Endless Waves… Remembrances of Sayville Alumni. Dr. Virginia Lee Lussier

Virginia with her mom, Lillian, at about 6 months.

Virginia at 4.

Virginia with her dad, Leonard, in 1946, at age 5.

Virginia with her California playmates. In the first photo, she is in the first row, on the left.

In the second photo, she is in the top row, on the right. Her cousin, Billy Nugent, is examining the castor bean leaf.

In 1948, Virginia and her mom moved to Sayville so they could be near Lillian’s sisters. Here she is on the left with her cousin, Bobby, making her first snowman.

Virginia (right) at La Salle Military Academy where her mother worked in the Business Office.

Virginia was a long-time member of the Sayville Brownie and Girl Scout troops throughout her school years.

From 5th grade through her senior year in high school, Virginia played a number of instruments — cello, string bass, clarinet, and saxophone. She played in the Sayville High marching band, orchestra, and dance band.

Tired feet at the World’s Fair on Long Island in Spring 1965.

While at the University of Pennsylvania, Ginny was a bridesmaid in the wedding of her roommate, Linda Owens, in June 1965.

In 1965, Ginny was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in Bolivia, South America, and studied law at the University in Cochabamba.

Here are some photos of her days in Bolivia.

While in Bolivia, her mother, Lily, came for a six week trip around South America. Here are some photos from that trip.

On the way back from Bolivia, Ginny stopped at a number of different countries, including Peru, Ecuador, Columbia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico.

Here are three photos — the first from Managua, Nicaragua, the second from Antiqua, Guatemala, and finally from Mexico City.

Ginny, her roommates, and a friend at the University of Pennsylvania, 1966-67.

The third photo is Ginny with her roommate Ann Christoph, at the University of Pennsylvania in 1968-69.

During the academic break at the University of Pennsylvania in Winter 1968, Ginny took a trip to Europe.

These photos were taken in London.

In 1969, Ginny traveled to Europe to join friends who were living there. Here she is with the Little Mermaid that sits on the edge of the Copenhagen Harbor.

This statute was inspired by a Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale.

Beside a canal in Bruges, Belgium, July 1969

Bruges church, July 1969

Museum of the Emperor, Brussels, July 1969

American Sector in West Berlin, July 1969

Overlooking the wall between West and East Berlin.

Brandenberg Gate (in the Soviet sector of Berlin) divided West and East Berlin

Church destroyed in West Berlin during WWII

German checkpoint

Restored Farm, Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, April 1971

Restored Village, Harper’s Ferry

St. Peter’s Church, Harper’s Ferry

Pan American Union, February 1970

Waterford Crystal Room, Kennedy Center, August 1993

Cherry Blossoms, Tidal Basin, Easter 1971

Ginny at the wedding of a cousin in West Sayville, 1972.

In October 1972, Ginny’s aunt and uncle, Anna and Paul O’Grady, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary.

From left to right are Ginny, her aunt, Camilla Munkelwitz, her cousins, Maura Feeney, Jim Staples, Paula Feeney Staples, and the guests of honor, Anna and Paul O’Grady.

Maura and Paula are the O’Grady’s granddaughters.

The celebration, held at Camilla’s house on Collins Avenue, was the same locale where Anna, Paul, and their families gathered for the wedding reception and brunch in October 1922.

1973, Ginny received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland. A member of her dissertation committee, Dilip Madan, invited her and his math dissertation supervisor, Jim Owings, (Dilip already had a Ph.D. In Economics), to visit his family in Bombay and New Delhi, India for Christmas.

In this right photo are Dilip, his brother, and Ginny on an elephant ride in Bombay, December 1973. The other three photos are of the Madan family, Jim, and Ginny at the Taj Mahal in Agra, India.

At Feroz Shah Kotla Fort, once a walled city in New Delhi, India, January 1974

Humayun’s Tomb, New Delhi, India, January 1974

Palace of the Winds, Jaipur, India 1974

Ginny tours the Grand Canyon area

At Christmas 1974, Ginny and her mom made a trip to Southern California to spend the holidays with the Nugent family.

