Mary E. Guy doesn't believe in legacy; rather, the public administration professor advocates for "compound interest," explaining that her decision to establish an endowed professorship in the School of Public Affairs is like earning interest on "the good that CU Denver does, the good that the School of Public Affairs does, and the good the professorship can do." 

A member of the CU Denver faculty since 2008, Dr. Guy’s teaching and research focuses on public administration, citizen/state encounters, emotional labor, social equity, gender, and human resource management. With an array of national awards and recognition to her credit, she was named a Distinguished Professor in 2021, which is the highest honor CU bestows on its own faculty members, recognizing the outstanding contributions they make to their academic disciplines.

Her recent decision to document an estate commitment in support of the Mary E. Guy Endowed Professorship fund follows a previous gift Dr. Guy made to the university to establish the Dr. Mary E. Guy Distinguished Lecture Series. That series kicks off on October 16 with a lecture featuring Susan T. Gooden, Ph.D., dean and professor at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. 

Looking at the Path Ahead

For Dr. Guy, this donation comes with hope: "the wonderful thing about teaching and the wonderful thing about mentoring is to help make the path ahead smoother for those in the pipeline," she says. "For those just beginning to develop their career, for those who are just learning where the bends and the unforeseen obstacles are, it would be really lovely if everyone's life in the future were easier than my life and for all of my generation. That's what life is: helping others live their lives and live the best career."

But Dr. Guy’s hope for helping others isn’t just concentrated on generous donations; it is also evident in her role as a teacher and mentor to students and early-career faculty, who are forging their own paths to advance scholarship and research in the field. Among a new generation of scholars Mary has influenced are several close to home, including SPA Associate Professor Shuyang Peng and Assistant Professor Felipe Blanco.

The Value of Endowed Professorships

Despite its many strengths, Dr. Guy sees CU Denver as an "under-endowed institution," noting that endowed professorships, which provide resources to attract top talent and fund research and other scholarly initiatives, are not only important to universities but "important for the discipline." Endowed professorships, she says, “have a prestige and a status that make it very attractive when doing a search for a scholar who can help advance the work."

When asked why she chose to teach at CU Denver, Dr. Guy says CU is different—not just as a university but an urban university, explaining that colleges located in the hearts of cities "have the potential to do so much good, in terms of educating students and in terms of standing up for the right things in life and enriching people's life." She says an endowed professorship at an urban university is a "win-win-win" with respect to reputation, national standings, and finances.

But endowed professorships don't just benefit the university. They "really dig into [the] community, to help it grow, to help it advance, to help it tackle the problems that exist," Dr. Guy explains. "Every time we build a bridge [with a member of the Denver community], the richer the community becomes, and the better off CU Denver is, and the more the university is leveraging its resources to help the community," she says, adding "The quality of life is always better in communities that have a vibrant university atmosphere."

A Vision for the Future

When asked about her legacy, to which she chuckles, she redirects the focus, stating her donation is "not so much a legacy as much as it is future. It's a future I will not be here to enjoy, but I can work now to help others get on this path. I often refer to life as a passage—a passage from birth to death. But it's more like a wheel than a line with a dead-end. It all has to do with how to deliver public services and comprehend the motive component in that work. We are each a package of all of our interests; the richness of being at this stage in my life is to be able to appreciate the path I have taken, and the loops that have come together." 

Visionary support among faculty members at CU Denver is helping to ensure their passions and work live on among new generations of scholars. As Dr. Guy closes the loops of her professional and scholarly life, she encourages her peers to start compounding interest: "compound the interest now and use the capacity of funding to pave the way for a smoother future."