Margaret M. Lisjak

FORMER EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE PROVOST

“Neomi, Crystal, LeeAnn and I have been in the Marianist family together since I began here at UD. We’ve worked together in different ways- with me in the role of Executive Assistant for the Provost-, but it’s fascinating to think about how our lives are interwoven. I’ve been a Lay Marianist since 1974 when I was essentially invited to just come and see. The experience of being in this community gave me a new understanding of how I could live my own faith. What I love about the Marianist Charism is how much of a value is placed on each of us and our responsibility to build relationships with one another whether personally or professionally. 

This is UD being UD; it's how we live, it's the culture of who we are and how we interact with one another that lets us do the work we need to do to help our students: to help them go out and take on those relationship building experiences of helping the other, of listening to the other, to really move outside ourselves.

When I first started at UD I noticed how busy everyone was in their own lanes, and one of the things I helped get going was an opportunity for all the Administrative Assistants in all the departments to get together to talk and make sense of our work.

If we know what is going on in all of our areas, we can support each other with a really good spirit of collaboration. These trusting relationships we built help us in organizing last minute meetings with the trickiest of schedules by just getting on the phone and figuring it out. This keeps us moving, it's what makes us like to come in every day. And then when terrible days come we just laugh together and talk it out. 

I would have to plan all these meetings that included food. But I’m a terrible eater, I don’t eat vegetables, I’m boring, I don’t like spicy foods. It’s true, my husband and I laugh about it all the time! One of the things I learned very quickly is to let people help me, to let people do the work they are there to do without presuming what menu to have, without presuming to know what IT needed and what room setup was needed. When I retired someone said to me how much they appreciated that I invited them to do their job! It comes down to respecting people, inviting people to do what they came to do.

Regardless of the situation I’ve felt like I mattered. That’s not my place in the world; my place is to stay in the background, so it always surprises me when people say that I make a difference! I have deep respect for all my supervisors for their ability to listen; these are people who taught me to be present. 

The responsibility to take time to be really present with people has guided all the work I have done here at UD: how to really focus on the other person in front of me, and how the other person's input can make a difference. It can make a difference in anything!  It doesn’t have to be the giant issues, it's those initial steps we take together that help us move towards the bigger pieces. The bigger pieces scare me, they are really intimidating, but we can do the small things. 

With the Lay Marianists we try to be broad in what we do together; we read books together, we do road trips together, we participated in the Oregon District prayer vigils after the shootings and we’ve gone to Spain to meet with fellow Lay Marianists internationally. We try to create in-roads where all people have value and an important place at the table. Currently I am the chair of the Marianist Lay Community of North America. It has been amazingly fascinating and challenging to speak with people locally, nationally and throughout the world about how we live out the Marianist Charism personally and professionally. It’s just who I am.”