Former
Carson Mayor Gil Smith and his wife, Shirley, have devoted most of
their lives to the city of Carson and CSUDH. Among various other
involvements with the campus, Gil served as the chair of the group
that brought the University to its current location, sat on every
university president’s advisory board to date, and Shirley is the
current president of the CSUDH Women in Philanthropy group. Last fall
they went one step further by pledging $10,000 to award $1,000 annual
scholarships over a five-year period to one student in both the
College of Education (COE) and CBAPP.“We’re not Bill Gates or the Ford Foundation, but we do what we can,” says Smith humbly.
There was no momentous occasion that prompted the gift other than their continued support, but they were very clear that they wanted the donation to benefit students pursuing careers in fields in which they ardently support – education and public administration. The focus on education and COE can be seen in Mr. Smith’s role as the current chair of COE’s Development Council. The designation of the money to benefit public administration students may run even deeper.
“Public administration has not only been a huge part of my life professionally and politically, but my wife’s career and education as well,” says Smith. “I believe we need more students attracted to the profession. Sadly, I’ve seen a decline in interest in recent years, maybe because it’s not the sexy, exciting career of the moment, but the public sector needs good administrators and leaders. I could keep talking about it, but it would sound like a speech. The short of it is that we both really wanted to make public administration a priority of this gift.”
The scholarships will be awarded based on the general principles of financial need and academic commitment with an emphasis on undergraduate candidates, though graduate students will not be excluded from consideration. The Smiths hope to add money to extend the awards if their finances permit, but the scholarship donation is just the latest way in which they’ve given so much to the University. They have always been supporters of the annual President’s Dinner, with Mr. Smith serving as the scholarship fundraising dinner’s chair for its first five years, and he fought long and hard for the University to come to Carson at the same time the city itself was being incorporated in the ’60s.
“It was an exciting time to be in this community and see it grow from ground zero. There were a lot of politics involved [to bring the University to Carson] and to go through all of that battle, it made me feel like I helped start something great. I brought my kids to what is now the center of campus near the new Student Union and pointed to all the dirt and said, ‘one day, there’ll be a college here.’”
As he suggests, helping give birth to the University and then watch it grow over the years has been akin to watching one of his own children grow up.
“It’s been like watching a child crawl, and then walk, and then run,” he says.
Like any good parent, he doesn’t always agree with every way in which the university grows, but he also enjoys being a part of that growth over the years, telling stories of the first days of the Small College Complex, the library being built, and the first student union. “It’s certainly exciting to see all that growth,” he says, “but more than that, we love meeting adults who are now professionals who tell us they’re proud graduates of CSU Dominguez Hills.”
