The Queen of Harney 240: Marvella Luey

She wears a simple black collared shirt and beige pants, barely any makeup, and she tweezes her eyebrows. Her hair, cut in a neat bob, bounces as she props herself back up behind her desk. Assistant to the Associate Dean of Arts and Sciences, "Queen of Harney 240," and "point person" Marvella Luey has sat at that desk for 18 years. Who is this woman so many students go to for all the answers?
An unmarried Libra, house sitter, and avid Ebay shopper with a remarkable love for cats.
"I realized its maybe in my genes," Luey says. "In high school, I worked at both the counseling office and principal's office. I like to help people. I'm not good at other things."
Luey, 38, began working at the Dean's Office as a sophomore in 1990 and graduated from USF three years later with a B.A. in Chemistry, but says being cooped up in a lab all by herself just wasn't her niche. She's more of a people person, she says. And so, she's been working in Harney full-time ever since.
"When you work more than 40 hours a week, you have to love what you're doing," she says.
Luey is responsible for student registration, managing grades, graduate center files, as well as the Arts and Sciences curriculum. But more than anything else, it's the strong sense of community with her co-workers and students, she says, that makes her job so worth while.
"When I see a student I watched from freshman to senior year graduate and walk up on that stage, I feel most accomplished knowing that I helped in that process," she says.
Like a proud mother, she gloats. She reassures us, however, that she is no parental figure.
"I don't know if I can do the whole child birth thing," she admits. "Maybe I'll adopt someday. It's a lifetime commitment. Pets are the closest I can do to responsibility."
There seems to be enough responsibility and stress to go around in the office, especially during registration in the beginning of each semester. In many cases, Luey has even had to serve as mediator between students and professors, and sometimes dealt with serious cases like suicide, depression, and violence.
"I guess because I'm a Libra in nature, I have to be fair and just," she says. "I'm a big supporter of fairness. Being a Libra, I like to keep the peace, explore the options."
The Majesty of Arts and Sciences in touch with her astrological forecasts still never seems to crack under pressure.
"I'm a pretty tough shell. I don't really cry, I try not to, except when my cat died," she says.
Luey currently has a cat named Halley who replaced Charlotte after her death in June. Not to mention "The Campus Cat" Oscar Luey would regularly feed in her office. These are her children, for now.
She and her cat Halley currently reside in the city close to her immediate family. In the future, she hopes to go back to school to get her Master's Degree at USF and she's considering the School of Education.
Seemingly simple and ordinary, Luey says she tries to remain low key, but mysterious. A face so many recognize, a signature drawn on so many papers; no celebrity, but to students and faculty alike, a friend, a colleague, and all-knowing at the Dean's Office's door.