A Maternal Force of Nature

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Susan Valerie Lee ’84, for 28 years a member of Barnard’s Office of Financial Aid, passed away on February 21, 11 years into her retirement. She was 59 years old. 

Lee entered Barnard at 16 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in psychology while working parttime in the Financial Aid Office. She shifted to full time after graduation while also pursuing her master’s in developmental psychology at Teachers College of Columbia University. Her daughter, Nicole Hines ’17, remembers spending many an afternoon and evening at a communal table in her mom’s office.

Hines observed the impact her mother had on students. “Because I spent so much time in her workplace, I could see how much other people appreciated her,” says Hines.

Alumnae still remember Lee’s nurturing instinct from well before she became a mom, particularly toward first-generation college students. In an alumna profile interview this past June for Barnard Magazine, Kathleen Noonan ’89 recalled 38 years later how Lee helped her: “She was so kind to me and to my mom. … [The process] was just so new to us. And so we sat down with her, and I developed a relationship with her. … When I think of Barnard, I think of her as being just incredibly supportive.”

Hines called Lee “a force” to reckon with and said that her mother would do anything to make sure a student she believed deserved to be at Barnard would get the aid that they needed. Lee even found a way for Noonan to study abroad, which at the time was unheard-of for students on financial aid. She developed workshops in underserved communities intended to demystify the application process for Barnard. She volunteered at women’s organizations, supporting working moms like herself.

Lee was known among students as someone willing to go the extra mile, and her daughter says her experience was no exception. “If I was falling asleep and couldn’t make it through the end of my assignment, she would pick up the book and start reading to me,” she recalls.

Hines says that she grew up understanding that her mother was like a mom to so many. “I knew that she was a person who had respect and was loved. I picked up on that early on, so I always felt really proud of her.”