At Prof. Margaret Ogrodnick’s funeral earlier this month, I sat in a church pew with other students from her political philosophy class and listened as her younger brother Robert gave a eulogy.
He started off by telling an anecdote from when he and his sister were children. When he was four and Margaret turned five and was ready to go to school in the afternoons, he was extremely pleased with the thought that with her gone off to school he would finally have all the toys to himself. What ended up happening was he would spend all afternoon on the front steps waiting for her to come home because that would be the best part of his day. Robert went on to explain that he and his sister remained close all throughout their lives even though they later went on to live in different cities.
Robert told us Prof. Ogrodnick found out on July 25 of this year that she had a terminal disease and the doctor said she had only two weeks to live. After finding out treatment would only extend her life by probably a matter of months without improvement to the quality of her life, she made the decision to forego treatment. Robert said that instead of calling her friends and family to bemoan her fate, Margaret got down to the work of putting her affairs in order. She then turned inward towards her spirituality, reconnecting with her Catholic faith. He recounted that when she was near death a few months later, she asked for the sacrament of the sick from her parish priest at St. Mary’s Cathedral and died a week later at the end of October.
Robert found it almost incomprehensible that Margaret, who was always fit, exercising and adhering to a healthy lifestyle, could die so young. He was right in describing her as a very special colleague and teacher to her students. He said that she was able to build a rewarding and notable career out of something as seemingly unmarketable as “political philosophy” because of her hard work and intelligence. He said she loved debates and that you always had to bring your intellectual best to the table when dealing with Margaret because you couldn’t ever get one past her. Robert described her as a very compassionate person whom you could always count to live up to her word. She was the type of person that gave more than she received. He mentioned her love of works by French philosophers like Rousseau and her recent and now unfinished work on Simone de Beauvoir.
Prof. Ogrodnick reconnecting with her spirituality reminded me of a conversation we had in class about Rousseau. She taught us that Rousseau was one of the only philosophers that we studied in the course “Great Political Thinkers” that truly believed in God and she found this very interesting. So do I.
I feel a great sense of loss now that she is gone. I was looking forward to seeing her when I got back to school and taking more classes from her. She was everything a great professor could be: intelligent, approachable and inspiring.
Out of all the professors I’ve ever had, Prof. Ogrodnick stands out as someone who really cared about the thoughts and opinions her students had in class. She would always ask us questions during her lectures, and no matter if our responses were smart or downright idiotic — I don’t know how she did it — but Prof. Ogrodnick would always give our responses her undivided attention. She would then somehow translate our incoherent — and often incomplete — answers for the rest of the class and then use this to further the discussion. It amazed me every time! The result was that people felt free to say whatever they were thinking without fear of sounding stupid. In this class I saw more participation from students than in any other. We all appreciated her patience and thoughtfulness.
At her funeral service, the priest said: “Our sister Margaret could now be in the company of saints.” Those gathered in the congregation all replied, “Hear our prayer.” In addition to the company of the saints, I was hopeful she would now be in the company of great thinkers, like Rousseau and Simone de Beauvoir, and she can now ask them any question she wants.
Malaya Marcelino is a political studies student and is honoured to have had Margaret Ogrodnick as a professor.
