Mary McBirnie: the Fair Lady of Democracy

Michaela Ramm

The Fair Lady of Democracy reigns justly over her kingdom–the West Student Office Space in the Memorial Union, that is.

The Fair Lady, which is what some students at Iowa State University call her, she works behind that scenes at arguably the most influential student organization on campus.

Perhaps unlike some employed adults, McBirnie said she finds the job interesting.

“You get to meet different people and it’s not like a regular job where you’re stuck with the same boss for 20 years,” she said.

Even though Mary McBirnie is a woman with a family and a house, her full-time job is a bit more unusual than others’. Her bosses, on average, range in their mid-twenties.

“This is how I’ve lasted this long,” she said. “I know no matter how bad it gets, I know in a year I’ll get a new boss.”

McBirnie recently marked her 25th year at Iowa State University in August.

She is not your typical staff member at the university; technically, she’s not a secretary or an advisor or director.

Instead, she works with one student organization and completes roles that go above and beyond her paygrade.

Mary McBirnie

McBirnie can be identified in many ways, including her typical greeting of ‘hello, hello, hello!’

Birnie has officially served as the office manager for Student Government for 25 years, watching generations of student leaders come and go.

Unofficially, she works with the executive members and senators, and provides the help they need for their endeavors. Their appreciation is evident in some small ways. In her office, tucked in a nook in the West Student Office Space of the Memorial Union, are taped up of several pictures of students in various athletic gear. They are intramural teams on campus, all named in some form after McBirnie.

Last year, Abhijit Patwa, former member of Student Government and a senior in mechanical engineering, said there was an active effort for members of Student Government to do something outside of the meetings. So, they decided on intramurals.

“We did everything last year, and I think it tells you something about her when we decided to name all of our teams ‘McBirnie,’” he said.

Some of these teams included McBirnie’s Interns, McBirnie’s Runners and McBirnie Flag Footballers.

During her work as office manager, McBirnie said she’s had the opportunity to get to know the members of Student Government, an aspect she enjoys.

Plus, all work and no play isn’t exactly McBirnie.

Many members of Student Government, including Vice Speaker of the Senate Michael Snook, said a pleasure to work with and she’s just really fun to talk with.

“She’s super nice,” Patwa said. “She gets along with people really well. I barely knew her, but it didn’t take long for her to start joking with me and asking me things about my family or what’s it like to be an international student here. It didn’t take very long for her to be just like a friend.”

She makes the job a little brighter, said the president of the organization Dan Breitbarth, who said he spends more time with McBirnie than he does with anyone else in Student Government.

“What I really appreciate about [McBirnie] is that I laugh with her every day,” he said. “Between [McBirnie] and I, we always have something to laugh or joke about. It makes my day that much better.”

For some of the students, the impact McBirnie has had on them is quite significant.

Patwa said he met her a few years ago, when he was a sophomore on the International Students Council.

“I introduced myself, and she said, ‘now you’ll have to explain your name because I want to get it right,’” Patwa said. “So she took a few attempts and she actually made the effort to learn it and she said ‘now what’s an easy way to learn it, because I’m an old lady.’ So, she calls me ‘A.B.’ now, which is what most of my friends do.”

Not only that, but Patwa said McBirnie gets to know some students beyond the work environ

Taking on the job

Before taking on the position of office manager of Student Government, McBirnie was born in Boone in 1947 and graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in elementary education. However, she said after a couple times substitute teaching, she found she didn’t enjoy it at all.

“It wasn’t my cup of tea,” she said.

She went on to raise her two children, now 47 and 45, with her husband of 50 years, William McBirnie. It wasn’t until 1990 that she went into the job market and applied at Iowa State University.

However, McBirnie came upon the position of office manager by random happenstance.

She said when she applied for a position at ISU, every applicant took a typing tests and their scores were passed onto departments with openings. Her name was passed on and she got the position in August, 1990.

McBirnie didn’t specifically apply for the position of office manager, but said she enjoyed her job even from the beginning.

“I enjoyed working with all of the students, which is what you have to,” she said. “You have to enjoy it to stick around.”

The job itself

Even though McBirnie was never in any student government organizations in high school or college, she has learned a lot about Iowa State’s since taking on the position.

Not only that, but she said the job comes easily to her now.

“After 25 years, I’ve got this down pat,” she said. “Nothing too exciting about this job, but that just comes from me being here for a long time. It all comes with years of experience.”

McBirnie’s job requires her to prepare for the weekly Senate meetings by drawing up the agenda and the roll call. After the meetings, she said she also takes the bills, fixes them up, gets the signatures necessary and adds them to the book.

McBirnie also deals with the Student Government accounts, specifically Campus Organization Accounting, in order to access the funds they allocate to other student organizations is kept.

“It’s a lot of paperwork and filing things away,” she said.

Dan Breitbarth, president of Student Government, said McBirnie makes sure everything runs smoothly so they don’t have to worry about it.

McBirnie said she also calls herself the “PR person,” because she greets every student group who comes to Student Government.

Unofficial roles with Student Government

Unofficially, McBirnie fulfills several roles for the student members of the campus organization that range from coordinator to advisor to friend.

