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 call her, works behind the scenes at arguably the most influential student organization on campus.

“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,” said Mary McBirnie.

Her bosses, on average, range in their mid-20s.

“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 in August.

She is not your typical staff member at the university; technically, she’s not a secretary, nor an advisor or director.

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

The woman

McBirnie can be identified in many ways, including her typical greeting of “Hello, hello, hello!”

McBirnie 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 various small ways. In her office, tucked in a nook in the West Student Office Space of the Memorial Union, are several pictures of students in various athletic gear. 

Last year, Abhijit Patwa, former member of Student Government and 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.

“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.

“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,” Patwa said.

She makes the job a little brighter, said Student Government President Dan Breitbarth. He 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.”

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

Taking on the job

McBirnie was born in Boone in 1947 and graduated from Iowa State 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.

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

She applied for a position at Iowa State, and every applicant took a typing test. Their scores were passed onto departments with openings. Her name was passed on, and she got the position in August 1990.

“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

“After 25 years, I’ve got this down pat,” McBirnie 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,” she said.

Breitbarth said McBirnie makes sure everything runs smoothly so they don’t have to worry about it.

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, gets the signatures necessary and adds them to the book.

Ben Crawford, speaker of the Senate, said he works with her a lot since he works with a lot of administrative aspects.

“We have to continually interact with each other on setting the agenda and making sure that scheduling is proper with rooms and such,” Crawford said.

McBirnie also deals with the Student Government accounts, specifically Campus Organization Accounting, in order to access the funds they allocate to other student organizations. In this, she works with current finance director Hamad Abbas.

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 acts as the chief historian. Crawford said they’re only able to do their jobs so well because they’re able to pull their knowledge from her.

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

Breitbarth said he goes to McBirnie for questions about how things have been done in the past or how past projects have been done.

“She is the main wealth of knowledge that we have,” Breitbarth 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 2014 to spring 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 of working with the senators and executive cabinet members, McBirinie said she often has to teach new members how to accomplish the goals or tasks they want to complete.

This can include giving them a form to fill out, giving advice on who to talk to or reserving rooms for them. 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,” McBirnie 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.

Snook said McBirnie still makes herself available to help the student leaders in whatever they do.

McBirnie not only acts as adviser for the group but also serves as a coordinator. She said since she works here every day, she knows what everyone in 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.

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 [that comprises] 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 constituents,” 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 he dislikes 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 it’s 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.”