Recognizing, Acknowledging, and Appreciating the Gourleys

Welcome to Edition 5 of the Joyce Appreciation Corner.

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We have been programmed to think of happiness in life as the assured reward following wealth, fame, and other life accomplishments, but this has often become a mirage for far too many people who come to realize the evasive nature of the happiness they’ve been chasing after all their lives.

In this post pandemic era of unprecedented anxiety and apprehension for the future, the quality of people’s lives including the pursuit of happiness and fulfillment has taken on new challenges. But all is not lost; there’s an assured way to true happiness; it’s not through acquiring more stuff and not dependent on everything being perfect, but through a giving mindset, attitude, and practice rooted in gratitude.

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In the next edition of this biweekly newsletter, we are starting a comprehensive series that goes deeper into the association between gratitude and happiness and many other virtues including loving, caring, forgiving, hopeful, trusting, kindness, in the midst of better physical and mental health, along with higher productivity, excellence, positive outlook on life, resilience, and better and more meaningful relationships with colleagues, friends, business partners, the family, the community and society at large.

This is in line with our theme “Becoming more, Achieving more, and Giving more through Gratitude.”

So, stay tuned and watch this space, subscribe and share with your network if you have not already done so because you would want to share the benefits with them, I believe?

For this 5th edition, I would want us to revisit what Dr. Robert Emmons has described as the three components of gratitude—Recognition, Acknowledgement, and Appreciation-using my relationship with the Gourleys of blessed memory as our case study of gratitude.

I am in this edition recognizing, acknowledging, and appreciating the extraordinary kindness, love, and care of Dr. Dick R. Gourley, Professor Emeritus and Dean of the College of Pharmacy (1989-2011) of The University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) and his dear wife Dr. Greta Gourley, then Associate Professor and Chair of the Health Outcomes & Policy Research graduate program at UTHSC.

Unfortunately, they have both crossed to the other side of life but their good deeds to my family and me have engraved their names to live forever in our hearts long after they have gone in answer to the question of Sir Terry Pratchett the English author, “Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”?

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My first encounter with this wonderful family was with Greta at a committee meeting during the 60th FIP World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in Vienna, Austria in August 2000; both of us had signed up to serve on this committee as volunteers. ?I don’t really remember the details, but she later told me that what attracted me to her at that meeting was the way I stepped up to assume a leadership role to organize the meeting to ensure that our assignment was completed.

“That really made an impression on me,” Greta continued, “So much so that I told Dick about this wonderful lady from Ghana that I met at the meeting and wanted him to meet you.” Well, as providence would have it, Dick did meet me with Greta the very next day under circumstances that can be described as nothing short of the miraculous.

It was at a plenary session on “Structural Issues and Pharmacy Practice” with about 1200 conference participants to which yours truly from far away Ghana in West Africa had been invited to co-moderate with a male counterpart from Australia. My co-chair opened the session and introduced the panel speakers, and my responsibility was to close the session after summing up the meeting highlights. Among the many participants who surged forward to congratulate me, following their standing ovation, was Greta and this amicable-looking gentleman whom she introduced to me as, “Dr. Dick Gourley, my husband; he is the Dean of the College of Pharmacy in Memphis, Tennessee.”

Soon the three of us were chatting excitedly as if we had known each other for a long time and the topic of my long-held dream of coming to the United States for my Ph.D. education came up. After glancing through a copy of my CV which I had had the presence of mind to carry along, Dick said, “Joyce, we would be delighted to have you come to join our Ph.D. program; with your wealth of professional experience and knowledge, you will bring much value to the program for the benefit of all the students.”

And so it came to pass, that in August 2003, I joined the Health Outcomes & Policy Research (HOPR) Program in the Pharmacoeconomics tract at UTHSC with a full tuition waiver and a graduate assistantship that enabled me to bring my two high school-age children, a daughter, and a son, along with me to Memphis.

Indeed, I lacked nothing as a graduate student at UTHSC; thanks to the Geier Minority Fellowship and other supporting funds facilitated through the Office of the Dean. Thanks to this solid financial support, I was able to undertake my research study in Ghana and to present aspects of the research findings at global conferences in Brazil, Canada, China, the Netherlands, and here in the United States before I graduated in May 2008.

