The Gainey Conference Center staff will host a French country farewell reception for Marlene Levine from 4 to 6 p.m. today, Friday, Aug. 12.
Marlene Levine, director of the University of St. Thomas’ Daniel C. Gainey Conference Center in Owatonna, has resigned effective today and will be replaced on an interim basis by Dennis Benjamin, operations manager at Gainey.
Levine will become executive director of University Center in downtown Chicago. The center provides housing for more than 1,700 students and is within walking distance of the campuses of Columbia College, DePaul University, Robert Morris University and Roosevelt University.
Levine has worked at St. Thomas for 26 years and is the only staff member to have held positions on all four of the university's campuses. Her previous positions were director of postal services in St. Paul (1985-1987), marketing manager and then associate director in Minneapolis (1987-1996), Gainey director (1996-1999 and since 2001) and director of the Bernardi campus in Rome (1999-2001).
The conference center opened in 1982 on the estate of the late Daniel C. Gainey. A respected businessman with a commitment to education, Gainey designated that his estate be developed into an educational center as a legacy to his love for learning.