Two Times I Was Happy to Have UB

by Ellen Todd Cooper

The first time I was glad that UB was here I was fairly new in Buffalo and a new bride.

I was a nurse; I graduated from Massachusetts General. My husband was an intern, which meant he was never home. And when he was home he was so tired he was sleeping. Finally after a year of that I thought, well, I think I'll get busy too. So I went to the University of Buffalo that was at that point the private university, not state. For a year and a half I went there, taking many liberal arts courses, but being part of the School of Nursing. I loved it, to be back in school; I always loved school and I felt alive, by being back in an academic setting.

We left Buffalo for a time and lived in Sweden. It was fun living in Sweden; I taught English there, despite at that time having a pretty heavy Boston accent. We came back to Buffalo to live - my husband is from Albion - and I was very happy in Buffalo. But then when the children went to school, and the last one was in first grade, I really wanted a graduate degree. I wanted to be truly good at something. I thought about it a long time and looked into things and realized that I wanted to stay within nursing. And when I met a woman who was graduating from the then psychiatric nursing master's program at UB, it was like a light bulb. I thought, "Yes! That fascinates me." And the program was the only one in Buffalo. It was a good program, quite arduous. It wasn't just "easy." I was so grateful that it was there for me, that once again I could still have my family and be with them and go to graduate school.

Those are the two times I was very happy to have UB. It served me well.