Fort Schuyler Magazine Spring 2023

KAREN MARKOE First Female Department Chair Reflects on Her Years at Maritime College

BY ODALIS MINO

K aren Markoe always knew she wanted to teach. Her yearning for teaching was apparent from as far back as grade school when she would spend time creating a class list and assigning grades to all the students. When Markoe reached high school, she developed an interest in history and focused her efforts on becoming a history professor. She pursued an undergraduate degree in history at Hunter College, CUNY, and went on to receive a master’s degree in Modern European History and doctoral degree in American History from Columbia University. Throughout her time in college and graduate school, Markoe worked to pay for her graduate education by teaching part-time at several colleges. By January 1974, she joined the Humanities Department at Maritime College as Assistant Professor; the same year in which the first

class of female cadets (four in total) arrived on campus. “I was one of only a few women faculty members, but the students were very welcoming towards me,” she stated. She enjoyed the classroom; taught various subjects including Western Civilization, American History, Literature as History, Biography and Urban History, during which she took her students on excursions around Manhattan and overnight trips to Boston and Washington, D.C. Markoe became interested in university governance and was elected to the SUNY University Faculty Senate as its president from 1987-1991. Expanding her work beyond the Maritime College campus and seeking to improve the governance of other SUNY colleges, she became acquainted with individuals and literary luminaries such as writer James Baldwin, novelist Toni Morrison, and famed journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault. In 1992, Markoe was

In 1974, Karen Markoe joined the Maritime College Humanities Department.

In 1992, Markoe was appointed to the position of Humanities Department Chair

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