Moving to the top
April 30, 2008 | 
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Margie Teals-Davis, Executive Assistant to the Dean of Letters Arts and Sciences at UCCS, never thought she would be a major player in academe. As the Dean’s Executive Assistant + Director of National Student Exchange + Assistant to Interdepartmental Studies, she fills a role that few professionals would attempt. Margie is always on top of her game.
Margie’s story is special. A self-described “B student,” she confesses to non-stardom as a high-schooler. Her family advised her not to even try to go on to college since her strong points seemingly did not lie in that direction.
The daughter of a single mom, Margie married early, became a military wife, moved away as a and did “what women do best,” as she says. She took care of her family. However, with her husband’s intensive military obligations and disinterest in her pursuing another career, she decided that to pursue the dream that continued to nudge her forward.
“We don’t have a clue who we are as people are until we try,” Margie shared with this reporter. After working as an Executive Assistant to emergency-room physicians, she discovered that her talents lay in logistics and development. Not to be dissuaded from taking the crucial next steps, Margie applied for federal and state grants, Pell grants for single parents (her marriage did not survive the dilemma of two-pronged career objectives) and work study to support her decision to finish college.
Margie met and married her current husband, took classes while pregnant with her second child, and gave birth to a beautiful son the first year she resumed her college courses. In her senior year of college (December, 2005) she became the family bread winner when her husband was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. For most people life-changing events of this magnitude would signal the end of a dream, but for Margie it was the beginning of a significant journey. She came onboard the Letters Arts and Sciences team when her work-study colleagues urged her to apply.
In October 2005, Margie joined LAS as staff, and she acknowledges “this university took care of me when I needed it.” While she did not go to her own college graduation, she is presently attending graduate school with a major in history and plans to attend her graduate school celebration. She functions as an executive staff member who wears three hats and does them all justice continuing to wrestle with the many challenges that face the graduate student population.
“I am centered,” Margie said. “I enjoy different things, love the rural life, and treasure my husband and children. I also love UCCS for what it has given to me all this time. I just want to repay the university with good work because it has given me so much.”
The Colorado Springs Record+ agrees that Margie Teals-Davis is more than executive director of three major areas within Letters Arts and Sciences. She is proof positive that, indeed, “we don’t have a clue who we are as people are until we try.”
Margie, thanks for keeping us centered with in tune with what we can be.
- M
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