USD Magazine Fall 2015

B e y o n d T T i t l e Getting to know the new man on campus

Stories from USD’s new leader, President James T. Harris III, DEd Silver Spoon? Nope. “I remember when my dad received a raise to a dollar an hour. It was a big deal to make one dollar an hour. I also remember the time that he sold his car for $200 and went to the bank and asked for it all in dollar bills. He came home with the money in a paper bag and threw those bills up in the air. I ran all over the room scooping them up. No, I didn’t get to keep the money. He needed it to buy another car. But, he often did fun things like that to make me feel special.” Music that Transports Him Back to the Age of Nine Jim grew up in the auto town of Fostoria, Ohio. He looked to Detroit as the “big city” nearby, and as a kid he listened to Motor City radio stations. Favorites remain Gladys Knight, Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder and Lou Rawls,

And All These Years Later, He Hasn’t Forgotten “The best life advice I ever received was frommy grandmother. I was working as a custodian, trying to earn money for college. I had a nametag and pushed a cart around. I worked in a few fac- tories where I would clean cafeterias and rest rooms and so forth. I noticed that most people walked by and never said hello or engaged me in any way. I remember going home and being upset and sharing my experience with my grandmother, who said to me ‘Be glad that you have a job and that you have the blessing of being able to earn money, many people don’t. Be glad you’re going off to college.’ And she said, ‘Never forget what it feels like to be invisible.’”

Five Jobs that are Not Actually Listed on His CV 1) Newspaper delivery boy 2) Ice cream parlor clerk 3) Custodian 4) Crank shaft manufacturer 5) Seasonal worker at tomato processing plant Mr. Hite = Awesome “I wasn’t sure if I would go to college when I was in high school. Since my dad had seniority at the factory where he worked, he could have arranged for me to get a good paying job there. However, during the spring of my senior year in high school, my Eng- lish literature teacher, Mr. Hite, would come into the ice cream parlor where I worked and we would talk about the literature we were reading in class. I thought it was just because he liked butter pecan ice cream, but it was actually because he was trying to convince me to consider going to college. Obviously, it worked.”

such a cute couple Jim met Mary in a University of Toledo psychology class on the day before the blizzard of 1978. “She was sitting behind me, and I needed to borrow

but Marvin Gaye will always hold a special place in his heart.

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