DOWAGIAC — Dr. David Mathews is a planner by nature. In his office on a short bookshelf adjacent to his desk sits 20 binders of past strategic plans he worked on with the board of trustees. He is missing just two, the first one he ever wrote in 1999 and the binder from 2000, both of which he loaned out. Just like the binders, Mathews is prepared for his retirement— the next step in his plan.

After serving the college for 18 and a half years as the longest-serving president at SMC, Mathews will officially retire on Dec. 31 with the status of president emeritus after the board of trustees unanimously passed the item in their monthly meeting on Monday. An emeritus title often goes to a person retired from professional life but still permitted to hold an honorary title in the rank of their last office held.

Mathews joined SMC in 1997 as the dean of arts and sciences and instructional innovation. In 1998, he was promoted to vice president of instruction and later appointed as the seventh president of the institution in 2001 by the college’s board of trustees.

Now, with his presidential plans coming to an end, Mathews feels confident in passing the torch to Dr. Joseph Odenwald, who will officially take the seat as SMC’s eighth president on Jan. 1, 2020.

Board of trustee Chairman Thomas Jerdon explained at the meeting how it is customary to appoint long-serving presidents with the status of president emeritus.

“It seems like it was just yesterday that the prior board of trustees did this for David Briegel,” Jerdon said. “It’s an honorary status. There is no monetary value associated with it, but certainly, you want to do something for a long-serving and most transformative president that we’ve had at SMC.”

Despite no longer serving as president, Mathews is confident the college will continue to be a part of him.

“As I look around at some of my friends who have retired and put their life in an institution, it’s just a reminder that I will always be a part of SMC, and SMC will always be a part of me,” Mathews said. “I have seen a number of really dedicated people working at the college retire, and I have always felt that their legacy was the student lives that they have touched while they were there. I feel the same way.”

Mathews felt grateful to have been a part of making educational opportunities available for generations of students during his last 22-and-a-half years at the college. Since the beginning of his time at SMC, he has worked to focus on the success of students at the college, he said. Another notable accomplishment of Mathews was bringing residence halls to campus.

As Mathews gave his last president’s report to the board of trustees, he felt the future of the college was bright.

“This is just one more planned step,” he said. “I just feel that the college is in great hands both with the trustees, who dedicated their lives here to unpaid community service, and with Dr. Joe, who is just committed through and through to the enterprise.”