CSCC is Family for Greenwood

Gail Greenwood

CSCC is Family for Greenwood

Holly Vincent
Tuesday, November 29, 2016 11:05 AM
Employees, All

With twenty-five years of service at Cleveland State Community College, she is loved by faculty, staff, and students. Happy as her story is now, Gail Greenwood’s start at Cleveland State began with sadness.
The summer before her senior year of high school, her father passed away.
“I was an only child, and I felt it wasn’t the right time to go away to college,” Gail said. So instead, she postponed her plans to head to a four-year university and came to Cleveland State instead. “I got the CSCC Foundation Scholarship, and that helped make it more affordable. That was important, because we didn’t have Dad or his income anymore.”
Student Banker Clerk
While a student at CSCC from 1981 to ‘83, Gail started working part-time at Benton Banking Company. Once she graduated from CSCC, she went on full-time at the bank until she ran out of advancement opportunities there. That’s when she returned to her alma mater. This time, as an employee.
“I like helping students,” Gail said. “I wasn’t looking to relocate, so this was and has been a good fit for me.”
After rejoining her CSCC family as a clerk / typist in the Admissions and Records and Marketing and Recruitment offices, Gail went on to complete her bachelor’s degree, earning her BS in business management from Tennessee Wesleyan College. Although she held positions in Marketing and Recruitment and Admissions and Records, she credits the Job Placement office as the one that was the most rewarding.
“I once had a student that I was able to place in a job and she came back to
me weeks later thanking me because she was finally able to buy a sofa with her checks—something she really needed, an immediate need. And another young man, he was a quiet and introverted, and we had placed him in a job at M&M/Mars, and he came back to thank me because he now had the opportunity to make friends, and those two experiences I have never forgotten. We have been able to help a lot of students over the years with all kinds of things, but those were two things that I felt like were immediate things that we could fulfill that gave them a sense of accomplishment, so I’ve never forgotten those two students.”
A good job isn’t all she got in the early years with CSCC. Three years after a one-off date with CSCC history professor Neil Greenwood, Gail found herself walking beside him on a treadmill.
“I stayed on the treadmill the entire time we talked, and people that know me know that I don’t normally walk that long! My legs were like JELLO when I finally got off that treadmill! But, it must have worked because he is such a fitness nut, he must have thought I was one, too! He found out very soon that wasn’t the case!”
The two started dating seriously and eventually married and adopted two children, Trevor and Leah. “We went through the adoption process with both of our kids while working for Cleveland State. The college really supported us in that effort, and we’ve always been so grateful for that.”
Serious Impact
While many have touched her life at CSCC, Gail insists her former supervisor Dr. Francis Williams has had the biggest impact on her. Dr. Williams had spoken at the funeral for Gail’s father and later married Gail and Neil. Aside from these personal connections, the way he carried himself at work left a lasting impression.
“He taught me from the get-go that your hands aren’t too good to get dirty,” Gail said. “Whatever it takes to serve a student, you do it. It doesn’t matter what your role is. And that’s the attitude I’ve held during my time here.”
Thanks to that outlook, Gail has taken on whatever tasks have been presented to her, performing them all with a thankful heart for the scholarship that started it all so many years ago.
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