Orange County native Marianne Smith always knew since she was a little girl that she wanted to help others and offer support to those in need. After a life-long career of doing so, she will be retiring.
Smith, with an English breakfast black tea always in arm’s reach, has worked at numerous schools, mainly helping to guide young women in pursuing their dreams of becoming teachers.
“I went to community colleges and found students that wanted to become teachers, and I brought them to Chapman to finish their bachelor’s degree and earn their teaching credential, and I had grant money to pay for their tuition, which was really fun,” Smith said.
Smith always knew she wanted to work at a community college, especially one that is diverse and a minority serving institute, which is when a college or university enrolls a significant amount of students from minority groups.
She got her start at Citrus College 10 years ago, by coming to run a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) grant, which she knew nothing about, but fell in love with. She was excited to learn something new and since then has written “a whole bunch of grants and (has brought) a…bunch of funds to the college,“ that have helped a lot of students, Smith said.
She was then asked by the former president of the college to run the institute. Now she is the director of the Institute for Completion, doing grant development and oversight, where she got to do a lot of professional development.
One woman that came into her program at Citrus, and who Smith has continuously worked with for 10 years, Stacy Guzman, has done work at Harvard and MIT and is now finishing her doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.
“Marianne is the most generous, selfless, committed and compassionate mentor I have ever had,” Guzman said. “(She) is my greatest inspiration and I hope to follow (in) her footsteps by continuing to help underserved students by creating enrichment programs.”
Guzman, inspired by Smith and her work in STEM, created a scholarship opportunity at California State University, Fullerton, and said she “is committed to continuing Marianne’s legacy of advocating for underserved populations in higher education.”
After 10 years at Citrus, Smith will retire this month and move out of California. She will split her time living in both southern Vermont and New York City.
Family is important to Smith, and she and her husband of 45 years knew they wanted to live where all of their children and grandchildren reside. The couple have three children together, two living in Vermont and one living in New York City.
Once retired, Smith will play ultimate frisbee with her six grandchildren, garden on her 14 acres of land in Vermont and visit art galleries in New York City.
