments:
Post a Comment