Pierce Honors 29 years of Loyalty and Service

“It is my profound honor to introduce to you someone who is as good a colleague as I can even imagine it is even possible to have. Someone who is not only one of my most favorite people at Pierce College, she is one of my most favorite people. Your 2016 Distinguished Faculty — very Distinguished Faculty– Mary Bath-Balogh.”

Instructor Ted Wood gave a sincere and comical introductory speech at the Distinguished Faculty Dinner that highlighted the generosity, determination and tender-spirit of professor Mary Bath-Balogh.

Bath-Balogh is a biology professor who has been working at Pierce for 29 years, and, as she revealed at her honoring dinner, this is her last year teaching at Pierce.

“This is the best retirement party I’ve ever had,” said Bath-Balogh, ironically coupling her honoring dinner with her retirement.

Her career has evolved from teaching a single dental hygiene class as a part time instructor to a tenured faculty member. She has taught a variety of courses from spanish, ESL, adult basic education, dental hygiene, and anatomy and physiology. She is adored by her peers, and many students who have taken her courses suggest her first to incoming biology students.

However, her first goal was never to teach. Bath-Balogh was a pre-med student at the University of Washington in the 1970’s, and her goal was to become a physician.

“1972 was when I graduated, and it was a quota system at the University of Washington. Five women would be accepted into a class of 120,” said Bath-Balogh.

Although her GPA and Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) scores were higher than many of her male classmates, she was not admitted to the medical program at UW.   

“I’m not dissing my alma mater,” said Bath-Balogh. “I love the UW and I’m very proud to be a husky and so forth, but they really did have a quota system and that was not in their best interest, I don’t think. Having said that, I, because of the way I work, I think I wouldn’t have been as effective a physician as I thought I might have been. And, in doing the coursework for medicine, it enabled me to teach.”

Bath-Balogh did get into a graduate program and it was mandatory to be a Teacher’s Assistant. Through her experience as a TA, she fell in love with teaching and “the rest is history.”

“History has a way of just leading you down a path that’s gonna intersect with something that you’re going to do in the future,” she said. “You may not think you are on the right path, but just you keep on it, because it will lead to something that will totally satisfy your professional and personal self.”

Bath-Balogh explained that the most rewarding part of her job through the years has been when students return to relay gratitude to Pierce after they have been admitted into their professional program or started their career.

“I really only feel successful as they are successful. The ones who write me back after they might be on the threshold of taking their boards or getting their degree, [they] come back to Pierce to say that Pierce gave them their foundation. So that’s what gives me the most amount of pride,” said Bath-Balogh.

The fundamentals are key in any field, and the natural sciences are no exception. Bath-Balogh stated that the biology department prides itself on making sure that students “really know those principals.”

“It’s the science way of thinking, and it’s not just scientific method, but it’s that whole idea that things have to be proven and they have to be proven multiple ways and then [it becomes] fact,” said Bath-Balogh.

The knowledge that Bath-Balogh wields is shared to everyone who shows interest, and she does so in interesting ways. Her presentation at the Distinguished Faculty Dinner, titled “It’s All Greek to Me: Hygieia and Panacea on Anatomical Etymology and Mnemonics,” highlighted the root words that are commonly used in medical jargon and techniques to memorizing their place in the human anatomy.

However, Bath-Balogh delivered the information in an interesting fashion- through story-telling from the voices of Hygieia, the Greek goddess of good health, and Panacea, goddess of universal remedies.

“I think that the actual inspiration [for the presentation] was the fact that so many of the terms I teach, the anatomical terms, are from Greek…. Language is so powerful because if you know a little bit about the roots you can often project what the meaning is even if it’s a word you’ve never encountered before….[I] tell my students that. Let the word do the heavy lifting…Words weren’t made up like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious-that means nothing. They were made up to mean something to carry that meaning,” stated Bath-Balogh.

Bath-Balogh has been contemplating retirement for a while, but she finalized her decision in light of this great achievement.

“I love teaching,” Bath-Balogh said with a muted joy as the weight of retirement settled on her face. “I still do. I think I am going to miss it, but I’m also getting ready to do some other things so it’s a good time. And it just happens to come at the time that I was [to receive] this honor and I thought, ‘Well, go out when you feel like you’re not falling down.’”

She plans on spending more time with her mom, who is turning 96, as well as spending time with her husband on their vacation property in eastern Washington.

“I don’t want to regret not taking enough time with my own mom and I just don’t have enough time when I’m working full-time, because it’s confined to weekends.”

At the dinner, Bath Balogh received a DNA, double-helix, jeweled necklace, a check for $1,000, and a standing ovation as recognition for her many years of teaching and service to the school. She explained that the experience was “unbelievable”.

“You do your job and you’re proud to do it, and you really expect no acknowledgement other than from your students. But, to have your group of peers honor you, it’s over the top. It’s just an awesome type of honor and I really feel humbled. That’s the word that comes to mind is humbled.”