The Warner School graduate built a career advocating for shoppers—then turned her attention to helping future educators thrive.
Mary Ellen Burris ’68W (EdM) likes to say that her graduate degree from the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education and Human Development is her secret ingredient. “What I learned at Warner I put to work at Wegmans,” she says.
Equipped with a master’s in educational psychology (now human development), Burris joined Wegmans in 1971. She quickly became the company’s “voice of the customer,” pioneering a consumer affairs department at a time when few retailers even considered such a role. As she puts it, “If there was one word that would capture what I did, it was to listen—and then to share that information where it would be heard.”
Her listening led to change. Burris launched consumer columns, spearheaded food safety programs, and introduced the Strive for Five campaign encouraging shoppers to eat more fruits and vegetables. Over nearly five decades, she became a trusted voice for thousands of customers and a key architect of Wegmans’ reputation for care and quality.
At the same time, she never lost sight of her roots as an educator. For more than 20 years, Burris has been a dedicated advisor and supporter of the Warner School, helping to shape programs, mentor leaders, and invest in the next generation of educators. She credits the school as the place where her values, and the importance of education, came into focus: “Warner helped me to bring all of that together,” she says.
In 2023, she deepened her commitment to the Warner School with an extraordinary gift: an endowed deanship, professorship, and scholarship—the largest in the school’s history. Yet Burris is quick to center the impact, not the milestone. She views it as a way to ensure that others, like her, can turn education into action.
From her start as a Warner graduate to her legacy as a champion of both customers and students, Burris has built a career—and a life—on listening, learning, and giving back.
