A Kind Face in the Crowd

By Angelika Walker

After a few moments of conversation with Marti, it’s easy to see why she has been a shoulder to lean on for so many students, faculty, and staff across the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) campus—her voice and sincere manner radiate feelings of welcome, comfort, kindness, and empathy. Earning her Master’s of Science in Counseling from UNO in 1978, Marti permanently joined the UNO Counseling Center staff in 1984. She has served as an academic advisor and voice of welcome to many incoming freshmen; as a counselor to students, faculty, and staff; as an instructor; as a University Ombudsperson; and as Director of the Counseling Center/University Division. Marti also coordinated the creation and development of the First Year Experience program for incoming freshman.

Coming to UNO

Near the end of World War II, Marti Rosen-Atherton was born in Los Angeles, California while her father was serving in the Pacific. Growing-up in a Jewish home of three generations and having lived with her maternal grandmother, her mother, and her two younger siblings, Marti “feel[s] blessed … to come from a line of wonderfully strong women” (Rosen-Atherton 2012). To learn more about Marti’s Jewish heritage, visit: Tale of Bashert. Marti’s father passed away when she was only fourteen, although she can still remember one of his strongest legacies to her: “Marti—you are what you are because of your attitude,” a philosophy that has gotten her through some difficult life challenges, and one that she passes on to her students today (Interview 2012). She says she is incredibly thankful for growing up in a close family that has been a strong support system throughout her life.

Marti eventually attended both UCLA and Berkeley in the 1960s, and, like many college students, she explored several majors, starting with psychology and switching to sociology before ultimately settling on English. At this time in her life, she had no solid plans for the future, was certain that she would never become a teacher (“Never say never,” she says now), and had no intention of attending graduate school: “I certainly didn’t have the passion for learning … that I do now,” she admits. “I have often wished I could go back and do it all over again” (Interview 2011).

The 1960s were a time of tumultuous change. Marti vividly remembers hearing about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on the way to Music Appreciation, singing “We Shall Overcome” with her UCLA roommates as they watched President Johnson sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on their TV, and America’s controversial involvement in the Vietnam War. College students of the 1960s were actively involved with politics, and Marti was no exception. She took part in the pre-anti-war movement during her time at Berkeley: “I have a vivid memory of being part of this huge mass of peaceful demonstrators that packed Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza. Little did we know that this was just the beginning of something that would become so devastatingly out of control and leave such a dark, divisive, and painful mark on U.S. history” (Interview 2012). Marti recalls her time at UCLA and Berkeley as one of “personal liberation, along with hope and idealism and a sense of possibility that we could make a difference even in the face of growing world crises” (Interview 2012).

Shortly after graduating from UCLA with a BA in English in 1965, Marti married an Omaha man whom she had met through her Omaha cousins when he was a Seabee stationed in Oxnard, California, near Los Angeles. Following her husband to the Midwest, her expectation was to have a family and be a stay-at-home mother. Instead, she became a part-time working mother, joining her husband in running their newly purchased business, Omaha Mirror & Art Glass. After several years, although she loved being a mother (and still does, she asserts with a smile), she felt restless and unfulfilled. Working with her husband in their family business, she felt she had nothing of her own: “I didn’t really know what I wanted, but I just knew that I didn’t have enough intellectual stimulation or anything that I felt was really mine” (Interview 2011). On a trip to her home state of California, she drew inspiration from old high school and college friends whose lives seemed so much more fulfilling and stimulating than her own. On this trip, Marti discovered that what she was seeking was a similar type of fulfillment in life.

Returning to Omaha newly motivated to find intellectual stimulation and fulfillment, Marti attended a Values Clarification discussion being offered through the National Council of Jewish Women (NCJW) that could make her more aware of her values and help her understand her restlessness and thirst for intellectual stimulation. Her experience at the NCJW was such a positive one, she afterwards inquired about assertiveness training, something she had heard about from her friends in California. Although the woman who had led the NCJW didn’t know of any such classes, the timing must have been right. The following week, Marti saw that a non-credit assertiveness training course was being offered through UNO’s College of Continuing Studies. She signed up and attended the six-week course with a friend from NCJW. Serendipitously, two graduate students from UNO’s Counselor Education Department were facilitating the class, and they introduced Marti to Dr. Robert Butler, Department Chair of Counselor Education. Feeling the workings of fate, or what Marti calls bashert in Yiddish, she made the decision to pursue a graduate degree in counseling at UNO thirteen years after graduating from UCLA—a goal that took five years to achieve as she balanced her education, her work in the family business, raising her two children, and running the bookkeeping service for a local accounting office.

Despite the excessive stress, Marti loved graduate school, especially because she had long felt like “an appendage to [her] husband’s world” (Interview 2011). Continuing her education gave her more than an opportunity to learn; it provided her an opportunity to learn about herself: “Starting graduate school was something that was totally mine and that felt very important to me” (Interview 2011). In 1983, she graduated from UNO with a Master’s degree in Counseling.

