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Garland’s service to students to be honored in new lobby

Posted on | January 6, 2010 | 2,213 views |

By Jeff McCallister

In nearly 40 years at Ohio State, Martha Garland had seen it many times before: The longtime employee presented with a chair as a retirement gift.

So she knew right away what was under the sheet in the back of the room at her retirement party on that early December day. It was another gift that stunned her and brought her to tears.

Garland, vice provost and dean for enrollment services and undergraduate education, takes  justifiable pride in her career that has been built by putting students first, and now that service will be honored in perpetuity. Pending approval by the Board of Trustees, the first-floor lobby in the new Student Academic Services Building will be named in her honor.

“Martha’s guiding principle has always been, ‘Put students first,’” Executive Vice President and Provost Joe Alutto said. “And because of her vision, commitment and impact on improving undergraduate education, we are absolutely delighted to honor her legacy with The Martha M. Garland Student Services Lobby.”

Garland has been at the forefront of dozens of initiatives that have brought increasingly better students into the university and provided a more enriching academic and personal experience and generally made their lives easier once they got here.

“I look at it more like the university was a school of fish, moving as one unit,” Garland said. “It’s not like there’s one fish who leads all the fish in their movements — they do it as a single entity. If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else.”

Regardless, she’s humbled by the honor and said she may well bring her new chair into the lobby on occasion and sit right under her nameplate to keep watch.

“I’m just astonished that people thought enough of me to do this,” she said. “But to me, there couldn’t be any better place for me to be associated with. I spent two decades trying to make it so students wouldn’t have to diagnose their own problems and this building will be the culmination of that effort. I’m very proud of what that lobby symbolizes.”

Putting students first

It’s nearly impossible to fully recognize the impact Martha Garland has had on Ohio State and its students over the course of her 40-year career. But here are just some of the initiatives she has either led or provided significant support:

• 1995 Committee on the Undergraduate Experience (CUE), providing an ongoing agenda for Enrollment Services and Undergraduate Education and much of the rest of the university.
• Move to live, real-time registration.
• Support for academic advisors, especially through informal sponsorship of ACADAOS.
• Move to direct enrollment.
• Move to Sunday commencement.
• Creation of the First Year Experience program.
• Putting the University Honors Program on sound academic basis.
• Creation of Scholars programs.
• Creation of the Collegium program.
• Support for a campus-wide service learning collaborative.
• Establishment of the Undergraduate Research Office.
• Establishment of the University Access program (including Land Grant Opportunity Scholarships).
• Incorporation of the Student Athlete Support Services Office into OAA.
• Support of reorganization of the College of Arts and Sciences.
• Support and political leadership around conversion to semester calendar.
• Creation of the integrated Student Information System.
• Development of a new building to house student support services.
• Creation of the Student Consolidated Service Center.

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