Creighton is known for its community oriented feel and welcoming environment; therefore, when a faculty member passes away all members of the Creighton community rally together to commemorate this lost member and to console one another during this difficult time.
It was announced that Monday that mathematics specialist for Student Support Services (SSS) Pat Al-Greene passed away after having a heart attack Tuesday of the previous week. Al-Greene worked in this position with SSS for over 13 years and had become a very valued part of the SSS team for both the employees that work there and the students that visit.
SSS director Tami Buffalohead-McGill first started working with Al-Greene when she came to Creighton in 1996, but she got to know him much better when she took over with SSS in 2005. While Buffalohead-McGill has numerous fond memories of working with Al-Greene she will miss his smile most of all.
“[Pat] always has a charming realism that he brought to everything,” Buffalohead-McGill said. “You always have to have that person who interjects levity into every situation so that things don’t get to serious. Pat was that for us.”
Buffalohead-McGill believes that Al-Greene positively influenced the lives of many SSS students because he was always cheerful and ready to help.
“[Pat] just had a passion for serving students and a dedication to what he did,” Buffalohead- McGill said. “He was very accepting and treated the students as if they were family. That made them feel like he really cared.”
In honor of Al-Greene’s life and legacy, the SSS sponsored Lunar New Year event was cancelled and instead changed to serve as a memorial service for Al-Greene. This event will be held Friday in the Harper Center Ballroom from 3- 4 p.m. and a turkey dinner will be served after from 4-5 p.m. Buffalohead-McGill also feels very grateful for the support of all of the donations that made the food for this service possible.
This memorial service will serve as an opportunity for friends, family, coworkers and anyone else who would like to pay their respects to Al-Greene’s memory as no funeral service will be held due to the fact that Al-Greene’s body will be cremated.
Buffalohead- McGill feels that it is very important for the Creighton community to know that Al-Greene was extremely dedicated to working with the students here at Creighton.
“This man [Pat] dedicated almost 13 years of his life to Creighton in a grant funded program position and he had a Ph.D., not many people would do that,” Buffalohead- McGill said. “He really believed in our kids, who they are and what they can accomplish.”
Mathematics professor Michel Mallenby knew Al-Greene for about 10 years as they both taught math courses for HCOP (Health Careers Opportunity Program) every summer and for the Upward Bound Program a few times. Al-Green also observed Mallenby’s Creighton math classes occasionally so that he could be a more effective tutor for the students in those classes.
Mallenby greatly respected Al-Greene’s skill as a math tutor and she often referred students struggling in her classes to him for additional help.
“Pat was a really good math tutor,” Mallenby said. “I could always tell which students had been seeing Pat by the neat and effective way they laid out their problems on exams. Although Pat was the official tutor for Student Support Services, he would help any student who came to him, whether they were in Student Support Services or not.”
One ironic bit of information that Mallenby wanted to share with Al-Greene’s family is that the two of them had discussed mortality a few weeks before his death.
“Pat told me about his experience with prostate cancer that previous year and he said that it would be much easier for a person to die a sudden death, like having a fatal heart attack, although we concurred that such a death, while easier for the victim, would be harder for the victim’s family.”
Mallenby also felt that it was important for the Creighton community to know just how close the members of SSS.
“Pat lived in the Capitol Row Apartments next to campus and walked to work,” Mallenby said. “The staff in Student Support Services was his family.”