During his first year as an undergraduate student at Truman State University, Dr. Dwayne Smith was approached by a White woman who asked what country he was from.
“I didn’t even get the question at first because I said I was from the United States,” says Smith, chief executive officer of Housatonic Community College. “Then, when I left, I thought, ‘Oh, she thought I was from another country, like I was an international student.’ I couldn’t be from America.”
Despite facing microaggressions, racist comments, as well as obstacles stemming from being a first-generation student, Smith always felt that he deserved to be a student at the institution.
“When I talk about success and being driven, you always have to believe that you deserve to be here like everyone else,” he says. “That no one would make you feel that you don’t belong” or this “space is not your place. You own your space and that’s what I did throughout the years.”
As a student leader and activist, Smith wanted to provide a place for students of color to feel connected to campus. He was eventually hired to be the institution’s minority counselor on campus.
“I knew [that] this was what my life was to be about,” he says.
He went on to become associate dean of multicultural affairs, a position in which he established the school’s first diversity department.
