Article from Wake Forest Magazine

WHEN SAMUEL Templeman Gladding (’67, MA ’71) was growing up on Church Street in Decatur, Georgia, he felt in his "Baptist bones" that he wanted to be a Baptist minister, just like the grand-father for whom he was named. He set off to meet that destiny, earning his bachelor of arts in history at Wake Forest and then a master of arts in religion at Yale Divinity School. Then he became a counselor. And a Methodist.

"If there’s been a theme to my life, it’s been ‘surprise, here’s something new," Gladding says with a trademark twinkle in his eyes.

Gladding, who is now Wake Forest’s associate provost after serving the institution in a host of capacities, discovered at Yale that ministry wasn’t the right thing for him. On a serendipitous trip to Wake Forest on his way back to Georgia in the early seventies, he stopped to see Thomas Elmore, then director of the counselor education program and one of Gladding’s undergraduate mentors. "Tom said, ‘why don’t you try counseling?’ I think now he probably meant why don’t you get some counseling," Gladding quips. "I came here for the summer and took to it like a duck to water."

After a series of other life surprises that led him from professional counseling to earning a doctorate to teaching to starting a family, Gladding ended up back at Wake Forest in 1990 as director of the counselor education program and assistant to the president for special projects. Last year, he added the post of associate provost to his list of jobs he never thought he’d have.

Gladding may not have seen the administrative ability lurking behind his talents as a counselor and an educator, but University President Thomas K. Hearn Jr. certainly did. Hearn says Gladding excels at building consensus among varying groups and that his advice on a wide range of issues has been invaluable.

"Sam is a person who inspires instant and universal confidence and trust in others. That is a remarkable asset and means that he has credibility in dealing with people and issues, even when they are complicated or controversial," Hearn says. "Sam never says ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ to a task for Wake Forest. He just wants to know when it is due."

In his seven years in the president’s office, Gladding took on such varied tasks as chairing the Presidential Commission on Race Relations, representing the University at various meetings, and acting as interim chair of the religion department. He also served as a faculty advisor for first-year students as well as Omicron Delta Kappa and the Honor Council, participated in the oversight committee for the Commission on the Status of Women, and is co-chair of the Year of Ethics and Honor, the University’s theme for 2000-01—all while directing the counselor education program and teaching counseling courses.

Gladding’s ability to keep his eye on so many pots while not letting any of them burn—all the while cracking jokes, calling up song lyrics, and writing poetry—led to his appointment as associate provost, a new position created last year following the reassignment of former Provost David G. Brown. Gladding handles the administrative side of the provost job, overseeing the offices of admissions, financial aid, institutional research, international studies, the registrar, and research and sponsored programs. Edwin G. Wilson (’43) handles the academic side of the job. For Gladding, this new job brings such tasks as leading the search for a new registrar and overseeing the incorporation of new technology into the registration process, helping the admissions office keep the number of accepted students in line, and overseeing a financial aid study to target goals for the next capital campaign.

It’s an incredible amount of responsibility, but Gladding handles it efficiently by using what he knows from counseling to bring out the best in the people he works with. Gladding has instituted regular meetings among the directors of the departments he oversees so they can learn how to positively impact one another. "Face-to-face meetings are always better than phone calls or memos," Gladding says. "I see myself as a catalyst. The directors are very competent people, and I just raise the bar a little higher. I bring the different areas together in a productive way and let them handle it."

But it’s not just the items that fall in his job description that spur Gladding to action. He has also been instrumental in the Volunteer Service Corps and in supporting student leadership programs, says Paige Wilbanks, assistant director of student development. "He gets involved because it’s something he believes in," she says. "It falls in the scope of making Wake Forest a better place, and he sees that as one of his callings."

