“Above all, make it clear that you care.”
This is the motto David Detrow, EMU’s Registrar, has lived by as he has guided decades of EMU students through the process of class scheduling, graduation preparation, and all manner of activity related to the college experience. Now, as he closes out his time with EMU and approaches the next stage of his journey, Detrow hopes to have left a positive impact on hundreds of students and the university community, and to have built long lasting relationships between EMU and a plethora of other universities across the country with whom he has had extended contact and cooperation.
Detrow graduated from EMU, then EMC, in 1977 with a double major in Psychology and Social Work. His senior year he was president of the YPCA– the Young People’s Christian Association– and in various EMU yearbooks and bulletins from that time you can spot him sporting some killer long hair and wide framed glasses. He began working in Admissions his Junior and Senior year at EMU in a work study position. After he graduated he stayed in the Admissions Office– which at the time was conjoined with the Registrar (then also known as the Records) Office– for another five years, stepping in for later EMU President Loren Swartzendruber.
After five years, the offices split again and Detrow became a part of the Records Office. From 1982 to 1989, he was Assistant Director of Records. During that time, in 1986, he also went to JMU and earned a masters degree in education– after then Director of Records and Academic Dean, Dr. Lee Snyder, advised that doing so could pave the way for him to later become the Registrar.
He did exactly that in 1990, and since then he has served as EMU’s Registrar. His tenure is especially notable in that he has served in two distinct periods of EMU history: the pre-online stage, wherein students would physically go to the registrar’s office and make their schedules, and the online stage, in which students make their schedules online and usually interact with the Registrar via email. Detrow describes his work across this period of time as “trying to accomplish much of the same things– serving the campus community to meet the same goals– but almost nothing in the same way,”
While Detrow noted many of the difficulties in the pre-online stage that were later abated by the online approach, such as long student lines on class registration day that seemingly always occurred at the same time and proximity as Board of Trustees meetings, he was also quick to add that “If there’s one thing I miss, it’s the student contact that we had to have.” Even in an era in which exchanges are less personal than before, he still takes pride in his commitment to helping students and doing all he can to make their college experience easier, noting that a particular high in being a registrar has “certainly been getting to know so many people and students– seeing students come in as first years and be successful and graduate, and come back.”
Amid countless changes, Detrow has also always retained a core value of caring for and building relationships with students, faculty, and other administrative offices, saying “I think I probably get to relate to about as many folks around campus as anyone. That’s just, I find, fulfilling. And I want that to apply not just to students, but to other folks as well.”
This value has been evident in not only helping 44 years worth of students throughout their journeys at EMU, but also in traveling to various locations on behalf of EMU, including Oregon, Ontario, Miami, Kansas, Hesston College, and all around Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana, to work with students and other colleges in the transfer and registration process. Along the way, he’s not only made many friends and colleagues, and built long-standing relationships, but also greatly contributed to the functioning of EMU and the lives of students.
Now, after putting it off from last year out of what he saw as a necessity for consistency at EMU in an already difficult time, the pandemic, Detrow has found satisfaction and peace in his decision to retire at the end of the 2021-2022 school year. “I don’t know how else to say this– it just feels right. I’m 66… I’m aware I am passing my prime…. It became clear over a period of a year that this was going to be the right time…. I want to leave while I’m still on top of my game.”
Following his retirement, Detrow plans on spending more time around the Chesapeake Bay with his wife. “I am fascinated by the Eastern Shore…. I’m looking forward to getting to know the Chesapeake Bay area and the mountains of Southwest Virginia…. A lot of people don’t see that as very exotic, but I just think that it will be a lot of fun to see creation, to see parts of the country not far away but that really are beautiful.” He added that while he does expect to find a part-time, low stress and low impact job sometime in the future, he wants to take the time to enjoy his life and retirement while he still has the opportunity to do so in good health and spirits.
Concluding his final year and reflecting on his time at EMU, Detrow leaves us with this– “I do believe I’ve made a positive impact on many, many individual students’ lives, and they may not remember me, but it was something that contributed to a good experience here.”
