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Dr. Barry Russell (third from left), who served as SCC’s president from 1991-1996, and his wife Drucilla (second from left) recently pledged to give $10,000 over the next five years to the Student Success Campaign. The Russells are flanked by Dr. Don Tomas (left), current president of SCC, and Mary Otto Selzer, director of the SCC Foundation. |
Dr. Barry Russell has a global perspective on community colleges.
He’s also quite familiar with the one in his backyard.
The Jackson County resident, along with his wife Drucilla, recently pledged to give $10,000 over the next five years to the Student Success Campaign that benefits students at Southwestern Community College – the institution where Dr. Russell served as president from 1991-96.
In an educational career that spanned more than 30 years, he also served as executive vice president and chief operating officer at the North Carolina Community College system (1997-99). He was later president of Midlands Technical College in South Carolina (1999-2006) before serving as president of the South Carolina Technical College System (2006-10).
As a board member of the American Association for Community Colleges, he traveled internationally to observe how community colleges operate in other countries.
“I had so many wonderful opportunities to see things from the college level and from the system level,” said Dr. Russell, who’s now retired. “Everything I saw, every experience I had, made me appreciate more and more the good work done here at Southwestern. It exemplifies what community colleges are all about.”
All gifts to the Student Success Campaign before Sept. 30, 2014, will be matched dollar-for-dollar (up to $300,000) by a federal challenge grant through the Department of Education. The most-ambitious fund-raising effort ever undertaken by the SCC Foundation, the campaign aims to bridge the gap between scholarship need and availability by raising more than $1 million.
For the current school year, the SCC Foundation was only able to provide assistance to 43 of the 225 students who applied for scholarships.
As a former employee at Southwestern, Mrs. Russell witnessed first-hand the impact SCC can make on its students’ lives.
One generous gesture from years ago continues to inspire her.
“I remember once while I was counseling at Southwestern, a student came to me and said, ‘My husband and I are between churches, but we still tithe every week, and here are the names of some people in my program who could really use some help right now,” said Mrs. Russell, who served as an admissions counselor before overseeing the Student Support Services program and later becoming the public information officer.
“She said, ‘You’re a counselor, and you can’t tell who gave the gift, right?’” Mrs. Russell continued. “I said, ‘That’s right.’ She said, ‘I have three names for you.’ It was Christmas-time, and I got to deliver money to those students to help with their families at Christmas, with food or education or whatever they needed. To this day, that speaks to me about the spirit of this place.
“When Barry and I learned about the Student Success Campaign and the opportunity to give back, we both said: ‘Absolutely,’” she added. “We’re so happy to be in a position to be able give a gift because I think this institution has a lot of heart.”
Besides wanting to help more students receive a quality education at Southwestern, Dr. Russell said the current administration – led by Dr. Don Tomas, current SCC president – factored into the decision to give.
“Obviously when you consider making a gift to any kind of cause, you want to have confidence in the leadership,” Dr. Russell said. “We have been fortunate to get to know Dr. Tomas and just have tremendous respect for him as a person, as a leader and for his vision for the college.”
For more information about the SCC Foundation and the Student Success Campaign, visit southwesterncc.edu or contact Mary Selzer at m_selzer@southwesterncc.edu or 828.339.4241.
