And I'm not that concerned about my academic reputation. Kenyon has benefited from Smail's innovative thinking during his fourteen-year service on the Great Lakes Colleges Association's Academic Council. He was the initiator of, and then a moving force behind, a proposal that reformed the Tuition Remission Exchange Program. Under the old program, where participating institutions literally exchanged one student for another, Smail estimates that only 30 or 40 percent of the children of eligible Kenyon employees were able to take advantage of the full-tuition waivers offered by participating colleges. With a placement rate that is now effectively 100 percent, the program has more than tripled in size.
Parents are happy, participating colleges are happy, and most importantly, the students are happy.
Smail doesn't talk much about the courses he teaches in evolution, a sometimes controversial subject. Having taught the subject for more than thirty years, he may just be weary of the public controversy that's surrounded the teaching of human evolution since the beginning of his career. I think I was the first person in Georgia to teach a course with the words 'Human Evolution' in the title. Whether the course is human evolution, human paleontology, primate behavior, or forensic anthropology, Smail makes it clear that teaching is his first love. Smail lives in Gambier with his wife, Jane Smail, who is an adjunct instructor of music at the College.