Meet Maria Dobozy

Meet Maria Dobozy, ASA Board Member, AV Resident

By Marilyn Skinner

Maria Dobozy, presently in the second year of her three-year term as a resident ASA board member, is a naturalized American citizen. Born in a displaced persons camp in southern Austria, Maria came to the United States in the 1950s, where she lived first in Kansas and then in a good-sized Hungarian community in New Jersey. She attended Wilson College, a women-only liberal arts institution, and subsequently earned a doctorate in German language and literature at the University of Kansas, along with a second MA in linguistics. Maria taught German at the University of Illinois at Chicago before joining a large foreign language department at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Though now retired, she continues to pursue an active research career in her specializations, medieval German and comparative literature and medieval law.

Since 2019 Maria has served twice as a board member. During her earlier term, she scheduled ASA lectures and classes and regularly wrote program previews for lecturers. As the chair of the ASA Library Committee, she was involved in the transformation of the library from a generalized to a specialized facility. Since joining the Board again, she has been active in many areas, most recently serving on the 2025 Nominating Committee to fill five vacant board member slots.

Maria believes passionately in the value of the ASA as an educational institution contributing to lifelong learning in the humanities, the sciences, and the arts. While many retirement communities have programs furthering physical health, Academy Village is almost unique in stimulating the intellectual curiosity and mental health of its members. She strongly endorses the general perception that Villa residents who have belonged to Academy Village are much more engaged in activities and less in need of specialized care than those who came to the Villas from outside.

 

As a Board member, Maria is now closely connected with its Strategic Plan Initiative. All board members, she feels, should be actively engaged in furthering one or more of the project’s four projected goals to make sure that residents benefit from the insights that emerge. Her personal goals as a board member are grounded on Henry Koffler’s vision of the ASA as the core of the entire community. She hopes that it will encompass more and more members and attract more and more volunteers to share the workload and contribute their expertise to making the ASA more encompassing. Her long-term goal is to see the ASA put on a sound financial footing.

Keep up the good work, Maria!