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February 2008 GW Says Goodbye to Two Longtime Employees
By Julia Parmley In January, GW bid farewell to two employees with a combined 87 years at the University: Assistant Vice President for the Office of Institutional Research Margaret “Peggye” Cohen, B.A. ’63, M.A. ’66, and Assistant Director of the University Budget Office Mary Bayliss, B.A. ’81. Cohen has been on campus since 1961 when she enrolled in GW’s mathematical statistics program. She took the first computer programming course ever offered at the University in 1963, and has worked in Rice Hall since it became an administrative building in 1967. In 1966, Cohen founded the Office of Institutional Research, where she worked until her retirement. Some of Cohen’s projects included standardizing University reporting and creating a faculty database. “More and more, any project that involved one particular school ended up in the Institutional Research Office because we covered the whole University,” she says. Cohen also met her husband, Bill Cohen, J.D. ’65, at the University, and her son, Greg Cohen, M.B.A. ’96, was born in GW Hospital. Now with more time on her hands, Cohen says she plans to travel and work on her photography skills. In March, Cohen will set out on a Caribbean cruise with her husband, and, in April, she will visit Peru’s Machu Picchu. Cohen says it’s hard to completely leave the University. “I thought it was time to slow down. I wanted my nights and weekends back,” she says. “But when you’ve been doing it for 41 years, it becomes a part of you. I have a loyalty to GW, and almost everyone I’ve worked with is a friend.” Bayliss also values the many relationships she formed during her decades at the University. Bayliss began working as a clerk typist for the director of faculty personnel, under the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, while taking classes for her undergraduate psychology degree. It was then when she first met Cohen, who helped interview Bayliss for the position. In 1969, Bayliss went to work as an account clerk for the University Budget Office, under the Vice President and Treasurer’s Office, where she stayed for 38 years, during which time the budget grew from $49 million to more than $400 million. She says she enjoyed projects like the implementation of Banner, a University-wide administrative software application, because she got to meet people from different departments and offices on campus. “It was fun because we worked with a lot of cross-functional teams that gave us tremendous exposure to other parts of the University,” says Bayliss. Bayliss recently bought a house in Bethany Beach, Del., near some friends from high school and GW, where she says she hopes to eventually move. A serious cook, Bayliss says she would often bring in meals to share with her office, and hopes to try out some new dishes now that she has time. Although Bayliss loved her time at the University, she says she felt it was her time to leave. “But I fully intend on keeping in touch,” she says. “The relationships I’ve made here are more than professional, they are really deep friendships.”
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