Marvin Milich Retires

Alumnus and faculty member Marvin Milich (Accounting and Information Systems), age 76, retired last spring after accumulating nearly half a century on campus. “I was at Queens College for 48 out of the 85 years it existed,” he says.

Ironically, given his druthers, he would never have matriculated at QC.

The son of European Jews who immigrated before World War II—his father left Poland in 1932, his mother escaped Germany in 1939—Milich was born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. In 1955, “one week after the Dodgers won,” he recalls, his family moved to Forest Hills. Educated at PS 220 (“I was a member of its first graduating class”), Halsey Junior High, and Forest Hills High School, he would have preferred to leave the city for college. However, he says, “European parents don’t like their children going to school out of town.”

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. “I told her that if she ever did that again, I would give back the car and go to school out of town,” he says.

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. “Accounting came easily to me,” he notes. “From age 14 I had been keeping my father’s books.”

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). “I became known as the biggest drug dealer on campus,” 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.

“Helping people has always been in my blood,” he continues. “When 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.”

Upon graduation, Milich enrolled at New York University School of Law. “My intention was to be a tax attorney,” he comments. “but It didn’t work out that way.” 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, “It went bankrupt,” Milich says. “I had a small private practice, but it wasn’t enough to support myself.”

One of his closest friends, Leonard Schultz ’68, 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’t quite capture his status as an elder statesman in the department. Milich played a critical role in the development of the master’s program in accounting, directing it for the past 18 years. “Every student was required to see me every semester,” he says. “I registered them all personally and was able to successfully resolve most problems faced by them.”

His efforts weren’t confined to his department. “For 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,” he reports. “This work gave me the opportunity to combine both my legal and advisement skills for the betterment of the college.”

More recently, he helped win approval for the master’s in taxation, a signature initiative of the Queens College Business School. The program will officially launch this fall.

“To have a great department, you need various types: teachers, researchers, advisers,” Milich observes. “Advisement is where I thrive. I told students, ‘If you want to come and talk to me, it doesn’t have to be about accounting.’” Taking him at his word, students have consulted him about having another child, or pursuing a career outside accounting. His response? “You only go around once. You have to do what you love to do.”

Milich loves tennis; he is on the court four times a week. “I hope to still play singles at 80,” 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, “My heart will always be with Queens College.”