hen trying to put into words the impact of Dr. Anne Righton Malone’s life on SUNY Potsdam and the community, it is as if trying to put into words the impact of a president or a queen on a nation. It is no easy task to summarize someone who made such a large impact, both concrete and intangible at the same time, in the space of one meager page.

Dr. Malone, who lost her battle with esophageal cancer on Sept. 24, 2007, wore many hats to many people both on campus and in the community. She was a wife, mother, friend, colleague, boss, advisor, professor, mentor and leader, among others.

After completing her Ph.D. in English from the University of New Hampshire, Dr. Malone came to SUNY Potsdam as an assistant professor of English and communication just in time for the ice storm of January 1998. It was during the storm that a then non-traditional student, Louise Tyo ’00, waited out the storm in a shelter with her family and first met Dr. Malone and her husband, Milner Grimsled. Little did Tyo know that Dr. Malone would immediately fill a void in her life that had been empty since the death of her own parents a few years earlier.

Through Dr. Malone’s guidance and classes, Tyo minored in women’s and gender studies and was the first graduate of the reformatted Master of English and Communication program. Dr. Malone also hired Tyo to work in the Writing Center and as a teaching assistant for her First Year Success Seminar.

Tyo, now director of first year transitions, remembers, “Every opportunity she saw that could further my future success, enhance my growth as a professional, as a student and as a grad student, she was on the lookout for me. And I know she was that way with a lot of students.”

One of the first areas Dr. Malone focused her attention on was the role of women on campus. She was the driving force in creating a Women’s and Gender Studies major to complement the already existing minor. She also started a Women’s Taskforce with the goal of seeing more women in leadership roles on campus. She also served as chair of the Faculty Senate, the campus’s shared governance body and was a member of the Potsdam College Foundation Board of Trustees.
However, on campus first and foremost she was a teacher and passionate about learning. The courses she taught were extraordinarily diverse. In addition to numerous courses in composition studies and composition theory, she taught courses in communication, linguistics, literature, film studies and women’s studies.

Perhaps a reason why she was loved by so many of her students is that she was known for the personal attention that she gave to each member of her classes. She regularly met one-on-one with each of her composition students to learn their writing styles and to discover their inner writer. She was known to say, “All of us are writers, we just have to practice our skills.”

Dr. Malone also held numerous leadership roles on campus and impacted the surrounding community on multiple levels. What seems to strike at the core when trying to summarize her impact is her activity with the Unitarian Universalist Church in Canton, NY. In following the tenets of the church who believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all individuals and in working for social justice and democracy, Dr. Malone was a person who gave so much of herself to ensure that others had the best possible life they could have.

Dr. Malone’s death has left a void. A void on campus, in the community and in the hearts of those she touched. It is not one that can be settled on a page in a magazine. It is not one that can be filled with someone picking up the classes, or filling the positions on boards of which she was a part. It is one that can only be filled with her memory and the lessons she taught in the classroom and in a life well lived.

Upon her passing, friends and family have established the Anne Righton Malone Fund for Women’s and Gender Studies at SUNY Potsdam. For more information, please contact the Office of Advancement at (315) 267-2190 or visit www.potsdam.edu/giving/malonefund.