By TYLER ELLYSON
KEARNEY – When Charlie Bicak retires later this month, he and wife Marylin won’t be leaving Kearney to spend their golden years in some faraway location.
You’ll still see him around the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus – at theater productions, music concerts, athletic contests and other events.
“This is home,” he says. And it always will be.
The senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs at UNK since 2009, Bicak is leaving the position June 30, ending a 40-year career in education.
STRONG CONNECTION
A Kearney Catholic High School graduate, Bicak’s connection to UNK goes back six decades.
His late father Laddie was a faculty member here from 1962-89, teaching in the department of biology and serving as the graduate dean for nine years. His mother Iris, now 97, was a music teacher and vocalist, making a career in education a bit of a no-brainer.
“I suspect that I always thought I would be a teacher, but mine was a little bit of a meandering path,” Bicak said with a smile.
After working two summers on the grounds crew on campus, Bicak enrolled at UNK, known then as Kearney State College, in 1970. He saw the same opportunities students continue to receive today.
“Fifty years ago, I was involved in undergraduate research,” said Bicak, who studied water pollution in the Little and Big Blue rivers with faculty members and fellow students.
He also played football for the Lopers for two years before graduating in 1974 with a bachelor’s degree in biology education.
Bicak taught junior high physical science and biology at Westside Community Schools in Omaha for a year, but he really wanted to pursue research. So he left his teaching position, got married, and started a master’s program in plant science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. That decision led to a doctorate in range science from Colorado State University and, after a brief stint researching herbicides for Eli Lilly and Company, his first job in academia.
Although he spent nine years at California State University, Bakersfield, advancing to professor and biology department chair, the relationships he developed at UNK never faded.
“There’s a strong sense of community here,” Bicak said. “We’re large enough that we have the breadth and depth of programs, but we’re also small enough that you get to know students and they get to know you.”
The desire to work in that type of close-knit environment brought him back to Kearney in 1992. Bicak taught in the UNK Department of Biology for the next 13 years, serving as department chair for seven years and as an assistant to the dean for two years.
He received the Teaching Excellence Award from the Kearney Area Chamber of Commerce in 1997 and was the second person ever recognized with the Leland Holdt/Security Mutual Life Distinguished Faculty Award, presented annually to an outstanding UNK teacher-scholar for their achievements in education, research and service.
Bicak was dean of the School of Natural Sciences at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, from 2005-09 before returning to UNK for good.