Serving the School

Marti’s first job out of graduate school was as a therapist at Jennie Edmundson Hospital and at a psychiatric office in Council Bluffs. What followed was a trying year—she underwent a divorce, lost her beloved grandmother, turned 40 years old, and lost her job, all within a four-month period.  Fortunately, Marti again had “an incredible support system” to help her through this difficult time (Interview 2011). Part of that incredible support system was her graduate school mentor, Bob Butler, who directed her to a grant-funded position at Iowa Western Community College (IWCC). Along with all the other things she had learned from Bob, his support at that critical time taught her “the importance of networking and what it means to have somebody believe in you” (Interview 2012). While working at IWCC, she saw an advertisement for a position with the UNO Counseling Center/University Division in the local newspaper. Feeling fate, or bashert, at work for a second time in her life, Marti applied and interviewed for the position, and on August 13, 1984, she began her new career at UNO as Professional Counselor, Academic Advisor, and, in spite of having said she would never teach, a college instructor.

Learning that her position would entail teaching caused Marti a significant amount of anxiety. She was terrified of speaking in front of groups, but with the support of colleagues and the UNO chapter of Toastmasters International (an educational organization that helps members improve their communication, public speaking, and leadership skills), Marti stood in front of her first class exactly one week after starting her new position and has been teaching ever since.

Along with almost three decades of teaching freshman seminar courses, she says that one of the most rewarding experiences of her UNO teaching career was her opportunity to teach Health Concepts of Sexual Development as an adjunct instructor in the College of Education for twelve years. Through the instruction of this course, Marti also became a member of the Women’s Studies faculty and served on the Women’s Studies Committee the three years preceding her retirement.

Marti was made Director of UNO’s Counseling Center and University Division in 2003 and held this position until her retirement in January 2012. As the director, Marti was first and foremost focused on supporting students’ emotional and intellectual growth so that they could reach their personal and life goals and potential. The Counseling Center provides professional counseling services to students, faculty, and staff.

University Division is the academic home for exploratory first-year students who have not yet declared a major, a feeling with which Marti can easily empathize.Helping students find the right “fit” in academic majors and potential careers, she hopes they will make more informed, purposeful choices than she did during her own “choose a major by default” undergraduate experience.

Constantly seeking new ways in which she can give back to the UNO community, Marti served as one of three University Ombudspersons 1993–2007. Students, faculty, and staff can seek out the service of the ombudsperson to mediate and resolve problems and concerns. Being a UNO ombudsperson “was both challenging and rewarding … It allowed me to meet people across campus that I wouldn’t have met any other way” (Interview 2012).

“It is tremendously satisfying when we can find win-win resolutions to problems … That is one of the things that keeps me interested” (qtd. in Kenney).In 2007, after fifteen years as a University Ombudsperson, Marti stepped down from the position to devote more of her time to the rapidly increasing demands of the Counseling Center.

Marti also coordinated the creation of the First Year Experience (FYE) Program, which is comprised of one-credit, ten-week introductory courses across UNO colleges, also known as University Seminars, that are designed to help new students transition into life at the University.  According to Marti, the FYE course evolved from a one-credit Academic and Career Development course that started in the early 1960s (Interview 2012). The courses focus on college success strategies and incorporate a wide array of subjects, from money-management to relationships and planning for the future. Marti says the FYE program and these courses are crucially important because “we believe in student development—the holistic development of our students—intellectually, emotionally, physically, and socially” (Interview 2010). Anything that can reasonably be done to ensure the academic success of our incoming freshman at UNO should be done. Because Marti believes “learning is more than what happens in the classroom,” she is pleased that there has been an increasing awareness of the importance of teaching these lifelong dimensions of growth and development at UNO (Interview 2011).

Marti retired from UNO as Director of the Counseling Center and University Division in January of 2012. Only three months later, she returned to UNO, accepting a position in the Department of Continuing Studies as an academic advisor for two days a week. Marti describes her career at UNO as “coming full-circle. It’s been fascinating … My whole career at UNO has been advising incoming freshmen who have not yet decided on a major … I am now advising adults who are ready to graduate … It’s very exciting to me” (Interview 2012).

Changes on Campus

When asked about changes she has seen at UNO since she came as a graduate student in 1978, and then as a counselor and advisor in 1984, Marti laughed with less-than-fond memories of registering for classes at the Field House, card in hand, hoping her wished-for classes would still be open when she got to the front of the line (Interview 2011). Technology has not only streamlined online registration, which she describes as “absolutely fantastic,” but has also brought distance education, web-based instruction, in-the-moment communication with peers and professors, and a wealth of information and resources to students’ fingertips (Interview 2012). She painfully recalls the days of writing papers on legal pads and agonizingly correcting typed copies with whiteout and erased carbon copies. Word processing, much less submitting a paper electronically, was unimaginable!

