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Alumnus and faculty member Marvin Milich (Accounting and Information Systems), age 76, retired last spring after accumulating nearly half a century on campus. \u201cI was at Queens College for 48 out of the 85 years it existed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Ironically, given his druthers, he would never have matriculated at QC.<\/p>\n
The son of European Jews who immigrated before World War II\u2014his father left Poland in 1932, his mother escaped Germany in 1939\u2014Milich was born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In 1955, \u201cone week after the Dodgers won,\u201d he recalls, his family moved to Forest Hills. Educated at PS 220 (\u201cI was a member of its first graduating class\u201d), Halsey Junior High, and Forest Hills High School, he would have preferred to leave the city for college. However, he says, \u201cEuropean parents don\u2019t like their children going to school out of town.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n
Milich agreed to attend Queens College on the condition that he would get a new car and be allowed to lead an independent life. Early on he returned home in his 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente at 1:30 am and found his mother waiting up for him. \u201cI told her that if she ever did that again, I would give back the car and go to school out of town,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Without further interference, Milich stayed at QC. Building on years of working at Miller and Berkowitz Furriers, a business owned by his father and uncle, he majored in accounting and economics. \u201cAccounting came easily to me,\u201d he notes. \u201cFrom age 14 I had been keeping my father\u2019s books.\u201d<\/p>\n
Milich immersed himself in extracurricular college activities. Appalled by the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which could get someone a five-year jail sentence for possession of a single joint, he founded the QC chapter of LEMAR, now known as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). \u201cI became known as the biggest drug dealer on campus,\u201d he says with a laugh, adding that he never sold drugs. He was chief officer of the Student Senate, was elected as a National Student Association delegate, and served as treasurer for Central House Plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cHelping people has always been in my blood,\u201d he continues. \u201cWhen I was an upperclassman at Queens, I volunteered several hours a week in the Office of Student Activities, then located in Room 110 in the Social Sciences Building, now known as Powdermaker Hall (coincidentally, where my office was later located). I manned the front desk and would answer all kinds of questions from students. I knew the bulletin from cover to cover, and even at such a young age I derived extreme satisfaction from helping my fellow students. I think my efforts were the impetus behind the Peer Advisement program that started after my graduation. I enjoyed working with Helen Hendricks, Donald Brundage, and Richard Covert during these formulative times in my life.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n
Upon graduation, Milich enrolled at New York University School of Law. \u201cMy intention was to be a tax attorney,\u201d he comments. \u201cbut It didn\u2019t work out that way.\u201d Passing both the CPA and bar exams, he spent two years at the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen. Then he was hired by a Medford, Long Island-based real estate company that had fired both its accountant and its attorney. Subsequently he became in-house counsel for a real estate developer. In 1978, \u201cIt went bankrupt,\u201d Milich says. \u201cI had a small private practice, but it wasn\u2019t enough to support myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of his closest friends, Leonard Schultz \u201968, was teaching at QC, and alerted Milich that the Accounting Department had an opening for a substitute assistant professor in business law. He filled the spot, eventually gaining tenure and the title of associate professor, which doesn\u2019t quite capture his status as an elder statesman in the department. Milich played a critical role in the development of the master\u2019s program in accounting, directing it for the past 18 years. \u201cEvery student was required to see me every semester,\u201d he says. \u201cI registered them all personally and was able to successfully resolve most problems faced by them.\u201d<\/p>\n
His efforts weren\u2019t confined to his department. \u201cFor over a decade I was chair of the Faculty Student Disciplinary Committee working with Dean Burt Backner in adjudicating disputes concerning plagiarism, cheating, and even assault,\u201d he reports.\u00a0\u201cThis work gave me the opportunity to combine both my legal and advisement skills for the betterment of the college.\u201d<\/p>\n
More recently, he helped win approval for the master\u2019s in taxation, a signature initiative of the Queens College Business School. The program will officially launch this fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have a great department, you need various types: teachers, researchers, advisers,\u201d Milich observes. \u201cAdvisement is where I thrive. I told students, \u2018If you want to come and talk to me, it doesn\u2019t have to be about accounting.\u2019\u201d Taking him at his word, students have consulted him about having another child, or pursuing a career outside accounting. His response? \u201cYou only go around once. You have to do what you love to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Milich loves tennis; he is on the court four times a week. \u201cI hope to still play singles at 80,\u201d he says. He enjoys travel, too. Before the pandemic, he and his wife, Judi, booked seats on a river cruise from Paris to Normandy. Their trip was postponed twice because of the pandemic, but they finally sailed this past June. Milich looks forward to spending more time with his children and grandchildren; he and his wife Judi have a large, blended family, most of whom live in New York. He also loves the institution where he spent so many years, saying, \u201cMy heart will always be with Queens College.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n
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Marvin Milich RetiresAlumnus and faculty member Marvin Milich (Accounting and Information Systems), age 76, retired last spring after accumulating nearly half a century on campus. \u201cI was at Queens College for 48 out of the 85 years it existed,\u201d he says. Ironically, given his druthers, he would never have matriculated at QC. The son of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"page_category":[],"wf_page_folders":[],"class_list":["post-3029","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3029"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3044,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3029\/revisions\/3044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"page_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/page_category?post=3029"},{"taxonomy":"wf_page_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qc.cuny.edu\/communications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_page_folders?post=3029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}