Mathews begins 43rd year as SMC chairman
Published 1:36 am Friday, January 12, 2007
By Staff
At the Jan. 9 meeting of the Southwestern Michigan College Board of Trustees, the board elected officers to serve for the next two years.
Dr. Fred L. Mathews of Dowagiac was elected by his peers to be chairman of the Board of Trustees.
With his election Tuesday night, he begins his 43rd year as chairman of the board.
Mathews served as chairman of public information on the committee to study the feasibility of a college in Cass County during 1963-64.
He also led the campaign for voter approval of SMC in the summer and fall of 1964.
Mathews was elected to the first SMC Board of Trustees in November 1964.
His fellow trustees elected him chairman that same year and he has been re-elected chairman by the trustees every two years since.
Mathews is a founder of the Michigan Community College Association (MCCA) and has served on the MCCA's board of directors since the organization's inception in 1970.
He is a past-president of the MCCA and has chaired the association's committee on legislation for more than two decades.
Currently, Mathews serves as treasurer and a member of the executive committee of the MCCA.
He has also served for several years on the national Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) board of directors.
Mathews is one of two longest- serving community college board chairmen in the nation.
Keith McKenzie of Marcellus was elected vice chairman.
McKenzie joined the SMC Board of Trustees in 1987 and has served continuously ever since.
He was first elected vice chairman by fellow board members in 1991 and has served as vice chairman since.
Jan Kairis of Edwardsburg was elected secretary of the board. Kairis joined the Board of Trustees in 1984 and has served continuously since that time.
She was first elected secretary of the board in 1991 and has served as secretary since that time.
Carole Tate of Hamilton Township in Van Buren County was elected Treasurer of the Board. Tate joined the SMC Board in 1991, and was elected by fellow Board members to be Treasurer in 2003, a position that she has held ever since.