Therapist was president of Southwestern College
A Buddhist with a doctorate in counseling psychology who was happiest walking in the mountains and along rivers with her golden retrievers, Marylou Butler was instrumental in the accreditation and growth of Southwestern College in Santa Fe, a graduate school specializing in master’s-level programs in counseling and art therapy.
The teacher, counselor, mentor and former Southwestern president died earlier this month at 75.
“She had endless empathy and a real interest in people,” said Judy Mosher, Butler’s partner of 23 years. “She was an amazing listener with an earnest desire to understand people. She was quite remarkable in her ability to get people to talk so that she could hear and understand.”
Butler, who earned her doctorate from Arizona State University, left a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania in her native Philadelphia to move to Santa Fe in 1980.
She first took a teaching position at the now-defunct College of Santa Fe. In 1984, she began teaching at Southwestern College, where she served as president from 1996 until her retirement in 2005.
After retiring, she continued a private counseling practice.
Former students say they remember Butler as an approachable professor with a knack for persuading those on the fence to pursue a career in helping others.
“She convinced me to get my master’s in transformational counseling at age 52,” said Larry Hays, who graduated from Southwestern College in 1992. “I think all of us want to be heard, and that’s what Marylou did. You could go on a tangent spilling all your beans — and no matter what, she heard you and could bring you back to where you needed to be.”
Butler led a successful campaign for full accreditation of Southwestern College, which was achieved in 1996. This helped increase the school’s enrollment by allowing students to apply for federal financial aid. The college now serves between 150 and 200 students a year, officials said.
She also oversaw an expansion of the campus, between Agua Fría Street and Airport Road on the city’s south side, and the establishment of a counseling center. First located on St. Michael’s Drive, the center was moved back to the college’s campus in 2016.
“Marylou really helped with the development of the institution at a vulnerable time of growth,” said Katherine Ninos, executive vice president of Southwestern College, who started working there in 1980.
“When you’re starting out, it’s important to have somebody who it really matters to. It’s not just a job. And it really mattered to her,” Ninos added.
“I think the curriculum of Southwestern College allows a view of humanity that perhaps the more traditional clinical experience and profession doesn’t allow,” said Jeffrey Piacitelli, a 2005 graduate who now works as a behavioral health care coordination supervisor in Oregon. “I think Marylou was really drawn to that.”
Outside of her career, Butler was a committed activist who marched both for African American voting rights in Mississippi in the 1960s and in Santa Fe’s recent renditions of the Women’s March.
“She really cared,” said Mosher. “About her students, about Santa Fe, about every living thing. She listened and she cared.”