News & Events
Dr. Marva Clark Gordon ’69 to Receive Prestigious City Tech President’s Award
Gordon
Gordon with her mother in 1983
John Gordon ’67
Gordon’s high school graduation photo
When Dr. Marva Loretta Clark Gordon ’69
was a high school senior in Camden, New Jersey, in 1964, she was
selected by her drama teacher to play a maid in a school production.
She refused the part, even though the teacher threatened to fail
her.
“I stood my ground and informed the principal that my great-great-grandfather
had been a slave and a boot smith to Abraham Lincoln, and that both
my great-grandmother, who helped raise me, and my mother worked
too hard to see me stereotyped that way,” says Gordon, whose
father died in a car accident when she was a young child. Her resolve
made local newspaper headlines and she went on that year to win
the annual citywide speech contest.
Her success and determination did not stop there. Money was tight, with Gordon’s mother, Louise Virginia Clark, a practical nurse, and great-grandmother, Essie Du Prezé, a hospital cook, struggling to support Gordon and her three siblings. To save money for college and a move to New York, Gordon worked two jobs in the summers while in high school. Once in New York and registered at New York City Community College (now New York City College of Technology or City Tech, for short), she sacrificed sleep and worked full-time as a nurse’s aide on the midnight to 8 a.m. shift and took classes in the mornings and evenings.
“It was foremost in my mind to become a professional success as some sort of doctor to show my mother and my great-grandmother -- a very religious woman who prayed for guidance in helping my mother rear us -- that their labor was not in vain.”
Gordon, who has made her home in Tucson, Arizona, for the past 14 years (full time since 1997), went on to earn several additional academic degrees after graduating from City Tech, capping her achievement with a PhD in sociology from St. Johns University (Queens, NY) in 1983.
On June 3, 2004, she will be honored by City Tech with the President’s Award, which will be presented to her at the Commencement Exercises to be held in the Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Gordon, who graduated from City Tech with an associate’s degree in nursing in 1969 and was the class speaker (equivalent to valedictorian), is being honored for her nearly three decades of leadership in the clinical, administrative and research areas of her profession. At the time Gordon took early retirement in 1997, she was associate chief of nursing service at the Cleveland Veterans Administration Medical Center and also held the position of associate chief of nursing research there. In addition, she held faculty positions as an assistant clinical professor of nursing systems at the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University; Ohio State University; and Youngstown University.
She also is being recognized for establishing the Dr. Marva L. and Mr. John Gordon Scholarship Fund, demonstrating her strong commitment to future generations of City Tech students.
“The chief resource of any society is an educated citizenry,” she says. “I had to struggle financially to earn my degree from City Tech and hope that with the support of the fund, several City Tech students each year will be given the opportunity to learn without this kind of stress.”
At the top of her many fond memories of City Tech is meeting the man who became her husband of 32 years, John Llewellyn Gordon, who died on Thanksgiving Day 2001.
“I was 21 years old when I registered for my first course at City Tech, which was a three-credit British literature elective. I was only able to afford to take one course that semester,” she says. “John used to throw spitballs at me and was quite flirtatious, but I didn’t pay him any mind because I was a serious student.
“One day, the professor caught him throwing spitballs and kept both of us after class. I thought, ‘Oh no, there goes my “A” and I won’t be able to get into the nursing program.’ I explained to the teacher that this man was bothering me and I wasn’t encouraging him. John and I ended up laughing about the incident and started going out for corned beef sandwiches.”
Her husband was born in Panama and worked on the Canal. Both of them went on to receive bachelor’s degrees in sociology from Richmond College (Staten Island), then continued for master’s degrees at Hunter College, and were accepted into St. John’s University’s doctoral program in sociology. Only one of them could afford to attend, and she was the one. To support the family, her husband worked for many years in the collection division of the Internal Revenue Service.
“John had five sons from his previous marriage and the two youngest lived with us,” she recalls. “It was my desire at first to go to medical school, but I realized with my responsibilities and working two full-time jobs, I couldn’t. However, my work and advanced studies were quite challenging. I have always set high goals for myself and consider myself very fortunate to have achieved them.”
According to City Tech President Fred W. Beaufait, “Dr. Gordon has a track record of providing expert guidance in the delivery of comprehensive health care in the institutions with which she has been affiliated. She was actively involved in designing and implementing a holistic approach to nursing care that focused on the individual needs of patients as well as supporting the use of new technology to provide them with state-of-the-art services. She set high standards of excellence for herself and her staff, and continues to be an inspiration and role model to all who come into contact with her.”
In 2003, she received an Extraordinary Citizen Award from the Mayor of Tucson for her visionary leadership and tenacity in coordinating human services needs within the greater Tucson community. As a registered nurse and an associate clinical professor at the University of Arizona, she has brought the Tucson community together through health care workshops that involve various businesses, health networks and social programs.
Gordon, who has five stepchildren, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren, attributes much of her success to her faith. In 1986, she became a minister in the Church of God of Prophesy. She subsequently entered a five-year ministerial training program in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and was appointed an Ordained Itinerant Elder in 2003. In March of this year she became pastor of Heaven Bound AME Church.
“Heaven Bound is a church with a forward step and an upward look,” she says. “We labor to serve and help our young people achieve their dreams. If nothing else is remembered about me, let it be said that I was an ambassador of goodwill striving to do the best I could for others, just like my great-grandmother and mother before me.”
5/17/04
