ACCS ALUM SPOTLIGHT:
For more than 60 years, Alabama’s community colleges have provided more than just an education. They’ve been the framework for family traditions and legacies, including the family tree for Dr. Susan Williams Brown!
Dr. Brown has taught mathematics at Gadsden State Community College for 34 years. She currently serves as the Alabama Education Association President and was named the National Education Association’s 2024 Educator of the Year in April.
A Sardis High School and Snead State Community College graduate, Brown has been an instructor for 44 years, teaching part-time for Snead State and working part-time at Shelton State Community College, in addition to her Gadsden State career. She’s also taught full-time at the University of Alabama and Auburn University.
From Williams’ mother to her siblings to her cousins, Snead State and Gadsden State have been important chapters of the family’s story.
“Community colleges give you confidence to succeed, whether you want to be a welder or a math teacher. Community colleges care about their students. It’s accessible. It’s community. You see the instructors at the grocery store and can have a conversation. You run across the Snead State Singers performing at the Harvest Festival in Boaz or the Gadsden State band at an event in Gadsden,” Williams said. “Snead State is part of our family’s legacy. It is indeed more than an education. It allowed my siblings and I to achieve things we otherwise might not have.”
The community college roots for Williams’ family rewind to the early 1940s when her mother Mary Ruth Perry Williams attended Snead State when it was once known as a seminary college.
Williams’ oldest sister, Elizabeth Kathleen Williams Amos, attended Snead State around 1964. Amos’ son and grandson both attended Snead State, establishing four generations to enroll in courses at the college.
Williams’ sister, Lisa Jane Williams Smith, attended Snead State and Gadsden State, graduating from Gadsden State before transferring to Auburn University. Lisa Smith is currently a NASA engineer at Marshall Space Flight Center.
Williams’ brother, Timothy Wayne Williams, attended Snead State in the late 1970s before transferring to Auburn University, where he earned an engineering degree. His son, Daniel Lamar Williams, also attended Snead State from 2012-2014, marking three generations to take classes at the college.
Williams’ brother-in-law, John Andrew Smith, majored in pre-engineering at Southern Union State Community College before transferring to Auburn University and UAH to become a mechanical engineer.
Her husband Ronald Eugene Brown graduated from Gadsden State in 2002, ultimately working for Honda Manufacturing as an engineer.
“Alabama’s community colleges empower students, no matter where they’re at in life. It can empower a first-generation student or someone looking to earn a nursing degree. It can empower a family like it has ours,” Williams said.