Before I go further with my personal experience with the Gourleys, I would like to take a moment here to highlight what they did for my children, because as my educators, they had absolutely no obligation towards my children, but they went above and beyond their call of duty to ensure that the children were settled in “THE” High School. This is the nick name for the great Central High School, an optional high school in the Shelby County School System, known for its college preparation programs; both children were enrolled there the same day through the efforts of Karen, the Dean’s Executive Assistant, who also secured an excellent accommodation for us just across the high school, so I didn’t have to worry about them when I was in school myself. What a thoughtful, caring, and giving group of people at Memphis!

As if this was not enough, unknown to us, Karen had actually sent an email communication to the faculty and staff of the College of Pharmacy announcing our arrival and inviting them to assist us in any way to settle down comfortably. I only got to know this when the household furnishing, brand new, by the way, started pouring in the very next day!! We had a fully furnished apartment within two weeks of arriving in Memphis without spending even a dollar of our own money! Such degree and acts of kindness belong to the story books, but we experienced them live in Memphis, TN, and they gave me an extraordinary view of the United States.

Throughout my studies at UTHSC, Dick and Greta were more like family to me and my children. Greta was my Research Advisor but Dick took over from her when she went on early retirement. During my last academic year in the program, when I had not given any thought to what I intended to do after graduation, it was Dick who prompted me to give an academic career here in the U.S. a thought and he backed his suggestion with action by supporting my applications to advertised positions with recommendation letters.

I just came across a copy of his recommendation in support of my application to Touro University Touro College of Pharmacy and would like to share a portion with you here.

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He wrote-----

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“Joyce has the political acumen, intellectual capacity, practice experience, and drive and motivation to be an outstanding faculty member. I would highly recommend her to you as an individual who has the teaching skills as well as the rapport with students and faculty, and who will be an outstanding faculty member in the future.”

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I can only feel humbled seeing how true his predictions and expectations of me have turned out to be; an additional reason for my gratitude to him and Greta. In appreciation for all their investments in me, I nominated Dr. Dick Gourley to receive the UTHSC College of Graduate Health Sciences Research Advisor Award in May 2008; he really deserved it.

What valuable lessons did I learn from Dick and Greta? The lessons were many but the notable among them was the importance of investing in the development of the students I have the privilege to teach. Although I had already earned the label of being a great teacher, mentor, and a role model in Ghana, from the Gourleys I have developed the value-added quality of going above and beyond these labels to assist students in their educational and career paths and life in general. As per a student president of a student organization I oversee, I have become “a mother figure” to them.

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Thank you, Dick and Greta, for showing me how to bring out the best in my students, encouraging them to “think outside the box,” to “reach for the sky,” and how to hold their hands all the way, whiles sparing no time in correcting any behaviors or attitudes that would stand in their way to the desired goal.

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Linda Barnes the American author is quoted as saying, “From seeds of kindness grow bouquets of gratitude.”

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So, my way of showing appreciation to Dick and Greta include the diligence and dedication with which I craft powerful and persuasive recommendation letters for students to support their applications for scholarships, awards, residencies and fellowships, internships in diverse organizations including the World Health Organization, MPH programs, and job placements. From 2012 to date, I have had the honor and privilege of writing hundreds of such recommendation letters for students, some of them requiring multiple letters at a time. Although not all the letters have yielded the required results, the majority have been successful, resulting in even more requests from students including those who have left school about 10 years ago.

I must admit that at times I feel overwhelmed and inundated with these requests, especially, when they come at very short notice and with limited time frames in which to operate, but whenever I feel like saying “No,” I remember all the Gourleys’ sacrifices on my behalf and continue to write them anyway.

My doors have always been open to all students, no matter their race/ethnicity or country of origin. Dick and Greta showed me the way and I am faithfully paying my dues forward by way of showing my appreciation and honoring their memory and legacy; hopefully, my students will also do the same for others and thus multiply even more the fruit of my mentors’ labor.

Thank you Dr. Dick R. Gourley, Professor Emeritus and Dr. Greta Gourley, retired Associate Professor, both of the College of Pharmacy, University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, TN.

It is now your turn, dear reader to identify and pay tribute to one person who has made a significant contribution to your education, career, or life in general. I can’t wait to read your stories in the comments.

Remember, we are becoming more, achieving more, and giving more through gratitude.

Signing off for now with gratitude and deep appreciation,

Yours truly

Joyce

The Gratitude Ambassador

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