The new president of East Mississippi Community College earned his doctorate degree in speech communication. Those skills were on full display Thursday afternoon.
Dr. Thomas Huebner addressed the Columbus Exchange Club at Lion Hills Golf Club and Center in part of his ongoing efforts to introduce himself to the community. His talk took Exchange Club members on a roller coaster ride of funny and touching moments to explain why he is passionate about community colleges and why EMCC is his dream job.
Huebner and his parents believed his inclination to argue would lead him into a career in law, but it was his passion for arguing that led him to his true love: teaching. He joined the debate team at Southwest Baptist University and met a mentor who changed his life and his goals.
“I wanted to do that,” Huebner said. “I wanted to have that kind of influence and help shape young people’s lives”
The new president grew up in Missouri, but has many ties to the Magnolia State. He lived in Hattiesburg for nine years while obtaining his doctorate from the University of Southern Mississippi. He married a woman from Wayne County.
“In so many ways,” Huebner said, “I feel like I’m coming home.”
He said that everyone in education nationwide knows EMCC’s reputation for workforce development and that the new Communiversity project is the envy of his colleagues everywhere.
The new EMCC president is coming from Shelton State in Tuscaloosa. But getting him to transition from four year institutions to community college was not easy. He was working at Logan University outside of St. Louis, when a friend tried to lure him to Shelton State; initially, he was dismissive.
“There are moments where everything kind of comes together and you’re like, ‘alright, this is what I’m supposed to do,'” Huebner said.
He was offered a good salary to be in administration at Logan University, and took the job. But it was a bad fit. He was unhappy. He had done consulting with Shelton State, but said he stuck his nose up to community college when he was offered a position there. After calling all the four year college presidents he knew, he couldn’t find work and decided to take the offer in Tuscaloosa.
The day after his first graduation ceremony at Shelton State, he was at a park coaching little league when he saw a woman he recognized as a graduate. When he approached her and said hello, she began to cry. She said he told her “We’re so proud of you; we knew you could do this,” words he had forgotten uttering. The woman shared with him a letter written by her ten-year-old daughter telling her mother how proud she was. Huebner began to cry, too, remembering watching his own mother earn her high school diploma when he was 14.
His parents had him in their teens, both used community colleges to improve their prospects.
“It hit me as I’m talking to that girl, and I’m reading that letter–I’m meeting my mother,” Huebner said. “She wanted a better life for her children, so she knew she had to do whatever she had to do. And the community college, just like it did for my mother, was the place that opened the doors. And at that moment, I realized I was at the place I was called to be.”
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