The day Glenn Poshard left for Southern was also the first time he saw his father cry. “He was so proud that one of his kids would get to go to college,” Glenn says. The fifth of five children who grew up with their parents on a family farm in White County, Glenn spent three years in the U.S. Army immediately after high school and entered Southern on the G.I. Bill—the only way he could afford to go to college. “When I was growing up, Southern was the only university of choice where we lived.”

“When I first set foot on campus, I had never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life,” recalls Dr. Poshard.

That day was also the beginning of what he calls “a lifelong love of the university.” Poshard earned his bachelor’s degree, then his master’s, and then his doctorate—all at Southern—and went on to have a distinguished teaching, professorial, and administrative career as well as five years as a member of the Illinois Senate, and 10 years as a U.S Congressman. “Whatever I’ve been able to do with my life, I owe to this university.”