Marlene Amato is Northeastern’s longest-serving staff member at 55 years. She has stories to tell.
The longest-serving staff member at Northeastern, administrative assistant Marlene Amato, calls herself the accidental hire.
She showed up at Northeastern on July 28, 1969, to inquire about a job with her old boss at Malden High School, who had just started working at the university. Instead, she ended up getting an offer to start work the next day with the engineering department’s co-op program.
That was more than 55 years ago, when manual typewriters were standard office fare.
Meanwhile, Amato’s dedication to experiential education has proved so valuable the New England Association for Cooperative Education and Field Experience named a life membership award after her.
Amato, who has a phenomenal recall of seemingly everybody she’s ever worked with, talked to Northeastern Global News about the changes she’s seen at the university and how working here energizes her mind and spirit.
Her answers have been edited for brevity and clarity.
The first thing that pops to mind is the Vietnam War protests in the quadrangle in 1972.
I was going out with somebody at Northeastern, and during lunch I would leave my office on the third floor of Richards Hall and meet him in the quad. Everybody was out there, and it was peaceful.
During 9/11, I was in a conference room on the fifth floor of Stearns at a meeting. We watched everything unfold.
Everything just stopped and the university let everybody go home.
I work for the central Office of Cooperative Education, a new startup dedicated to lifelong learning, and also provide assistance for the office of Career Design, which used to be Career Services.
I love the art gallery (NU Gallery 360) and the Snell Library quad and seeing all the flowers. Also, Centennial Common.
When I started here it was like an asphalt jungle. There were parking lots all over the place. They just went on and on.
One day I ended up parking at Wentworth without realizing it and got a warning saying, “You might want to park at Northeastern, you know.”
Now Northeastern is like a dedicated arboretum.
I ended up doing pre-med advising prior to the pre-med program being formalized at Northeastern.
There was a grad school counselor who had medical issues. I called the counselor at home and asked ‘OK, the students are here. What can I do?’ He would walk me through it.
I met with students, established files for each and housed all the applicants’ letters of recommendation and reproduced them — Xeroxed — and mailed them to medical schools.
In the fall of 1976, my boss at the time, Dean Sidney F. Austin, and I were part of a group of co-op directors and employers in New England who recognized the need to help experiential education flourish in New England by forming a new organization where members could exchange ideas.
Sid and I established the New England Association of Cooperative Education and Field Experience, which still exists.
I served as executive secretary from 1987 until 2018. One of the association’s four named awards is the Marlene Amato Life Membership Award.
I danced for 15 years and taught for almost four. I was planning on continuing my dance career and ultimately becoming a choreographer.
I did jazz, ballet and tap and I was the Russian dancer in the Nutcracker in three performances we did with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Lowell.
You know how cheerleaders jump up and touch their ankles? Well, I did 32 of those. I think that’s what threw my disc out.
I was told if I continued to dance there was a 99% chance I would end up in a wheelchair.
I didn’t like those odds, so dancing was not in my future.
All the different people I meet — co-workers and students.
Watching the university grow and flourish and being able to help and possibly make a difference in people’s lives.
If you’re well enough to work, why retire? I think continuing to work with students keeps you young.
You learn something new every day. Working keeps your mind active.
My husband passed away 15 years ago. If he were still here, maybe it would be different.
I do crosswords, I do puzzles. I love to play backgammon and cribbage.
I like to spend time with my family, friends and my Lhasa Apso, Baxter. I got him from friends who moved to Puerto Rico. He’s going through the terrible twos.
I used to be able to hold him in the palm of my hand, that’s how small he was. Now he’s 12 pounds and barks at everybody, so he’s not going to the office anymore.
My brother and sister-in-law have 14 grandchildren, so I’m a surrogate grandparent. Usually for Passover, I go to see family in Baltimore.