Ginny, Lillian, Tricia, and Shirlee Nugent are in the first photo, followed by one of Ginny and Lillian at the Pacific Ocean, and then one of Ginny at LAX Airport.

While she worked at the University of Delaware in Newark for that Provost, she organized a major speaker series, with Joyce Walstedt, entitled “Women 1976: Caught in the Crossfire,” funded by the Delaware Humanities Forum.

The speaker series included important women in academia, politics, the arts, and sports. Out of that speaker series came the book, “Women’s Lives Perspectives on Progress and Change”.

For 18 years, Ginny worked in the Provost Office of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. These two photos are of Ginny and members of the staff.

While at Rutgers, Ginny worked with the Provost, Kenneth Wheeler, on a conference entitled “Women, the Arts, and the 1920’s in Paris and New York.”

This three-day conference, funded by the New Jersey Committee for the Humanities, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Joe and Emily Lowe Foundation, offered a rich and varied program of papers, exhibits, and performances celebrating creative women in the arts in the 1920s.

The participants were very well known scholars and authorities about artistic women in the 1920s.

The photo right shows one of the banquets held in connection with the Conference.  From this Conference came a book of the same name.

In addition to the two books and conferences cited above, Ginny has written 38 journal articles and conference papers.  She has served as a discussant or chair on 20 academic conference panels and has written and administered 17 grants to support various projects.

Although her Ph.D. is in Political Science, her administrative and teaching positions at six different academic institutions have expanded her research interests to include written works related to international political conflict, academic collective bargaining, employment and women’s labor issues, civil aviation, and workplace literacy.

Ginny retired as Professor Emeritus from California State University (CSUN) in fall 2014 and now actively serves on the Board of CSUN’s Association of Retired Faculty (ARF) and writes Endless Wave articles about her family members who graduated from Sayville High School for the Sayville High Alumni Organization’s web pages.

Left – At the Y, 2017

Right – At Trendsetters in Blue Point, L.I., July 2018

Annually, a political science colleague, Jane Bayes, hosts an annual Christmas White Elephant Party for women faculty. Here are a few photos from a recent event.   Here is the Buffet Lunch – everyone contributes a dish.

Funny, randomly selected gifts.

View of the Pacific Ocean from Jane’s backyard.

At a June 2019 retirement party for Jane Bayes with her CSUN political science colleagues. Jane is second from the right and Ginny is fourth.

Every April, CSUN’s Association of Retired Faculty (ARF) takes a field trip to an important Los Angeles cultural/artistic venue. In 2018, the trip was to the Autry Museum of the American West.

In the photo on the left, the ARF group is in the Autry’s western salon. Ginny is the fourth from the left. To the right is one of the Autry’s beautiful stagecoaches.

In 2019, ARF went to the Getty Villa, a Roman-style villa that today houses one of the world’s most important antiquity collections.

On the left, Ginny with Tim Fox in the Roman Sculpture Room.

On the right, a piece from the Greek and Roman art collection.

Ginny Lussier’s Photo Gallery

Come see the additional photos

Click Collage (right) to view —–>

Our endless wave alumni story was prepared by Dr. Virginia Lussier, who graduated from Sayville High School, class of 1959.

After graduating from Sayville High, she received a B.A. from Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland in 1963; two Master’s degrees, one in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, in 1965 and the other in Political Science from the University of Maryland, in 1972; an M.B.A. from The Executive Business Program at Rutgers University, in 1983; and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland (College Park) in Political Science, in 1973.

Ginny spent her entire career in academia. She has held administrative and teaching positions at various academic institutions including the Association of American Colleges, University of Maryland (College Park), University of Delaware, Rutgers University (New Brunswick), Saint Louis University, and California State University, Northridge (CSUN).

She has taught and written about a wide array of topics. Dr. Lussier retired as Professor Emeritus from CSUN in fall 2014.