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For 40 years, Charles Q. Smith ’61 has been a part of bringing talented students to Lafayette.
Since becoming an alumni admissions representative (AAR) in 1966, he has never missed a single appointment. Quite a feat considering his setbacks in 1989.
That year, Smith had back surgery that put him in a sizable cast and made him homebound. From his home in Chambersburg, Pa., he spoke to six potential Lafayette students.
“I did every interview in my bathrobe in a cast in my living room,” Smith says.
Another year, all four of the students he spoke to were not only accepted, but all received substantial scholarships.
“The dean of admissions wrote me a letter and said, ‘Charlie, don’t expect this to happen every year’,” he recalls. “‘Consider it the Marshall Plan from Lafayette to Chambersburg.’”
Last fall, his dedication earned Smith the William G. Wilson Distinguished Service Award, a fantastic surprise to Smith and the highest honor for AARs at Lafayette.
Smith’s job has changed over the years. Where once he could go to local high schools and simply ask for information about the best and the brightest, now he has to wait for students to contact him or for Lafayette to give him tips on who has applied for admission.
“The discouraging thing is when they don’t go to Lafayette,” he says. “And I think ‘gosh darn these silly kids, why don’t they see the possibilities?’”
Smith is fiercely loyal and while he pursued business (he’s owned and sold several over his career) rather than using his mechanical engineering degree, some of his fondest memories are from his time on campus, and he doesn’t plan to stop singing the school’s praises.
“I love it, absolutely love it,” Smith says of his work as a AAR. “It broadens my horizons and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”