McBirnie always has the answers, Patwa said.

“I’ve always had the impression if I had anything I needed to get anything regarding [Student Government], that’s where I’ll go to,” Patwa said.

Vice Speaker of the Senate Michael Snook, who has known and worked with McBirnie a little over a year, said McBirnie does all of the behind the scenes administrative things that a lot of the senators don’t see.

Most importantly, McBirnie also acts as the chief historian said Breitbarth.

As a historian of sort, Breitbarth said he goes to McBirnie for questions on how things have been done in the past or how past projects been done.

“She is the main wealth of knowledge that we have,” Breitbarth said. “She knows everything student government, all the way back.”

Snook also agreed that she acts as a historian for the organization and is a major resource for students.

“She’s been around Student Government for a lot of years and has an immense amount of institutional knowledge, so she’s really a really a resource to senators because she can pull things up things that happened 10 years ago when we weren’t even in high school yet,” Snook said.

Even though she was not a fan of becoming a teacher after she graduated with her elementary education degree, it seems that teaching was meant for McBirnie in the end.

Patwa, who served as the finance director for Student Government from spring of 2014 to the spring of 2015, said he worked very closely with McBirnie during his time in that role.

“I worked with her because she kept the book, as well as I did,” Patwa said. “We always wanted to make sure we were on the same page in keeping [Student Government]’s books.”

Patwa said McBirnie helped him throughout his daily schedule as he met with student organizations. She was key to Patwa’s success in fulfilling the role of finance director last year, he said.

“I remember last year, I could barely get through if it weren’t for her,” Patwa said. “The first few months, she taught me how to do things or where to find things. There’s so much information, there are so many student organizations, there are so many accounts, it just all hits you in the face and you think ‘what am I supposed to do?’ She would tell me to take one thing at a time.”

In part with her role to working with the senators and executive cabinet members, McBirinie said she often has to teach new members how to accomplish the goals or the tasks they want to complete.

This can be anything from giving them a form to fill out or advice on who to talk to or reserving rooms for them herself. McBirnie said she’s been here long enough to know everyone in the building and on campus and how things work.

“I hear about these projects after they’ve made all of the decisions. But then they’ll come to me and ask how to do it,” she said.

That is not always the case, she said.

“You’ve got people who will listen to you, and those who don’t listen to you,” she said.

However, McBirnie said it is not a major problem and does her best to guide members of Student Government in the best way possible.

“You try to keep them from making too big of a mistake, but you still let them make it,” she said.

Breitbarth said McBirnie does let them make their own decisions, because it is their decision, but offers suggestions or makes sure they are positive in their resolve.

While doing so, Snook said McBirnie said she still makes herself available to help the student leaders in whatever they do.

McBirnie not only acts as advisor for the group, but also serves as a coordinator. She said since she works here every day, she knows what everyone is Student Government is working on.

“You have to be here every day to know what everyone else is doing, because no one is here that many hours of the day,” she said.

From her place in her office from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., McBirnie said she can overhear all of the conversations the senators and cabinet members have in the West Student Office Space. These conversations, she said, include work, but mostly focus on politics.

“I stay out of those conversations,” she laughed.

Not only that, but when senators or executive members come to her for advice, she tends to force them to re-think their choice, or to see it from another side. However, she keeps her personal opinion out of the discussion.

“The best part is you can go talk to her, but she doesn’t have an opinion,” Patwa said. “And if she has one, she’s not going to give it to you. She’s very neutral.”

Breitbarth said McBirnie’s role in the matter of consistency between the years has been extremely helpful to the organization.

“When you’ve got an organization comprised of 70 undergraduate students or graduate students you don’t see very often, it’s nice to have someone to help you with oversight over the entire organization,” he said.

The core of an organization may remain the same in a 25 year timeframe, but with any student group on campus, the faces of those involved change often.

Breitbarth said consistency is an issue Student Government has to deal with on a regular basis.

“It’s nice to have her, who’s been here awhile with changing constituent,” Breitbarth said. “As anyone in Student Government knows, that’s the biggest problem you have to deal with.”

Patwa agreed, and said one of the things that sucks about Student Government is that there is terrible transitioning between the years, particularly for the higher positions of president, finance director and speaker of the senate.

“A transition really doesn’t happen, so she’s the one who does it,” Patwa said. “She’ll tell you what to do, when to do it and how to do it.”

This can present itself as a challenge for McBirnie to teach a new batch of senators or cabinet members, but one she still takes the time to tackle.

For years, McBirnie has seen the cycle of new student leaders after every spring election. She said she enjoys this particular aspect of her job.

Every year, she has the opportunity to work with new leadership. McBirnie said in the bad years, that thought has helped her continue.

However, she said these bad years are not common.

By the time a new president and vice-president is elected, McBirnie said she has known them for two or three years.

“You know what you’re getting,” she said.

McBirnie said she loves her job as office manager of Student Government and as the Fair Lady of Democracy.

“I think she just doesn’t see it as her job, I think she goes beyond it,” Patwa said. “She has an active interest in it. She wants to know why things are being done.”