Correction Appended
Sue Ann Marcum was an AU professor with a passion for learning, teaching and accounting. Always smiling, she brought joy to the halls of the Kogod School of Business. Students expressed how much Marcum meant to them this week, scrawling heartfelt messages on her white board and posting handmade artwork on her office door.
Marcum, who won the Kogod Professor of the Year Award three years in a row, died tragically Monday, Oct. 25. She was 52 years old.
A shining personality
From an early age, Marcum stood out as a bright personality. Her brother, Alan Marcum, said each wall of her room in their childhood house in Syracuse, N.Y., was painted a different color.
She was voted “best dressed” of Nottingham High School’s graduating class of 1976.
“I remember her distinctive style — her vibrant and funky clothes and stylish glasses which complemented her warm personality,” former coworker Nicolette Regis wrote on the Facebook page, “Remember Professor Marcum.”
Marcum grew up in the Jewish faith and continued to practice as an adult, according to Alan. He called her a “macher,” a Yiddish term that means “a maker, a doer, someone who makes things happen,” Alan said.
Marcum was involved in countless organizations. Contributors to the Facebook wall were people who knew her from many different places, including The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, National Council of Jewish Women, Tyson’s Corner Business and Professional Women’s Association, American Society of Women Accountants and through the Spanish tutoring services that she offered.
A dedicated student
Before teaching at AU, Marcum was a student in Kogod. She graduated with her bachelor’s in 1979 and earned a master’s in taxation in 1987.
In high school, she studied Spanish, while her brother, Alan, studied French. He said his sister devoted a great deal of her life to learning Spanish.
In the early 2000s, Marcum traveled to Spain with her nephew to improve her language skills. In 2009, she studied it in AU’s Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages program. She also spent many summers in South America.
Christian Kingston, junior in Kogod and president of the Kogod Undergraduate Business Association, said that after Marcum discovered he was from Argentina, she always made an effort to speak to him in Spanish.
Kingston said he was having a hard time understanding this tragedy.
“It’s going to take a while for it to sink in,” Kingston said. “It’s going to take a while for me to realize that … when I go down the stairs, she won’t be coming up the stairs with a smile saying, ‘Hola.’”
Career
Shortly after graduating from AU, Marcum took a job at Grant Thornton, an accounting firm.
“My sister used to work for a big accounting company,” Alan loved to say of Sue. “And she got tired of that and ran away and joined the circus.”
While studying for her graduate degree, Marcum worked as a tax director at Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey.
Alan said the job at Ringling Bros. was perfect for Sue. Where else could she record hay on tax returns and “sale of manure” on income statements? She loved finding amusement in the smallest parts of her job.
Professor Don Williamson taught one of Marcum’s graduate classes. She would often call Williamson for advice with various circus-related accounting tasks.
“We couldn’t figure out how to depreciate [the value of] an elephant,” he said.
From Ringling Bros., Marcum moved to AU.
Beloved teacher
Marcum taught in Kogod for 11 years, inviting students to find the fun in accounting.
Williamson hired Marcum to be a full-time Kogod professor when he was the head of the accounting department.
When Marcum applied for the position, Williamson was most impressed by her enthusiasm for working with AU students.
“She looked at her students as if they were her family,” he said. “In a way, they were like her extended family.”
Students described Marcum as dedicated, generous and enthusiastic about her subject.
“She was always smiling,” Einar Bar Shira, a junior in Kogod, said of Marcum.
Shira first studied with Marcum in the fall of 2009. She said Marcum made her fall in love with accounting.
“She just loved what she did so much, and it was such an inspiration for everybody, even if you don’t like accounting it just gives you some point of how to look at life and how to take things that you like to the next level,” Shira said.
Josh Offsie, who graduated from Kogod in 2009, said Marcum led students in yoga and meditation to capture the attention of his 8:30 a.m. accounting class. She also used alternate methods to keep the class quiet.
“If you interrupted class in any way, you had to bring in breakfast for the whole class,” Offsie said.
After seeing Marcum’s course offerings during registration, Offsie rearranged his entire schedule to be able to take her class.
“It’s the only 8:30 in the morning class [where] I never missed one,” Offsie said.
Hostess and cook
Outside the classroom, Marcum’s cousin, M. L. Sprung described her as “such a good hostess.”
Sprung said Marcum would organize a yearly birthday party for herself. She would cook foods and play music that corresponded to a theme.
“She loved to entertain, and she just so much enjoyed having all the women that she knew from different organizations meet each other and network,” Sprung said.
In 2006, Marcum established a scholarship for an AU alumnus pursuing a master’s degree in accounting. At one of her birthday celebrations, she asked all invitees to make a contribution to this scholarship fund.
Marcum is survived by her parents, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew.
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Correction: This article originally stated that Professor Sue Marcum died Monday, Oct. 21. The date was, in fact, Oct. 25. The Eagle regrets this error.
