This finals week is the final full week for two longtime Pitt-Bradford employees who are retiring – Mark Burns and Dr. Helene Lawson.
Burns, assistant director of campus police and safety, began working in campus police on April 1, 1980. His last day of work will take place on Sunday, the university’s commencement day. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Burns will now walk the campus alone on that day instead of high-fiving dozens of grads since Sunday’s ceremony has been moved online.
However, Burns has had 40 years of high fives and late-night chats with students and is known for bringing the younger generation into line gently. He is one of the campus’s longest-serving staff members.
A post on the university’s Facebook page about Burns on his 40th anniversary working at Pitt-Bradford elicited dozens of comments from alumni and students.
“This officer single-handedly restored my faith in armed uniform officers,” wrote one.
“I loved his stories, and I miss them!” wrote a 2016 graduate.
Several comments mentioned Burns’s pack of rescue basset hounds, including one that had its own police vest, and many remembered his kindness in moments of panic and his willingness to let little things be little things.
Lawson, a professor of sociology and director of the sociology program, came to Pitt-Bradford in 1991 after earning her doctorate at Loyola University of Chicago. A champion of undergraduate research, in 2000 she founded the Penn-York Undergraduate Research Conference, which has continued for 20 years and honored her in November as its founder.
She helped establish the sociology major at Pitt-Bradford in the mid-1990s and founded the gender studies minor in 2001. Her research interests have included women in the world of work and animal rights.
She is the author of two books, “Ladies on the Lot: Women, Car Sales, and the Pursuit of the American Dream” and “The Cultural Study of Work.”
In 2007, she received the Chairs’ Faculty Teaching Award, and in 2009 the Pitt-Bradford Alumni Association honored her with its Teaching Excellence Award.
Sherard Thorne ’09 nominated her for the PBAA award. “She would relate the material to everyday life, but at the same time, she focused on aspects of life that not many people would take the time to think about,” he said. “She genuinely cares about her students and has worked very hard to get where she is.”
Lawson will retire on April 30.
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