From Alison Taylor and Claudia Ruitenberg
Sandy was the Graduate Program Assistant in Educational Studies between 2013 and 2019. When Alison was Graduate Advisor from 2017 to 2019, she worked closely with her. In the same role, Claudia worked closely with her from 2014 to 2017.
She worked at UBC for almost 25 years and was working as the iSchool Program Assistant when she passed away last year. When we learned of her passing, we decided to write this tribute.
Alison Taylor:
I remember Sandy as a warm person who was a fierce advocate for students. She knew most of the graduate students in the department and always put their interests and needs first. She always wanted to take time with them and make time for them, which often put her at odds with bureaucratic university policies. For example, I remember having discussions with her about how long past the admissions deadline to wait for missing pieces of student applications. She always wanted to wait longer. 🙂 I appreciated and greatly respected her care.
It was never just a job for Sandy, and she made my work as Graduate Advisor more meaningful because of that. Like many of the staff who keep universities running, she did her work diligently and without any fanfare. But we noticed. When she was leaving the department she said, “I love working with you and the faculty and students.” She also said, “I am a teacher and student advocate,” which is exactly how I think of her.
I developed a strong working relationship with her and want to share a few of her messages because I think they speak to the kind of person she was.
On April 5, 2018, at the opening of the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre, her email to me was simple: “Shall we all go?”
On April 6, 2018, she sent me a link to an article called, “Hunger and homelessness are widespread among college students, study finds.” In addition to its relevance to my work as Grad Advisor, she knew I was researching working students.
After she left EDST, I heard from her periodically on email. Initially, she was in touch because she’d received a few emails from graduate students in EDST and wanted to make sure I responded to them. In April, 2019 she said about her new workplace, “Would you believe we don’t have a coffee maker here??? How would you survive? LOL.”
When I had my first doctoral oral as supervisor at UBC, she wrote to ask how it went. For a month or two, she continued to answer my questions as Graduate Advisor, because admittedly, I was lost without her. Later, she wrote whenever she had something to share, like a healthy juice recipe, a news article, a holiday greeting, or cartoons. She sent me many cartoons, and particularly liked “Peanuts”! I became teary-eyed as I read over our email exchanges.
Claudia Ruitenberg:
I very much enjoyed working with Sandy. As Alison describes, she cared deeply about students and would go above and beyond to try and help them if they came to her in a panic about having missed a deadline. Sandy saw her workday as being done when the important stuff on her to-do list was done, not when the clock said so. Several EDST graduates mention Sandy by name in the acknowledgements of their thesis or dissertation.
Sandy completed a UBC Bachelor of Arts with a major in Religious Studies in 2014, while working in our department. She would tell me about courses she was taking or a final paper that was a struggle. I believe that her own studies at UBC made her even more empathetic with the students in our department. When I suggested we celebrate her graduation during the EDST graduation reception, she did not want to advertise her own achievement. She definitely believed others’ achievements were worth celebrating, however, and there was never a shortage of food if Sandy had ordered the catering for the graduation reception!
Sandy liked her office cozy and personalized. I remember her in her oversized sweater with an extra scarf wrapped around her neck, a blanket on her chair, and multiple coffee mugs on her desk. I think this made students feel more comfortable going to see her to ask a question. She was not a functionary, but a mensch.
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I was not aware that Sandy had passed away, so thank you for sharing this information. I was a PhD student when she was a Graduate Program Assistant, so it was her name at the bottom of the very first email I received containing the EDST Welcome Letter. From them on, she became a very accessible, dependable, and patient person to whom I always felt comfortable asking questions. All our interactions were clear and calm and warm, which was consistently reassuring. I recall when she left EDST in 2019 she did not want to have a celebration/formal event so I emailed her directly to thank her for her kindness, but I did not get a chance to tell her in person. I hope she knew how much her everyday acts of kindness impacted others. – Lisa Brunner
I’m very sorry to hear this. This is sad…
Sandy helped me with many things when I was an international student years ago, including work permit issues.
I also remember sometimes we could see each other at the oakridge skytrain station – quite early in the morning and both heading to ubc..
I will remember her…