Gladding supports the City of Joy scholars, helping with the selection of students and once accompanying them on the annual trip to work with Mother Teresa’s organization in Calcutta, India, in 1995. He is generous with his time and insight, Wilbanks says, remaining accessible to students, staff, and faculty. "He’s a behind-the-scenes supporter," she says. "He doesn’t push his own agenda but is a good listener and gives direction. He enables other people to be successful at what they do."

Kyle Haden, a senior politics and theater major from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, says Gladding’s sup-port as faculty advisor for his presidential scholarship for leadership has been positive and encouraging. "He was one of the reasons I came to Wake Forest," Haden says. "When you have an idea, he either pushes you to go for it or gently steers you in another direction."

Gladding says his own life has been gently steered by God. "People plan and God laughs," he says. Just as his minister plan changed, so did his plan to spend his career as a counselor. After five years, he discovered a love for teaching during a summer course at Rockingham Community College. It’s a good thing he discovered that love, because his teaching career took him to Fairfield University in Connecticut, where he met an even greater love: his wife, Claire.

Claire, a former middle-school librarian who is now "out of circulation" while she cares for the couple’s three sons (ages twelve, ten, and eight), is the one who talked him into being a Methodist. They are now active members of Mt. Tabor United Methodist Church in Winston-Salem. "The thing that attracted me to Claire was that she actually liked working with those kids," Gladding says. "I say that when I got married I ‘claireified’ my life."

Of all Gladding’s priorities—and there are many—family ranks the highest. "It’s never dull or quiet at my house, but Claire is good at get-ting the boys organized. We used to say when we just had one child that we could double-team him and with two we could play one-on-one, but with three we now have to play zone." Gladding has been involved in his son’s lives as a soccer coach and Cub Scout leader, and he recently took the oldest on a father-son whirlwind tour of Civil War battle sites as a "graduation" present from elementary school. He makes sure to spend time talking with his wife every night. "Claire read somewhere that couples need at least fifteen minutes of face-to-face time every day to keep the marriage going, so she insists we have thirty."

In between his family life and his associate provost responsibilities, Gladding continues to teach courses and write a book a year. He usually writes for an hour or two after his sons go to bed at 9 o’clock. He says with a laugh that Claire accuses him of writing so many books for only one reason: to get his poems published. Gladding, an avid poet, begins many of his chapters with a related poem that he has written. "Writing is a passion for me," he says. "If you want to do something, you’ll find the time."

Gladding has found the time to write more than a hundred publications in the counseling field. A recent study found him to be in the top 1 percent of contributors to the Journal of Counseling and Development. One of his specialty areas is the use of creative arts in counseling, which involves the use of expressions such as music, literature, drama, humor, and dance in a therapeutic way. "Michael Jackson sang ‘ease on down, ease on down the road’ in The Wiz,’" Gladding says. "Creative arts can help people do that; they are a road people can travel. People are not so much sick as they are stuck, and the arts give insight."
Donna Henderson, assistant professor of education, says she knows of no one else in the counselor education field who has Gladding’s breadth and depth of knowledge and his ability to present complex material in a manageable way.

"This is a person who is unfailingly kind, infinitely patient, and uncommonly wise. Furthermore, he laughs often and well," Henderson says. "Sam has a prodigious memory for songs. On my to-do list always is a note to myself to become more knowledgeable in this area. My empirical base for my improvement is that once I thought of the same lyric at the same time as he."

Gladding says he’s happy to have been able to use his skills at Wake Forest. "I loved this place the moment I set foot here as an undergraduate. I love the sense of community, the tradition, the history, the stimulating students and faculty, the academic resources. There’s nothing I don’t like. I even like the mascot." Kevin Cox, director of media relations and a personal friend of Gladding, says Gladding is extremely dedicated to Wake Forest and to his family.

"It all gets down to one thing with Sam Gladding. He is quietly determined to live his life to the absolute fullest. He wants to be a loving and dedicated husband and father, a leading educator in counseling, a productive and creative administrator, and a true friend to many people. I’m proud to say he is getting it done."

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