Marti has also witnessed a growing sense of community on campus throughout her time at UNO. An exciting change in campus culture came with the addition of residence halls, encouraging students to become more connected to the University and more involved in campus life. With residence halls on campus, the average age of UNO students has also changed. Since Marti’s arrival at UNO in 1984, she has seen the average age of students decline from a nontraditional twenty-seven years old to the early twenties, a more traditional college student age range.

Working with students in the Counseling Center, Marti has seen the same changes at UNO that are happening at colleges and universities across the country. Students are struggling with more severe mental health issues, particularly anxiety and depression. She also sees increased awareness and acknowledgment of social and relationship issues that can so easily derail academic and life goals, including sexual assault and intimate partner violence. Marti has given many community and campus-wide presentations and facilitated numerous workshops about suicide prevention, healthy relationships and sexuality, relationship violence, and other pressing issues in an ongoing effort to raise awareness. Serving as co-chair on the UNO Voices Against Violence Campaign, on the Chancellor’s Commission for Status of Women Sexual Harassment Task Force, on the GLBTQ Committee, and on many other committees and task forces, Marti has been a constant voice and tireless advocate for the health, safety, and success of UNO’s students. As challenging and sensitive as these issues are, Marti speaks with optimism about the collaborative campus-wide commitment to face discrimination, relationship violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and college student suicide head-on. She is a strong believer in prevention through education, open dialog, and creating safe places for students to thrive.

Honors and Awards

For her years of dedication to UNO, Marti has been honored with numerous awards. The FYE program, which was created under Marti’s leadership, earned the UNO Strategic Planning Award for Student Focus in 2005. In 1989, Marti was presented with an award from the Nebraska Professional Counseling Association for Outstanding Mental Health Counselor. During the 2000s, Marti’s incredible influence on UNO was particularly recognized; she earned an Excellence in Teaching Part-time Faculty Award from the UNO School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation in 2000; an Exemplary Service to Students Award from the UNO Project Achieve Program in 2005; a Woman of Wisdom Award from the Program for Women & Successful Aging in 2005; an Outstanding Achievement Award from the UNO Chancellor’s Commission on the Status of Women in 2009; and a Mary Ann Lamanna Award for Excellence in Women’s Studies in 2010.

Marti feels incredibly honored to be recognized for her contributions to UNO, and she is especially thankful to those who have made her successes possible—her colleagues, students, friends, and family. She humbly says, “We don’t do any of this by ourselves” (Interview 2012).

The Best of Life

When she’s not at UNO, Marti enjoys reading, knitting, being outdoors on beautiful days, and spending time with her husband of 21 years, John Atherton, their combined family of five children and ten grandchildren, and friends. Her passion for travel often reunites her with high school friends and college roommates who are scattered across the country. Marti’s travels have also carried her to international destinations; two of her most meaningful trips were to Israel in 1995 and to Poland in 2005 to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. She calls China and the Far East “the most fascinating.” She says, “I haven’t gone anywhere that I haven’t loved and learned. I love going to different parts of the world, meeting people from different cultures, and being exposed to new experiences, histories, and landscapes around the world” (Interview 2012).

The thread of profound and binding friendship through an ethics of care is bone deep with Marti. A breast cancer survivor herself, Marti facilitated a breast cancer support group for ten years and established lifelong friendships in the process. Marti might say she has lived a miracle of survival through breast cancer. Here again, she shared support and nurturing with women in the community, specifically at Methodist Hospital. “I was asked to facilitate because I was in the unique position of being both a mental health therapist and a breast cancer survivor” (Interview 2012). Although her ongoing group, 1992–2005, ended, several members continued to meet regularly. “We recently mourned the loss of one of our dearest friends and always know, when we’re together, not to take one day of life for granted” (Interview 2012). It is no wonder that so many people from all walks of life love Marti and feel inspired by her optimistic, hopeful, and grateful vision of the future.

Although she was unsure of what she wanted to do in life, Marti loves where she ended up: “What UNO has done is … give me incredible opportunities to learn, to grow, to develop personally and professionally, to feel like I have made a difference” (Interview 2012). When asked what her biggest contribution to UNO has been, she unhesitatingly responds, “Making a difference in students’ lives … helping them know that they can do it and that they matter” (Interview 2012). She loves the students she works with and takes delight in watching them grow and overcome challenges throughout their college experience. “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity” is a Chinese Proverb that Marti shares with students and has often found to be apt in her own life; her advice to future generations of Mavericks is to “lay the foundation and keep your eyes open, take risks” (Interview 2012). Reflecting on her career at UNO, she says with passion, “Whatever I’ve given, I’ve received a hundredfold. It has just been a tremendous journey” (Interview 2011).

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