Marshall Magazine Autumn 2022

them on one of the benches,” Smith recalled. “I did, and I handed her phone back to her. As I was walking away, I overheard her say, ‘I want to have this picture so that one day when my daughter comes to Marshall, she’ll see the bench that her mother built.’” He said tears ran down his cheeks as he walked back to his office. “This was a 17-year-old girl, who had just finished doing very hard work, with people she’d never met before, on a campus she wasn’t officially a part of yet — but she’s already envisioned herself having a daughter who will follow in her footsteps at Marshall and sit on “I’ve always felt that the most important word in ‘We are … Marshall’ is the word ‘we,’” he said. “This is the community’s university. This is Appalachia’s university. And quite frankly, it’s the world’s university. Everywhere I’ve traveled, if I say, ‘We are …’ someone will call out, ‘Marshall!’ They’ve seen the movie. They know our story. We have a part to play in a bigger picture.” In a sense, bringing that bigger picture to life was the goal of the listening tour. While the tour has ended and 100 days in office have turned into 200, and soon 300, that doesn’t mean things are slowing down for Smith. He’s just getting started. “People sometimes ask me if being the president of a university is very different frombeing the CEOof a Fortune 500 company,” he said. “My answer is that the hours really aren’t that different. What’s different is that not a day that I’ve been here has felt like work. It feels like purpose.” the bench her mother built,” Smith said. That’s the power of “we,” he asserted.

Marshall family an opportunity to give back to the insti tution through sweat equity last June. “We thought we’d have 50 people show up,” Smith said. “Then we said, ‘Let’s dream big. Maybe we’ll have 250.’ Well, we had 451 people show up. And I have not walked out of my office a day since and not seen someone I worked with that week.” Smith, whose jobs included power washing, painting, planting trees and scrubbing the floors of Corbly Hall, said one moment in particular stood out to him. He was assigned to a shift with a group of incoming B.S./M.D. students, high school seniors preparing to earn both their Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine at Marshall in an accelerated program. Their task that day was to put together park benches, securing new wood to stone frames throughout campus. “I was working with two young women, and when we were finished one of them asked if I’d take a picture of Brad D. Smith assisted with housekeeping in residence halls during International Housekeepers and Environmental Services Week which honors the “unsung heroes” of the housekeeping, grounds crew and sustainability staff.

Katherine Pyles is a freelance writer living in Huntington, West Virginia. She is a 2009 graduate of the Marshall University School of Journalism and Mass Communications.

AUG 29, 2022 - MU alum and Hubspot CMO Kipp Bodnar appointed to the BOG

AUG 22, 2022 - Global education technology leader Ginny T. Lee appointed to BOG

SEP 16, 2022 - Investiture: Brad D. Smith announces the goal of ending student debt at MU in 10 years

AUG 25, 2022 - Aviation maintenance program ribbon cutting AUG 25, 2022 - Pedestrian safety initiatives launched

SEP 2, 2022 - MU to partner on multiple projects in $63 million federal award

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